5 20 144 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/46d18761af348ef21c37dca2628582a9.pdf 49ee38d32c731ad154d8fa5f39e25dea PDF Text Text /*/^/ R. SYLVAN (ng Routley) In the background for much of the year has been a sustained treatise on But the recent foreground has been dominated by bits and pieces on anarchism. science and environmental matters. PUBLICATIONS 2 and ROUTLEY, R., guest editors, Studia Logica, vol. 43, special PRIEST, G. double issue on paraconsistent logic. 2 and ROUTLEY, R., "Introduction", PRIEST, G. Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 1-14. 2 PRIEST, G. and ROUTLEY, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 235 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "The American plan completed: alternative classical style semantics, without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics", Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 129-156. ROUTLEY, R., "Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament", Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 10, numbers 3-4, pp. ROUTLEY, R., "Relevantism and the problem as to when Material Detachment and the Disjunctive Syllogism Argument can be correctly used", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 14, pp. 167-188. ROUTLEY, R., guest editor, Logique et Analyse, nos 103-104, (1983), special issue on non-classical logic. ROUTLEY, R., Maximising, Satisficing, Satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms, Discussion Papers in Environmental 1 �Philosophy, No. 10, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 27 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity, and fanaticism of pacifism", Inquiry, vol. 27, pp. 117-148. ROUTLEY, R., "Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action", in R. Elliot and A. Gare, editors, Environmental Philosophy: collection of readings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, pp. 260-293. ROUTLEY, R. "People vs the land: the ethics of the population case", in R. Birrell and others, editors, Populate and Perish?, Fontana, Sydney, pp. 325-351. ROUTLEY, R., MEYER, R.K., BRADY, R.T. z 1 and PLUMWOOD, V. , Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, I, Ridgeview Publishing Company, Atascadero, Calif­ ornia, 460 pp. ROUTLEY, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, Moral Dilemmas and the Logic of Deontic Notions, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 6, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 42 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. beyond the Actual, and 2. 1. How Science and Myth and Fiction Step Science on Science, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 53 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. 3. A Cosmo-Logical Synthesis, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 2, Philosophy Department, RSSS. ANU, 40 pp. 2 a �SYLVAN, R., Philosophy and Pluralism, Relevant Models and Arguments, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 3, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 35 pp. SYLVAN, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 12, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 59 pp. SYLVAN, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, An Expensive Repair Kit for Utilitarianism, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 7, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 36 pp. 3 . �ANNUAL REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF TENURED ACADEMIC STAFF INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES Report by R. SYLVAN ( Department of Philosophy, RSSS) for the period 1981-4 inclusive 1. Research conducted and future plans for research My research has ranged over a wide area in philosophy — metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political theory, extending to environmental concerns. My work overlaps the three areas upon which research in the Philosophy Department, RSSS, concentrates: logic; metaphysics and epistemo­ logy; and social and political theory. The work extends into other disciplines as well, in an examination of their fundamental assumptions. For example, my current work includes the metaphysical principles in cosmology, realism and relativism in science, and the philosophical assumptions of economics. This philosophical investigation of the foundations of other disciplines is a research trend which is likely to increase. Uy research over the next few years will also include certain large projects, already underway. These include a treatise on anarchism, which will likely be several years in preparation, and an in-depth work on process theory and nondeductive logics with particular emphasis on nonmonotonic logics relevant to computing and information processing. 2. Publications during 1981-4 BOOKS, MONOGRAPHS AND JOURNAL, written and edited Environmental Philosophy, Department of Philosophy Monograph Series #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, (edited with D. Mannison and M. McRobbie). Reprint, with minor correction, 1982, 394 pages. Relevant Logics and Their Rivals I. The basic semantical theory (with R.K. Meyer, V\ Plumwood, and R.T.Brady), Ridgeview,California, 1983, 460 pages. Nonclassical Logic, (guest editor), special double issue of Logique et Analyse 103-4, 1983, devoted to nonclassical logic in Canada. On Paraconsistency (with G. Priest), Research Papers in Logic #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 321 pages; reprinted with minor revision in Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics #1 1984, 235 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1986. Paraconsistent Logics (edited with G. Priest as guest editor), with contributed introduction, Studia Logica 43 (1984), 220 pages. .../2 �-2- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) ARTICLES: 'Necessary limits to Knowledge: Unknowable truths', Essays in Scientific Philosophy (ed. E. Morscher and others), Comes-Verlag, 1981, pp. 97-118. 'An alternative angle on the humanities', Cooperative Education Newsletter, University of Victoria (Fall 1981), pp. 2-3* 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future' (with V. Routley), Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics, (ed^ E. Partridge), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, pp. 277-301. 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals', Inquiry 24 (1981 ), pp. 387-417. 'The inadequacy of the actual and the real: beyond empiricism, idealism and mysticism', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 49-67. 'An impressionistic survey of paraconsistent positions and theories', Collected Papers of the 1982 Foundations of Logic Conference, University of Waterloo. 'On the philosophical basis of relevant logic semantics' (with V. Plumwood, R.K. Meyer and E.P. Martin), Journal of Non-Classical Logic 1 (1982), pp. 71 -105. 'Negation and contradiction in Wittgenstein', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 471-4. 'World rainforest destruction - the social factors' The Ecologist 12 (1982), pp. 4-22. (with V. Routley), 'Disjunctive Syllogism seen as a fallacy of relevance', Bulletin of the Section of Logic, Polish Academy of Sciences (1982). 'Nuclear power - ethical and social dimensions' (with V. Routley), And Justice for All (ed. D. Van der Veer and T. Regan), Rowman and Littlefield, 1982 'In defense of cannibalism I. Types of admissible and inadmissible cannibalism' Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 47 pages. 'The irrefutability of anarchism' (with V. Plumwood), Social Alternatives 2(3) (1982), pp.23-8. 'Unravelling the meanings of life?' (with N. Griffin), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy j^3. Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 49 pages; to appear in Studies in Analytic Philosophy: a comparative Approach (ed. B. Matita1 and J. Shaw), Reid el, Dordrecht, 1984; rescheduled. 'On what there is pp. 151-77. not', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 43 (1982), .../3 �-3- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Lessons from Pseudo-Scotus', Philosophical Studies 42 (1982), pp. 189-99. 'Algebra^analyses of relevant affixing logics, and other Polish connections' (with R.T. Brady, R.K. Meyer and C. Mortensen), Research Papers in Logic #16, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 56 pages; to appear in Relevant Logics and their Rivals II, 1986. 'Research in logic in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania: its brief history and its present state', Research Papers in Logic #14, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983; condensed version to appear in Ruch Filozoficzny. 'Semantical foundations of value theory' pp. 441-56. (with V. Routley), Nous 17 (1983), 'Nihilisms and nihilist logics', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #4, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 53 pages; shortened version to appear in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1986. 'Relevant logics and their semantics remain viable and undamaged by Lewis's equivocation charge' (with R.K. Meyer), Topoi 2 (1983), pp. 205-1 5. 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions' (with V. Plumwood), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #6, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 42 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic, (ed. with G. Priest, and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1985. 'On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #9, 1983, 31 pages; also in Inquiry 27 (1984), pp. 11 7-28. 'The role and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action', Environmental Philosophy. A Collection of Readings (ed. R. Elliott and Al Gare), University of Queensland Press,1983,pp. 260-93. 'Relevantism and the problem as to when material detachment and the disjunctive syllogism can be correctly used', Research Papers in Logic #12, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 24 pages; revised version in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), pp. 167-88. 'The American plan completed: alternative classical-style semantics without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics', Studia Logica 43 (1984), pp. 125-56. 'How science and myth and fiction step beyond the actual and sometimes beyond the possible', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 33 pages; appear in revised German translation, 1986. .../4 �-4- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Science and science: relocating Stove and the modern irrationalists', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 20 pages; to appear in Critical Philosophy, 1985* 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 27 pages. 'War and Peace I: On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, and the political fall-out', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #5, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 80 pages. 'People vs the Land: the ethics of the population case', Population Growth and Resources in Australia: The Intensifying Conflict (ed. R. Birrell, D. Hill, and J. Neville), Fontana, Sydney, 1984, pp- 325-57. Manucripts accepted or prepared (those accepted for publication are starred) BOOKS *Paraconsistent Logic (contributing editor, with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1984, 540 pages; several articles appear in this text. ^Directions in Relevant Logic (contributing editor, with J. Norman), Reason and Argument series, Nijhoff, Holland,1986, 350 pages; several articles appear in this book. *Soil Degradation in Australia: The Future of our Land (contributing editor), Croom Helm Australia, Sydney, 1986. j *The Philosophy of J.C.C Smart (edited with^J. Norman), Blackwell, 1986. ARTICLES 'A non-triviality proof for dialethic set theory', typescript 1981. 'Nuclear energy - ethical, social and political dimensions', typescript 1981, 50 pages. 'More general da Costa and dual-intuitionistic logics', typescript 1982, 14 pages. .../5 �-5- 3. Manuscripts accepted or prepared (cont) -those manuscripts accepted for publication are starred 'Starred semi-lattice semantics for full Urquhart systems', typescript 1982. 'Conditional probability as the probability of a conditional', typescript 1982, 26 pages; read at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 1982. 'The irrefutability of anarchism - enlarged', typescript 1982, 45 pages. 'Simple probabilistic sanantics for non-normal modal logics', typescript 1982; presented at Logic Workshop, University of Victoria, Canada, 1983. 'Non-classical probability theories', typescript 1983. 'A neglected goal of philosophy - wisdom', typescript 1983, 36 pages; read to the Philosophy Department, The Faculties. 'World order, cultural convergence and regional culture', typescript 1983, 6 pages. 'Culture and the roots of political divergence: The Australia/American contrast', typescript 1983, 32 pages; expanded to 121 pages 1984. 'On non-deductive reasoning I. Non-monotonic logics', typescript 1984. 'Myths concerning rationality', typescript 1984, 11 pages; read at University of Queensland, 1984. 'Nature JLs closed to mind: typescript 1984. Whitehead, deep ecology, and the theory of objects', *'Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1985, 42 pages; to appear in Grazer philosophische Studien, special anniversary issue, 1985. ^'Introducing polylogue theory', to appear in Philosophia, 1985, 21 pages. ^'Negation and contradiction' (with V. Routley), to appear in Proceedings of the Third Latin-American Logic Symposium, Columbian Society of Mathematicians, Bogata, 1985. *'Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament', to appear in Philosophy and Social Criticism, February 1985. 'Moral Issues in Nuclear War' (with L. Sylvan), typescript, 1984; read at ANU Summer Studies Workshop on Peace, Disarmament and Development. �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy [1983?] research output report (8 pages) Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy 1985 research output report (8 pages) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document /*/^/ R. SYLVAN (ng Routley) In the background for much of the year has been a sustained treatise on But the recent foreground has been dominated by bits and pieces on anarchism. science and environmental matters. PUBLICATIONS 2 and ROUTLEY, R., guest editors, Studia Logica, vol. 43, special PRIEST, G. double issue on paraconsistent logic. 2 and ROUTLEY, R., "Introduction", PRIEST, G. Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 1-14. 2 PRIEST, G. and ROUTLEY, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 235 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "The American plan completed: alternative classical style semantics, without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics", Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 129-156. ROUTLEY, R., "Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament", Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 10, numbers 3-4, pp. ROUTLEY, R., "Relevantism and the problem as to when Material Detachment and the Disjunctive Syllogism Argument can be correctly used", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 14, pp. 167-188. ROUTLEY, R., guest editor, Logique et Analyse, nos 103-104, (1983), special issue on non-classical logic. ROUTLEY, R., Maximising, Satisficing, Satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms, Discussion Papers in Environmental 1 Philosophy, No. 10, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 27 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity, and fanaticism of pacifism", Inquiry, vol. 27, pp. 117-148. ROUTLEY, R., "Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action", in R. Elliot and A. Gare, editors, Environmental Philosophy: collection of readings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, pp. 260-293. ROUTLEY, R. "People vs the land: the ethics of the population case", in R. Birrell and others, editors, Populate and Perish?, Fontana, Sydney, pp. 325-351. ROUTLEY, R., MEYER, R.K., BRADY, R.T. z 1 and PLUMWOOD, V. , Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, I, Ridgeview Publishing Company, Atascadero, Calif­ ornia, 460 pp. ROUTLEY, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, Moral Dilemmas and the Logic of Deontic Notions, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 6, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 42 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. beyond the Actual, and 2. 1. How Science and Myth and Fiction Step Science on Science, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 53 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. 3. A Cosmo-Logical Synthesis, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 2, Philosophy Department, RSSS. ANU, 40 pp. 2 a SYLVAN, R., Philosophy and Pluralism, Relevant Models and Arguments, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 3, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 35 pp. SYLVAN, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 12, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 59 pp. SYLVAN, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, An Expensive Repair Kit for Utilitarianism, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 7, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 36 pp. 3 . ANNUAL REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF TENURED ACADEMIC STAFF INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES Report by R. SYLVAN ( Department of Philosophy, RSSS) for the period 1981-4 inclusive 1. Research conducted and future plans for research My research has ranged over a wide area in philosophy — metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political theory, extending to environmental concerns. My work overlaps the three areas upon which research in the Philosophy Department, RSSS, concentrates: logic; metaphysics and epistemo­ logy; and social and political theory. The work extends into other disciplines as well, in an examination of their fundamental assumptions. For example, my current work includes the metaphysical principles in cosmology, realism and relativism in science, and the philosophical assumptions of economics. This philosophical investigation of the foundations of other disciplines is a research trend which is likely to increase. Uy research over the next few years will also include certain large projects, already underway. These include a treatise on anarchism, which will likely be several years in preparation, and an in-depth work on process theory and nondeductive logics with particular emphasis on nonmonotonic logics relevant to computing and information processing. 2. Publications during 1981-4 BOOKS, MONOGRAPHS AND JOURNAL, written and edited Environmental Philosophy, Department of Philosophy Monograph Series #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, (edited with D. Mannison and M. McRobbie). Reprint, with minor correction, 1982, 394 pages. Relevant Logics and Their Rivals I. The basic semantical theory (with R.K. Meyer, V\ Plumwood, and R.T.Brady), Ridgeview,California, 1983, 460 pages. Nonclassical Logic, (guest editor), special double issue of Logique et Analyse 103-4, 1983, devoted to nonclassical logic in Canada. On Paraconsistency (with G. Priest), Research Papers in Logic #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 321 pages; reprinted with minor revision in Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics #1 1984, 235 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1986. Paraconsistent Logics (edited with G. Priest as guest editor), with contributed introduction, Studia Logica 43 (1984), 220 pages. .../2 -2- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) ARTICLES: 'Necessary limits to Knowledge: Unknowable truths', Essays in Scientific Philosophy (ed. E. Morscher and others), Comes-Verlag, 1981, pp. 97-118. 'An alternative angle on the humanities', Cooperative Education Newsletter, University of Victoria (Fall 1981), pp. 2-3* 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future' (with V. Routley), Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics, (ed^ E. Partridge), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, pp. 277-301. 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals', Inquiry 24 (1981 ), pp. 387-417. 'The inadequacy of the actual and the real: beyond empiricism, idealism and mysticism', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 49-67. 'An impressionistic survey of paraconsistent positions and theories', Collected Papers of the 1982 Foundations of Logic Conference, University of Waterloo. 'On the philosophical basis of relevant logic semantics' (with V. Plumwood, R.K. Meyer and E.P. Martin), Journal of Non-Classical Logic 1 (1982), pp. 71 -105. 'Negation and contradiction in Wittgenstein', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 471-4. 'World rainforest destruction - the social factors' The Ecologist 12 (1982), pp. 4-22. (with V. Routley), 'Disjunctive Syllogism seen as a fallacy of relevance', Bulletin of the Section of Logic, Polish Academy of Sciences (1982). 'Nuclear power - ethical and social dimensions' (with V. Routley), And Justice for All (ed. D. Van der Veer and T. Regan), Rowman and Littlefield, 1982 'In defense of cannibalism I. Types of admissible and inadmissible cannibalism' Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 47 pages. 'The irrefutability of anarchism' (with V. Plumwood), Social Alternatives 2(3) (1982), pp.23-8. 'Unravelling the meanings of life?' (with N. Griffin), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy j^3. Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 49 pages; to appear in Studies in Analytic Philosophy: a comparative Approach (ed. B. Matita1 and J. Shaw), Reid el, Dordrecht, 1984; rescheduled. 'On what there is pp. 151-77. not', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 43 (1982), .../3 -3- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Lessons from Pseudo-Scotus', Philosophical Studies 42 (1982), pp. 189-99. 'Algebra^analyses of relevant affixing logics, and other Polish connections' (with R.T. Brady, R.K. Meyer and C. Mortensen), Research Papers in Logic #16, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 56 pages; to appear in Relevant Logics and their Rivals II, 1986. 'Research in logic in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania: its brief history and its present state', Research Papers in Logic #14, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983; condensed version to appear in Ruch Filozoficzny. 'Semantical foundations of value theory' pp. 441-56. (with V. Routley), Nous 17 (1983), 'Nihilisms and nihilist logics', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #4, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 53 pages; shortened version to appear in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1986. 'Relevant logics and their semantics remain viable and undamaged by Lewis's equivocation charge' (with R.K. Meyer), Topoi 2 (1983), pp. 205-1 5. 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions' (with V. Plumwood), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #6, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 42 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic, (ed. with G. Priest, and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1985. 'On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #9, 1983, 31 pages; also in Inquiry 27 (1984), pp. 11 7-28. 'The role and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action', Environmental Philosophy. A Collection of Readings (ed. R. Elliott and Al Gare), University of Queensland Press,1983,pp. 260-93. 'Relevantism and the problem as to when material detachment and the disjunctive syllogism can be correctly used', Research Papers in Logic #12, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 24 pages; revised version in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), pp. 167-88. 'The American plan completed: alternative classical-style semantics without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics', Studia Logica 43 (1984), pp. 125-56. 'How science and myth and fiction step beyond the actual and sometimes beyond the possible', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 33 pages; appear in revised German translation, 1986. .../4 -4- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Science and science: relocating Stove and the modern irrationalists', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 20 pages; to appear in Critical Philosophy, 1985* 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 27 pages. 'War and Peace I: On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, and the political fall-out', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #5, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 80 pages. 'People vs the Land: the ethics of the population case', Population Growth and Resources in Australia: The Intensifying Conflict (ed. R. Birrell, D. Hill, and J. Neville), Fontana, Sydney, 1984, pp- 325-57. Manucripts accepted or prepared (those accepted for publication are starred) BOOKS *Paraconsistent Logic (contributing editor, with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1984, 540 pages; several articles appear in this text. ^Directions in Relevant Logic (contributing editor, with J. Norman), Reason and Argument series, Nijhoff, Holland,1986, 350 pages; several articles appear in this book. *Soil Degradation in Australia: The Future of our Land (contributing editor), Croom Helm Australia, Sydney, 1986. j *The Philosophy of J.C.C Smart (edited with^J. Norman), Blackwell, 1986. ARTICLES 'A non-triviality proof for dialethic set theory', typescript 1981. 'Nuclear energy - ethical, social and political dimensions', typescript 1981, 50 pages. 'More general da Costa and dual-intuitionistic logics', typescript 1982, 14 pages. .../5 -5- 3. Manuscripts accepted or prepared (cont) -those manuscripts accepted for publication are starred 'Starred semi-lattice semantics for full Urquhart systems', typescript 1982. 'Conditional probability as the probability of a conditional', typescript 1982, 26 pages; read at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 1982. 'The irrefutability of anarchism - enlarged', typescript 1982, 45 pages. 'Simple probabilistic sanantics for non-normal modal logics', typescript 1982; presented at Logic Workshop, University of Victoria, Canada, 1983. 'Non-classical probability theories', typescript 1983. 'A neglected goal of philosophy - wisdom', typescript 1983, 36 pages; read to the Philosophy Department, The Faculties. 'World order, cultural convergence and regional culture', typescript 1983, 6 pages. 'Culture and the roots of political divergence: The Australia/American contrast', typescript 1983, 32 pages; expanded to 121 pages 1984. 'On non-deductive reasoning I. Non-monotonic logics', typescript 1984. 'Myths concerning rationality', typescript 1984, 11 pages; read at University of Queensland, 1984. 'Nature JLs closed to mind: typescript 1984. Whitehead, deep ecology, and the theory of objects', *'Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1985, 42 pages; to appear in Grazer philosophische Studien, special anniversary issue, 1985. ^'Introducing polylogue theory', to appear in Philosophia, 1985, 21 pages. ^'Negation and contradiction' (with V. Routley), to appear in Proceedings of the Third Latin-American Logic Symposium, Columbian Society of Mathematicians, Bogata, 1985. *'Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament', to appear in Philosophy and Social Criticism, February 1985. 'Moral Issues in Nuclear War' (with L. Sylvan), typescript, 1984; read at ANU Summer Studies Workshop on Peace, Disarmament and Development. The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy [1983?] research output report (8 pages) Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy 1985 research output report (8 pages)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 72, Item 2: Sylvan/Routley annual report for 1984 and the Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy research output reports for 1983? and 1985 Description An account of the resource Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy reports redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 72, Item 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [25] leaves. 18.86 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:13116c5">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:13116c5</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - unlisted in manuscript finding aid Box 72: Unlisted and Untitled Boxes https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/55fb7770f181791e005281a8636a1abd.pdf 1ed72ad17f186317bccf30e6630b50d8 PDF Text Text RBSTRRCT The proposed syntheses Ls set Mithin generat object-theorg. tde3 The undertging the sgnthesis ts that the 3tternative Mortds sewantics - arrived 3t tn of pursuit of a tnctudtng senanttes universat ones) retevant and, semantics generat (a as connectedLg, part for of att a Languages, comprehensive object-theorg - be apptted atso tn fundamentat phgstcs, Most importanttg to the natter of the ortgtn, htstorg, 3nd phgstcat features of the cosmos, but as Mett, agatn connectedtg, theorg. etseMhere, Ln particutar Ln the LnterpretatLon of quantum a The unLversat semantics Ls a mang Mortds - theorg. The poLnt of such apptgLng an mang nonexistent Mortds - LnterpretatLon Ln cosmotogg atso Ls exptained bg Mag of examp Les, concernLng the understandLng of the contLngencg of exLstence and of present arrangements. improbabititg the R resotutton of the basLc question, sketched, a as Marm-up exerctse 'Nhg does angthLng at for exLst?' att questions as to Mhg various other the prominent features of the universe are as theg are, notabtg Mhg the constants of phgstcs appear to have. have the fundamentat parttcutar surprtstngtg senstttve vatues theg Chauvinistic ansMers through anthroptc prLnctptes are crLttcattg Ln favour of resotutLon bg Mag of Mortd sgntactLcattg, status quo arguments, MhLch use setection^ and gross rejected, correspondLng features geophgsLcat thLs and neLghbourLng unLverses to exp La Ln the surprLsLng vatues of The character of the Mortd—sgnthests resotutton - reaLLg a resotutton Ls ts of constants. frameMork fLLLed out Ln the course of countering a Mide SMeep of objections, and of exp La LnLng Mhg the resotutton frameMork invotving seLeet ion satisfactorg of the main tgpes LLLustrated in the four-fotd: is the most �IMPROVED CO3MO-LOCICRL 3YMTHE3I3 TOWRRD RH There Logicai is a foundations tradition persistent - impiging simpLe and get undiscovered - for the whoLe of cosmoLogg. The as tradition, which peaked in modern rationaiism, continues strong in cosmoLogicai specuLation. unassaiiabLe Thus, contemporarg for exampLe, recent rationaiistic theories of the universe, ambitiousLg aimed at mathematico-iogicai expression and capture of nature. Thus, of MheeLer: for exampLe, the bottom Line to the mang theoreticaL enterprises LittLe astonishment shouLd there be, therefore, if the description of nature carries one in the end to Logic, the ethereat egrie at the center of mathematics. If, as one beiieves, aLL mathematics reduces to the mathematics of Logic, and aLL phgsics reduces to mathematics, what aLtemative is there but for aLL phgsics to reduce to the mathematics of Log ic ? Logic is the ontg branch of mathematics that can think about itse Lf'. Logic reassumes its ancient roLe 3S the fundamentaL science; the Mord expresses a LogicaL recipe. Even white abandoning some of the it Lus ions of grand reduct ion istic schemes, and undermining the EnLightenment power guest for the LogicaL the theoreticaL capture and can The sgnthesis outiined in setting. contribute what foLLows LiberaLised bg are semantics and to the organisation of a unified fits into this more modest It is achieved bg suitabig reLocating cosmoLogg as a part of semantics (generousig construed, for exampie, to admit contextuaL eLements). then, to controt of the universe, there is much of a more modest character that recent LogicaL theorg, as nonstandard sgstematisation, worid picture. kegs universaL So unified, semantics, re Levant semantics and cosmoLogg, as suggested in a preLiminarg wag in diagram 1. �RCTURL X L ORLD(S) GEOPHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE PHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE RELEVRHT SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE MORLD SPRCE Comment. The subspaces are Marked out by ctosure and other requirements, that of by cLosure of each worLd under deducibiLity (reLevant deriva— systems reLevant biLity), that of physicaL systems by cLosure aLso under physicaL Laws formuLated terMS Ln (suitabLy of condLtLonaLs) and perhaps factuaL constraints as weLL. actuaL (or better t3ctuai) worLd Ls a seLect coMMon worLd the to nested spaces. The underLytng Lde3 of the synthesis is siMpiy this: a subspace of is aLso a suitabLe framework for cosmoLogy, for an interpret— semantics worids neutrai *3 L Lon of the Log iceL theory of the universe as a whoLe. In Less condensed form, the ide3 is that the aLternative worids semantics arrived at in the pursuit of a semantics universaL part connectedLy, as semantics comprehensive (a theory the of aLL of for aLL be objects, Languages) and, aLso appLied physics - most importantiy to the matter of the origin, history and fundamentaL physicaL features of this cosmos, but 3S weLL eLsewhere, in interpretation theory. quantum of particuLar Ln That stripping. ontoLogicai of Load MorLd-ensembLe terms of nonexistent Mortds. Hot surprisingiy, in the recasting the in theory j^s for is, the theory can be recast in existentiaLLy neutraL terms, wcthout the originaL object ionabLe theory, the Rnd in the case of quantum theory there is aLready, most convenientiy, a many-universe or worLd-ensembLe theory, ready neutrai in (e.g. changed unobservabLe the spiitting worLd of the Everett other worids interpretation gives way to future— directed worLd branching). The setting in terms of do which objects not exist, especiaLLy, is essentiaL. For one reason, the idea grew out of investigation (with Griffin for the provisionaL but so far nonexistent book UQ) of what is normaLLy taken to be a phiLosophicaL question, indeed by some such as as the fundamentaL question of metaphysics, nameLy exist? . Reset in worLd terms this becomes a question worLd such Mhy does anything at aLL of seiection the - a contains be to taken exist. For then the oLd circLe is simpiy reentered, expiaining existence in terms of more existents. Here the circLe is metaphysics: 3 much more tractabLe question. But the recasting Loses expLanatory merit shouLd aLL the worids invoived objectionabie of that we find ourseLves in which contains something existent (us as among other existent things) as opposed to an aLternative worLd, which nothing Heidegger cf. JB broken, as it is eLsewhere (particuLarLy in chapter 2), by expiaining what exists by way of what does not. It is the faiLure to duty aLLow for and -2- acknowLedge this pattern of �expLsnatLons, though Lt represents coMMon practLce Ln the theoretLcaL sciences, that has wade Lssues LLke the Lntractab Le. In fact quest Lons Lihg Hetdeggerean the concernLng does angthLng quest Lon onLg Ls exLst? question LLke Lt so ftrst of a LattLce of the the character and nature of the cosMos Ln whLch Me happen to be, that are LLabLe to be asked , questLons ascendLng to (Just) seen Ls? ; questLons Uhg Ls thLs cosMos Mhtch MorLd ModeLLLngs wag fruLtfuLLg be to appLLed, as an Lwportant fLrst step Ln eLLcLtLng sone ansMers. (Bounded) LattLce of questLons. DIRGRRM 2. 7 Uhg does Mhg does angthLng evergthLng at aLL exLst? exLst as Lt Uhg do 7 Hhg do eLectrons Lihg does Lnte L L Lgent ex Lst? (Ln LLf e LLfe forns the nunbers exLst? (Ln the ex Lst? theg do?) forM Lt does?) In the reorLentatLon of MorLds senantLcs fron Languages to cosnoLog Les, f row Language to the MorLd, there are certaLn features that shouLd be kept fLrriLg Ln vLeM - apart fron such notorLous features as that anong the MorLds of the node L L Lngs are a range of bLzarre, absurd, LncoMpLete and MaverLck MorLds, and that each (nonexLstent) MorLd has a LncLudes donaLn of objects though Lt a subdoMatn (perhaps nuLL) of ent Lt Les, tgpLcaLLg contaLns nonexLstent objects, both posstbLe and not, phgsLcaLLg reaLLsabLe and the MhLch, feature of not. In partLcuLar, MorLd seLectLon shouLd not be Lost sLght of. For Lnstance, Ln assessing truth, a factuaL MorLd T Ls seLected - Ln one Mag or' another, but tgpLcaLLg bg a choLce functLon on a cLrcunscrLbed evaLuatLons are Morked out (recursLveLg) at I. cLass NaturaLLg and ho LdLng the assessnent of truth MLLL generaLLg Lead begond MorLd T LtseLf. For (reLevant) <deducLbLLLtg a subsgstew of dertvatLonaLLg cLosed MorLds Ls defLned; for poss Lb L L Ltg a subsgsteM coMprLsLng consLstent MorLds Ls Marked out; for naturaL LaMLLkeness a subsgsteM of phgsLcaL MorLds Ls dLstLnguLshed^; and so on for other cases of subsgstew and group seLectLon. $I- The Mang MorLds approach to the "Uhg does angthLng at aLL exLst?" quest Lon. -3- �There ere Many canvassed answers to thts questton, and stLLL More Mays of trytng to dtsMtss Lt. RLL dtsposat the atteMpts are defective, 3nd Most of the canvassed answers are unsattsfytng (so Grtfftn and I devote a good deat of space tn UQ to showtng). One approach that ts not inadequate — but perMtts however devetopMent tn severat dtfferent dtrecttons - ts the Many wortds approach. It ts true (and argued eLsewhere, e.g. JB) that R) SoMe thtngs extst. Thts truth enjoys a Modat status, that of conttngency tn fact. weaker ctatM sufftees, naMety But, to begtn, a C) It ts conttngentty true that sone thtngs extst. For the extstence that Most thtngs enjoy or regret ts conttngent. The obvious truth of the More controverstat ctatM that nothtng necessartty Left open for the present. extsts, can be NeutraL wortds ModeLLtng of theMe C) yteLds dtreetty a Many wortds picture, wtth soMe wortds, tnctudtng the actuat wortd T, contatntng extstents, and wtth soMe posstbte wortds contatntng no extstents (but perhaps soMe nonextstents). Likened to a dtsp Lay of baLLoons: DIRGRRH 3. Static pteture of a 0 : 0 : 0 Object doMatns contatn 0 ____ _________ extstents 0 0 : 0 0 worLds ModeLLtng for theMe 0). 0 : 0 0 It can be 0 00 DoMatns contatn no 0 extstents posstbte worLds Such a neutraL nodeLLLng begs no sertous onto Log teat questions, invotves no ontoLogtcaL prodtgaLLty. For tt ts not assuMed that any of these Ln worLds extst, any way. (It ts not dtfftcuLt to represent what does not extst.) Nor need Lt prejudtee Matters unduty agatnst necesstty theMes such even were Lt Lf Lnterpretatton MistakenLy Lnststed, as as agatnst God-hypotheses. the For stratghtforward of C), whtch aLLows Lt ts necessartty true (under soMe necesstty deterMtnabLe) that soMe thtngs extst, a retated Many worLds pteture woutd resuLt; the dashed LLne woutd stMpty Move down the diagraM). But Let us st Lek wtth what ts rtght, C. It ts More reveattng to take theMe C) as tensed - after aLL extstence ts existence now (JB chapter 2) - and to tntroduce, what further Lnvesttgatton wLLL require, dynaMtcat ModeLLLngs. Then, wtth soMe evtdent eMbrotdery, the foLLowtng sort of pteture eMerges: -4- �Dgnantc ptcture untverses. DIRGRRfl t*. MorLds of nodeLLLng of thene C), ML th sanpLe t 3 EXI5TEHTS (FULL CONSERVRTION) RLse and faLL of HD ] A Lt SOMET IME EXISTENTS^ R NULL LJORLD f* ExternaL ttne scats (tsLgnLfLes the Locat present) Consents. r-bjch Ls presupposed Ln the wag the pLcture Ls draMn (e.g. that sone Measure of exLstents C3n be obtained, bg Mag of partLcLe nunbers)^ but these presupposLtLons can be nodLfLed or renoved. The such as sane sort nodeLLLng serves aLso to vaLLdate thenes LLnked to C), of D) There mag have been a tLne Mhen nothLng exLsted. ConsLder seLectLon, noM (or done Ln terns of of the cructat wetter of T-seLectLon, L.e. factuat Mortd 6-seLectLon, L.e. referentLaL sub-Mortd seLectLon). ThLs Ls certaLn features these Mortds have, such as contaLnLng entttLes, LncLudLng observers, exhLbLtLng LLfe, nanLfestLng LnteLLLgence or wLnd - to antLcLpate features conLng up and sonetLnes proposed for MorLd seLectLon. Such seLectLon pLcks out thts MorLd fron the ensenbLe of MorLds (our Mortd aLso, as Lt happens). Rnd the Mortd thus seLected LncLudes exLstents. Mhg does angthLng at aLL exLst? Because thts MorLd, T, LncLudes, happens to LncLude, extstent objects. To thts extent Lt Ls -5- a natter of fortune - qood �it night be hazarded, since the worLd exhibits enough that is good 3nd fortune, enough potentiaL for good. Rs a contingent Matter, this worLd contains (in its object donain) '.tens that exist. So T-setection deLivers a worLd n3king it true objectiveLg that sone things exist.^ The answer Mag seeM trite; that but is in Measure Large because the and answer are taken in isoLation, apart froM issues as to the detaiLs question of the process, the how questions, such as H) How does it happen that soMething exists? The issue can be considered in uLtinateLg exists is question terns this of of nass-energg, since evergthing that kind (so it is argued in JB chapter 9). To the H ) How does it happen that sone Mass-energg exists? tMo sorts of answer are possibte. FirstLg, there is the conservative answer: sone atwags existed. There is an end Less ongoing sea of Mass-energg, which sinpLg fLuctuates, Moves, recgcLes, etc. There are pLentg of probLens with this answer; for instance, phgsicaL prob Lens, such as how did the Big Bang of standard cosMOLogg occur, what was happening before it? But there are aLternative MatheMaticai stories now being toLd, for instance, of a Massive singuLaritg Located in space (rather than at phgsic3t tine t = 0 as with the Big Bang), which trg to offer a phgsicaL account of a continuous universe (see e.g. G. ELLis). Rnd the singuLaritg stories offered can be enriched (aiong Lines rather Like what wiLL be ventured in the case of the second answer). RLnost aLL traditionaL phiiosophicai and theoLogicat accounts, aLL v^rtuaLLg honage paging to ontoLogicaL assunptions, shouLd be inciuded aMong the conservative, existence-aiwags answers. But the nonnateriaLLst accounts anong these characteristicaLLg invoLve LeveL shifts^^Thei is back to the existence of God or the (uLtinate) One, who, on a higher LeveL, serves as eternaL sustainer, and perhaps fashioner, of the MateriaL universe. The conceptual and other probtens of such answers are sufficientLg notorious. SecondLg, there is stage nothcng existed. The energg. the Rt More appeaiing and siMpLe radicaL answer: at sone that difficuLtg before tiMe, the that anccent Long-received probLeM orthodox of how prejudice, sonething that nchLi fct, is invariabLg reinforced bg again Bang, there was no for this picture is how Mass-energg ever appeared froM the MacroscopicaLLg tranquiL sea of nothingness. past Big can It is no great feat to get coMe froM nothing. The froM nothing nothing cones, ex nihiLo Mistaken ontoLogicaL assunptions (see JB chapter 2). Yet even when these ontoLogicaL assunptions are set aside, there is the awkward natter of C3usai nechanisn. But an unLikeig storg can be toLd, a ngth retated, expLaining how sonething -6- �a may (suddenly) emerge from nothing, jet of mass-energy the from sea of nothingness. The story borrows from the quantum theory of the vacuum (or rather, ot suitabie vacuums). There is suddeniy an avaianche of energy borrowing , 3nd mass creation of particies in a concentrated area.& This is the beginning of the Big Bang (at internaL time zero). It is unigue (in experience) because such a singuiarity is very improbabte. (Even a SmaLL Bang wouid be rather improbabie.) The net energy "borrowed" is borrowed on a very Long term (at high interest?), with a gradu3i repLayment pLan. This ties concerning the run-down eventuaL eventuaLLy (though perhaps over this of very a with principLes universe. protracted of thermodynamics, On this story, it wiLL time) subside back into From nothing everything existent originaLLy came; into nothingness everything existent wiLL uitimateLy process. nothingness. It is one thing to such devise 3 story, or rather the (or outLine scaffoLding) of a story; it is another to condense it into science. before But scorn is poured on such a story, Let it be noted that the story is Less bizarre, more and informative, than other extant phiiosophicaL stories. For exampLe, it appears more piausibie than the ideaList story of the construction of the physicaL worid from idea, or than the set-theoreticaL myth of the construction of the entire universe from the nuLL set - undoubtedLy a it as earLy encompasses existent individuaLs, construction, insofar of something existent from nothing, not since, despite orthodox cLaims to the contrary, the nuLL set certainty does exist (JB 9.9). There are reasons for much preferring the second styLe of story to the first - though it may appear to some to viotate conservation principLes such that mass-energy: of as in fact it need not. One is that the end Less mass-energy story faits to account for the presence of mass-energy. By contrast, nothingness does not reguire expLanation: it is, so to speak, the rest position. In terms of the range of possibiiities here, existence is what is unusuaL, what is atypicaL, what especiaLLy caLLs for expLanation, not nonexistence.? Hence the expLanatory superiority of the radicaL answer. Rs one might expect in varying such an obvious and ancient story, and as is easity discovered, scientific condensation and assessment has begun, especiaLLy in the Last decade. The idea that the totaL energy of the universe is zero was considered a human generation ago by Mhitrow&, refLecting on Flach s phiLosophy of motion. More recentLy, Tryon has argued the zero totaL energy theme, assuming a cLcsed universe and appeaLing the standard treatment of gravitationai to If the universe contains just enough potentiaL energy as negative energy. mass to cLose it, then the negative energy must more or Less exactLy canceL the energy (mc^) invoLved in the existence of that mass. Hence, the argument runs, even a a cosmos as impressiveLy Large and ancient as this universe couLd exist as deveLopment quantum vacuum through in borrowing fLuctuation on a a zero-energy vacuum, that is, through grand scaLe in a reiativistic setting. Such vacuum fLuctuations can occur by dispensation of the AE.At --h; when the mass-energy AE of a physicaL object -7- uncertainty principLe approaches zero, its �LLfe,tLMe At can becoMe verg targe. OnLg the Merest begLnnLng on reMOvtng certaLn object Lons and to wore scLenttfLc storg MtLL be atteMpted. FLrstLg, there are, LnevLtabLg a such obstacLes Lt seews, onto Log LeaL and verLfteat Lontst object Lons. Hang of these turn hoMever on assuMtng that a vacuuM and ewptg space Must soMehoM exLst, at Least bg Mag of sort of exLstLng contaLner or structure. Such assuMpttons are wtstaken: no (pre-) exLstence need be assuwed. Such objects 3s vacuuws and unoccupLed space sone nonexLstent are and dLstLnctLve Mtth objects assessLbLe MatheMatLcaLLg propertLes. Though theg nag not be access LbLe to observatton, and Ln thLs narroM respect are outsLde the range of experLence, then concernLng tnvesttgattons exactLng for there to LnfornatLon Ls suffLcLent be Made of theLr features. SLnLLar potnts teLL agaLnst the objection that Lt Ls Mrong to Lwpose an externat spatLaL or tewporaL Measure on (Mass-energg) cLosed space-tLMe; for exawpLe, Mhat happened before the BLg Bang, or to ewbed the curved space-ttMe of LnquLre the unLverse Ln a Larger spatLaL or tenporaL settLng. Rs a Matter of fact, cosMOLogLsts wang exh Lb Lt no unease Ln ashLng Mhat happened before the BLg Bang even Mhen assuwLng no Matter before that, though verLftcattonLsM MouLd no doubt such to ruLe guesttons out as weanLngLess or otherMtse out of order. More to the potnt, bounded Metrtcs can atMags be extended (HubbLe ttMe Ls just wtstahe though fruLtfuLLg, soMettnes bounds vertfLcatLontst one are exaMpte), exceeded. and Rnother has been to assuwe that NothLng, stnee nonexLstent, Ls entLreLg Mtthout structure or organLsatton and ungoverned. Indeed tMo dtaMetrtcaLLg opposed poLar v,eMS of Lt have prevented, and even been run together: of NothLng chaottc, as and so excessLveLg rtch, and of Nothing as entLreLg bLank, and so excessLveLg tMpovertshed. Both are Lnadequate. R More tnteresttng ontoLogtcaL objeetton (ratsed bg Rrwstrong) Ls that such an account of the ortgtn of the unLverse takes granted for exLstence the naturaL LaMS, and so does not expLaLn hoM sowethLng ex Latent cane frow objecttons Such confuse truth neo-PLaton Law. LaMS hoLd, but do not vteMs, Mhere LaMS Mtth exLstence, exLst - bg after contrast Mtth nothLng. fashLon the of of neo-PLatonLc reLatLons of unLversaLs, MhLch exLst. On object-theorg are (such as that of JB), hoMever, unLversaLs do not exLst, and so LaMS are not thus extstentLaLLg Loaded. Once truth Ls duLg separated frow exLstence, there Ls of course the further questton of Mhg the LaMS that hoLd or evoLve do hoLd. But thts Ls a separate, and vextng, questton of uLttMate expLanatton.^ SecondLg, are there More technLcaL adwLttedLg shakg phgstcaL account; for quantuM nuwbers of objeettons, instance, that dtrected But Lt the Mtth the the vacuuw MtLL constst equaLLg of Matter and antt-Matter, and qutckLg vantsh agatn, Mhereas features of the unLverse perstst tMbaLance. agaLnst fLuctuattons and suggest noM seeMs that a verg sLLght (and, so Lt Ls satd, deLLcate) tMbaLance earLg Ln the evoLutton of the unLverse after the BLg Bang Ls just Mhat Ls required for present perMLtted features of the unLverse; and such an LMbaLance, on recent (GUT) theorLes, catastrophtc fLuctuatton hardLg excLudes. R thLrd connected obstacLe used to be sertous: Lt -8- has been presupposed that a �state can be assigned to the whoLe universe.^ But that is now aLright; quantuM according for neutraL to of) (adaptation the Everett Many-universe interpretation of quantuM theory, a state function i covers the behaviour of the P worLds phgsicaL I (with P c K), which presuMabig evoLve according to a e reLativised Schrodinger equation of the fom SE(T). To soMe expLain of the recent appeaL of this sort of wortd-ensewbLe interpretation, it is worth turning to the interesting and curious business of the phgsicaL constants. The §2. of constants of phgsics and sone of their neat interreLations. natter The interesting cLaiM is that the setting or adjustMent of certain constants surprisingLg deLicate, and if the constants (and soMe of their constant that ratios) were different bg ontg sMaLL Margins, then the actuaL universe woutd very is be with the resuLt, aMong Mang other things, that we shoutdn't be different, here to observe ang of its LocaL passing show. Now the possibiLity of exp Lanation of the specific vaLues of these the in terMS of phgsicaL theory itseLf is not so far exciuded. Perhaps no constants constants in physics are uLtiMateLy fundaMentai, Various ways eiiMinating of constants though seeMS that unLikeLy. are now faMitiar, e.g. soMe represent new scaie factors and are eiiMinated by re-scaLing or choice of coordinates. Others are reMoved by More radicaL ways of reLooking at things, as in Einstein s treatMent of gravitation. But sone resist eiiMination - so far. in For, phgsicaL any theory, what case, fundaMentai is depends and soMe previousLg fundaMentat constants (such as Rvogadro s nuMber) have turned out to be derivative as theory constants on the given shape of advanced new and (deeper) were introduced. There is the reMote possibiLity, obviousLy cherished that bg soMe scientists, that in the end aLL phgsicaL constants can be reMoved, a constant-free (very grand unified) theorg in which aLL constants can be reMoved wiLL resuLt. This is not obviousLg iMpossibLe in the wag that a coMpLete eiiMination of LogicaL constants froM Log teat theorg is, that a finat triuMphant reMovat of the Scheffer stroke froM cLassicaL propositionaL Logic is iMpossibLe. However, it is too Much to expect that a "deep MatheM3tic3i anaLgsis" aLways do the job. For one thing, exp Lanations of this sort do give is an arguMent for this out. can There froM the backward proceeding character of deductive expLanations to More generaL preMisses (appLging the content-incLusion character of deduction proper). There are no MatheMaticaL anaigses without assuMptions, without a systeM of postutates. The hope (expressed by MatheMaticat Carter and others), that generaLLy deeper underlying theories can be found, wiLL not 3iwags be fuLfiLLed, of necessity. Since transforMations, such as seating, aLter or reMove constants, can transfer the Big Bang back to Minus-infinity, and so on, there is no soLid to expLain, underLying the ELLis, for one, aLLegedLy probLeMatic nuMericaL features (so data B. contends). UhiLe it is true that which constants feature, and what their vaLues are, wiLL depend on initiaL choice of units, whatever that �at Least some of the constants wiLL emerge. Thus there wiLL be features choice, and vatues which require expianation, and exptanation of the however transforming the done. is For S3me broad tgpe, the present, 3nd immediate future at Least, there is no getting rid of the constants, and white theg to continue figure their numericaL vatues and ratios set some trickg prob Lems. There is the probtem, first of aLL, of describing the reLevant phgsicat data neutraL non—prejudiciaL fashion. The facts of the matter are more or Less a Ln as foLLows:- Present phgsicat theories incLude mang (phgsicaL) constants, which occur in the formutation of Laws and principtes. R number of these constants are fundamentsL, in that theg are not derived from other constants (or deduced from deeper phgsicat theorg). Two things have been noticed concerning fundamentat constants of present phgsicat theorg, both of which caLL for expLanation:If 1) the of certain constants Lag outside a rather narrow band (sur­ vatues rounding their perhaps universe wouLd be ascertained vatue), gross features of the geophgsicaL different. this - hopefuttg without CaLL prejudice, since its contra­ position represents the substantiat core of the anthropic poss ib Le principte - the sens i t iv i tg numer teat f eature. va Lues For record, the the geophgsicaL principte resuLting from contraposition takes the foLLowing form: certain gross features of the geophgsicaL universe are onLg possibie in present form if the numericaL vatues of certain constants Lie within a narrow sensitivitg band. Examptes of such gross features are isLand gataxies, Long-Lived stars, ptanets, recognised ittustrate, water, hgdrogen, heavg carbon, metats. RLL the forces, for instance, exhibit the sensitivitg features. To phgsicat the strong nuctear force were marginattg stronger, nuctei coutd if grow much begond the present Limits and att hgdrogen woutd Long have ago been converted to heLium, with the resutt that there wouLd be no Long-Lived stars (of present tgpe) and no water. On the other side, a decrease in the strong force wouLd prevent the formation of nucLei of heavg metaLs. R dozen further and more of simitar phgsics Literature. sensitivitg mag be assembLed from the re Levant easiLg 2) The Pgthagorean feature. Large numbers arrived at in ions famous turn of Eddington s out these to coincide Large reLation, exampLes astronomicaL computat­ (to within order of magnitudes). Perhaps the most number stating coincidences', the universe is the inverse square of the number as theg are mostLg caLLed, of gravitationaL other exampLes are assembLed in Bondi.) -10- particLes coupLing in the constant. is visibLe (Mang �These two nunericaL features sensitivitg features co inc idences. are are (or can be) These nunericaL features are cited LaMs) conservation of inportanttg that in Large exptain to used nunber as evidence Justifging the introduction of various exotic theories (e.g. invoLving phgsicaL Most interconnected, departures exaMpies earLg Mhich froM accepted norMaLLg Mere the "verging G theories of Dirac and Jordan . So Mrites Carter, Mho appeais to soMe differentig exotic principies, anthropic principtes, Mithin features in order froM far opposite the phgsics Bang) thesis: (GeneraL cosMoLogg and Mhich couLd in principLe have been used to unsurprisingLg, the order of the dag in Mag and be great fun. It cosnoLogg. course Of that the is distiLLation specuLation is is Mith the conversion of this stuff to in received MisdoM, or even knoMLedge, that caveats shouLd be Mhen cLaiM froM evidentLg estabLished. But Large cLains on fLinsg foundations are, far fine, i.e. ReLativistic predict theM 3LL in advance of their observation' (p.291) - 3 Large is nuMericat evidence in favour of exotic theories these coincidences being shouLd rather be considered as confirMing "conventionat" Big the noM received cosMoiogicai setting. Mith the heLp of these the anthropic principies he canvasses, as he puts it, that expLain to prejudiciaL, in e.g. that entered, especiaLLg it points to favoured cone Lus ions such as priviLege or design (for huMans) in the universe. Much capitaL has aireadg been Made of the nuMericat features, of Mhat is referred to - gou C3n see the Loading straightaMag - as a cataLogue of extra­ ordinarg phgsicaL coincidence and apparentig accidentsL co-operation' (0 p.110). Here is a tgpicaL beat-up, bg Davies: The structure of the phgsicaL MorLd is deiicsteig dependent on a varietg of apparent nunericaL accidents. hang of the rather basic features of the universe are deternined in essence bg the vaLues that are assigned to the fundanentaL constants of nature, such as G, a, Mp and so on, and these features MouLd be drasticsLLg aLtered if the constants assuned even noderateig different vaLues. ... for nature to produce a cosnos even renoteLg resenbLing our own, Mang apparentLg unconnected branches of phgsics have to co-operate to a renarkabLe degree (D p.lll; sone of the prejudiciaL terninoLogg is under L ined). The part Last is particuiarig Meak: so our ignorance of interconnections is disclosed, ignorance Me Might have forestaLLed froM arguMent theorg integrated resist apparentLg fitting of unreLated phgsics: together. the topics' present if Carter serves is right. RLL the to reveaL is Lack of an theorg is bits and pieces, Mhich Nor do Large nunber coincidences point to ang hidden co-operation, but rather to over Looked connections Mhich can be argued toHards (as bg Dicke, Carter and others) using fairLg conventionaL phgsicaL equations.^ Rs for the hidden purpose terMinotogg, for nature to produce ...', MeLL, the Justificatorg case for its use is not Mereig not evident, but entireLg The sane appLies to other Lacking. terns Mhich Davies and others infiLtrate, such as -11- �* 'conspire' (Dp.Ill), 'fine-tuned', deiicateiy baianced', 3ii of which suggests agents with certain purposes. Re Lated happening not objections te rm ino Logy, be some against Lodged accident , it accidentaL; be shouLd of the improbab Le coincidence , etc. R contingent worLd need is not accidentaL that Griffin Lives in Troy, Ontario, though it is contingent certainty. Rn improbabLe worLd need not be accidentaL either. RccidentaL means, according to the Concise EngLish Dictionary (CED), Occurring by chance, unexpectedLy, not according to the usuaL order of non-essentiaL'. The misp Laced for the actuaL worLd; and adventitious, th ings; generaL thrust of the notion is decidedLy accidentaL universe is a misdescription.^ To be sure, there is some considerabLe sLackness in terms Like accidentaL', wh Lch can come cLose aLso, when appLied as in schoLastic theory, to meaning contingent. The term vac i L La t ion, as its of condition dictionary coinciding; concurrence nicety coincidence' a definition remarkabLe iLLustrates makes instance the The pLain: of we L L-known act, fact or apparentLy fortu itous Large-number The coincidences are of the first type; there is LittLe case for making them out as of the second type. argue, To however, that the actuaL worLd is not mereLy contingent, but improbabLe, Lt is hardLy necessary to go so far afieLd as advanced physics. Some more homeiy exampies have managed ho Les wiLL do, such as the matter of aLL the Lucky goLfers who in one. consider Or foLLowing the from argument contingencies, to the improbabiLity of the actuaL worLd. Take some contingency, e.g. that person 1 in some ordering of the audience <^s wearing a green top. She might have been wearing any other cotour. Say there are 100 shades to choose from in the cLothing coLour cards. Then the probabiLity that she is in green is no more than 1 in 100. eut the same sort of probabiLity hoids for every other person on the earth presentLy wearing 3 top, and these probabiLities are LargeLy independent, say in I(US) bit Lion cases, i.e. 10^ cases. That is, the probabiLity of the present array of tops is no more than 1 in loH. That aLready makes present arrangements exceedingiy unLikeLy, before we go into the coLours of other bits of appareL peopie are customariLy bedecked in, the coLours towards 16 improbabLe. Lead of the NonetheLess, of motor cars and so on. So even surface contingencies books, cone Lus ion that the worLd actuaL is astronomicaLLu the situation with the fundamentaL constants does differ. Rn important difference between these day-to-day improbabilities, such as have the spouses we do, and those the constants induce is things these this:- Even that if aLL (coLours, e.g.) had been different, the worLd wouLd not be a very different pLace. Contrast the constants: their significant variation wouLd the we make worLd a very different pLace. Is there a difference in kind, with 3 radicaL improbabiLity appearing as regards the constants, degree? OnLy in degree, picture wiLL serve for the bridging range exampies of cases, or tend for -12- mereLy a difference in to suggest. The same broad everyday and cosmoLogicaL �contingencg. §3- Back to mang worLds: improbabiLities and the universaL quantum theorg. Mhere that broad - Leads picture so sgnthesis sought the suggests, as does an increasing amount of cosmoLogicaL theorg - is to the mang-worLds of interpretation Quite evidentLg, worLds semantics are not the onLg semantics improbabiLitg. that can be offered for probabiLitg. few But other offer semantics simitar universaLLtg and informativeness, and some of the aLLeged competitors (not to be taken too serioustg as face damaging circuLaritg in this area, e.g. rivaLs) probabiListic semantics, urn semantics. The idea of the modeLLing naturaLLg It is improbabLe that gou have the spouse gou have , is true bg virtue of this: fact the is that in onLg a few worLds of the modeLLing, incLuding the actuaL one, do gou have gour current spouse; mostLg (insofar as gou occur) gou do not. In preciseLg the same improbabiLities, cosmic wag such particuLar as numericaL vaLues for phgsicaL constants, Lead to mang universe modeLLings. is argument to mang-universes from improbabiLities . The description of the the situation phgsicaL coincidence of probabiListic requires remarkabLe constants, notions, features', e.g. etc. extraordinarg semantics But probabiListic notions caLLs for aLternative worLds. (Thus Davies archerg Les Lie s and This goLf exampLe Of course Davies tends to see worLds used for exampLe). probabiLities as a conceptuaL device (D p.128); Everett invariabLg sees them That reaL. is, what we have emerging is repLag then do improbabiLities the as of universaLs issue! But universaLs do not exist, and nor do these expLanatorg worLds (cf. JB onLg of 8.8). Not Lead to a mang-nonexistent-worLds picture; converseLg the muLti-universe theorg expLains the improbabiLities. envisaged modeL contains ref Leet a huge coLLection of certain intervaL of accuracg); thus worLds the range of (naturaL) vaLues of the fundamentaL constants. RLL initiaL arrangements of matter and motion are refLected in worLds is The worLds. the chances of the present smaLL, exceedingig which expLains (at Least within universe a resuLting various improbabiLities. Does it than matter that we can t normaLLg quantifg these improbabiLities? Rng more we can quantifg the (Large) probabiLitg of nucLear war? No; there is something offensive about the repeated demand for quantification.^ Quantum theorg circumscribed affords situations, a the aLternative phgsicaL situations. actuaL worLd - is seLected, simiLar state mang worLds function is On measurement, one apparentLg at random picture. Least Rt for a superposition of severaL particuLar worLd - the (D p.12!*). This approach enab Les immediate resoLution of an important prob Lem in orthodox quantum theorg. R standing probLem with a compLete universe state function is that sgstem we must have some measuring apparatus that is sgstem. ... Mhen the not itseLf to measure a part of the sgstem is the entire universe, the notion of a piece of externaL measuring apparatus is meaningLess (D p.I2t+). So emerges the famiLiar conundrum for quantum theorg presented aLong orthodox (von Neumann) Lines: If there is nothing Left with which to measure [or otherwise interfere with] the -13- �state the of how universe, universe the can transition from a the make superposition of many possibLe worids to one, concrete, actu3t wortd?' (D p.12^) is, There asserts, Davies interpretation many-universes one oniy - which comprehensive however a resoLution 'accept[s] simuitaneous the reaiity of aLL the possibte atternative universes' (D p.I2i+). But, given the route we have come, it is easy to ontccaLLy atternative neutrai this, to direct that see from there an is object-theory. atternative assumes many universes atso, but onty some at any stage are This actuat. It is obvious enough is that the probabilistic spread of quantum states does not require existent states, any more than the range of atternative dress states for someone probabty attired in requires green, the existence of the person in different ctothes. Measurement now shows which wortd/state an object such as etectron or person in. actuatty is an In these terms it does not cotLapse the probabiLity wave packet, or set of worLds, but marks one out. Lihat isn't known measurement is which worLd (or narrower set of worLds) is actuaL (or the before actuat etectron is in). quantum description, Uhen nothing the entire cosmos encompassed is the within Left to coLLapse the wave' (D p,12S). Rather is nothing in the way of externat measurements is avaiLabLe to determine which is the actuaL worLd; however internaL information can be made use of in the usuaL experimentaL ways. To set interpretations many-worids Everett the quantum of theory and in the contrasting neutrai worLds perspective, here (adapting OeLJitt and Graham) are some Leading features: i) R separate cLassicaL sphere externaL to any and every is not required; quantum set-up it makes sense to consider and investigate a state vector for the whoLe universe. ii) The state vector covering the totaL system never universes) (of coLLapses, and so the totatity it describes can be deterministic. iii) LJhat is described through variabLes dynamicaL the jointLy, comprehensive is not aLL equaLLy reaL; vector and the the actuaL worLd but a system comprising many worLds. (On the Everett are state interpretation on the neutraL worLds these interpretation they are not, other worLds than actuaL ones Lacking of any sort of reaLity.) iv) Through chronoLogicaL deveLopment of the dynamicaL the state vector decomposes naturaLLy ref Leeting a progressing branching of the into system orthogonaL universe worLds) into a set of mutuaLLy unobservabLe worLds. variabLes, (and (On account this is described as a continuaL spLitting into vectors system the of Everett equaLLy reaL worLds; but not in neutraL theory which disposes of this reLativism.) v) In each worLd good" measurements yieLd definite resuLts, and in many -14- �worLds, incLuding the actuaL, famiLiar statisticaL quantum Laws hoLd, indeed C3n be derived or approximated. *- -^ince the neutraL version directLg avoids mang of the to theorg, what is the case for the Everett form? In main part it consists Everett simptg of mistaken ontoLogicaL assumptions, as such objections the what that ReaLitg overactive an principte, has phgsicaL properties must exist.The further argument that aLL branches must be equaLLg reaL, is not compeLLing. Thus DeMitt contends: Because there exists neither a mechanism within the framework of the formaiism nor, bg definition, an entitg outside of the universe that can designate which branch of the grand superposition is the reaL worLd, aLL branches must be regarded as equaLLg reaL (p.178). But we can easiLg incLude actuaL worLd seLection (as group worLd seLection) within cone Lus ion does not foLLow. the weLL and framework; other as given difficuLties the Everett specific, there is, Ln the first pLace, reaList theories such Everett's. as permissive regarding such worLds. In reaList-reLativist a demarcation SecondLg, fact, the however, interpretation theorg avoids. To be faced prob Lem not neutraL theorg the of this the intended It has been objected (e.g. bg Lewis) that the neutraL worLd encounters kinds neutraL bg is too theorg is restrictive about worLds; and few or none of worLds of contemporarg reaLists (^uch as Lewis) get into the picture, since aLL such worLds incLude as existents certain universaLs. OnLg neutraLised anaLogues of such worLds appear fn case, the theorg can be as restrictive as is appropriate about ang In 7). aLso (see which worLds are phgsLeaL, or phgsicaLLg possible. Requisite subcLasses such worLds phgsicaL can marked be out conform tig to phgsicaL Laws and through framework requirements (e.g. that the ensembLe forms a HLLbert space). it is an iLLusion that reaLism as Moreover soLves the reLevant demarcation probLem. It simpLg covers it up, in an unsatisfactorg wag. highLight To us varg a in stock of coupLe pertations, some of what is different in a neutraL iLLustrations of reaListic interpretation, the ontic mang-worLds Let inter- the famiLLar two sLit interfer­ wag. Consider first ence affair. On a straightforward the neutraL approach, we appear forced to concLude that each eLectron traverses both sLits in a wave Like form' (Les Lie LI, p.I!+6), is to the dcaLectic interpretation that the eLectron goes through that both sLits. The mang- worLds approach avoids such contradiction^, aLLowing eLectron to traverse just one sLit in the actuaL worLd - onLg in another branching from this, the the worLd, eLectron traverses the other sLit, therebg inducing probabiListic interference with the actuaL-case eLectron. The wave function provides a superposition of two such possibLe cases, not two actuaL cases. In the transition other worLds are not mang-worLds theorg). from phgsicaL (or potentiaL) worLds to the actuaL one, 'destroged' (as LesLie suggests in his criticism of Nor is the interaction of worLds causaL. There are few or -15- �no causaL effects even on the Everett reaLity version; is spiitting thus not not actuaity observed (cf. virtuai worLds, reLations, etc.). Though there seen, are transworLd interreLations on object-theory these do further criticaL point is that physicaL worLds are not probabiListicaLLy The entities. as exist not independent. But that s aLright; since probabiLity is an natter, intensionaL probabiListic interference is unprobLenatic (cf. "possibiLity" interference). scattering exanpLe where an eLectron is Consider next Davies at fired a proton. The probabiLity wave in such scattering represents a set of worLds for the eLectron. 'The quantun wave provides a Measure of the probabiLity of finding the eLectron 3t the Location: where the eLectron is Most LikeLy to be found ation, and disturbance is greatest there the wave (D p.l2i*). Fleasurenent deterMines the Loc­ so aLters the probabiLities, thus on the orthodox view reducing the wave. Recording to the Everett on however, interpretation, neasurenent the universe divides into two, ... one containing a right Moving eLectron ... Each worLd is equaLLy rest inhabiting each since it is not The observer conscious upon that MeasureMent down-right is spiitting so thus, by occurs; the for there certain a is so near­ probabiLities, anending scattering, that, possibie the because of the uncertainties physicaL states of universe, corres­ ponding to the probabiLity wave, are increased. Lihere there was one for the actuaL possibLities). worLd in possibiLity regard, now there are N Many (N Mirroring the this R nany-worids interpretation of physicaL theory provides a naturaL for neutraL a new state function resuits, appearing to coLLapse 'the wave. since RLL that happens wuth worLd branching is guaranteed copy worLds. But onLy one worLd is actuaL, and represents the (reaL) of universe. Heasurenent can deterMine which this is, and one spLits, MisLeading. There is no spiitting; rather in quantuM processes worLd-branching takes pLace, rep Licat ion atso wortd . Even on the Everett interpretation this is inaccurate, it interpretation ... principLes which aMong seLect detinit or wortds, as setting what are caLLed anthropic principLes, and aLso non-chauvinistic reptaceMents for then such as geophysicaL principLes, can serve to do.^ Rnd in this setting expLanations, of a sort and of varying adequacy, The of aLL the nunericaL features can be furnished. under Lying reason is not (siMpty) that there wiLL aLways be sone universes, which are duty seLected, where the nuMbers coMe out right, but that sone and universes conditions (for of the right sort are aLso decent physicaL universes (a Much More difficuLt requirenent to satisfy). sone such coincidences) It is as these, furtherMore, that are observed (by us), contain universes carbon and water LocaLLy, and so forth. It is then no surprise that we perceive a universe to which so Many speciaL conditions pertain, for we have seLected fron the enseMbLe onLy by our very existence' (0 p.126). But it again, taLk of our seLecting is MisLeading (though taLk of seLection, or naturaL seLection, is not). It is rather that, as a contingent natter, we happen to inhabit such universes^. Rnd such taLk negLects the iMportant point that further work is required, for satisfactory expianation - that piausibte argunents, not invoLving us, but connecting gross geophysicaL features with nuMericaL features, have aLso -16- �to be suppLLed. In thts Mag, ustng the MorLd-ensembLe hgpothests ... [but] MLth[out] the Meak anthropLc prLncLpLe, Lt Ls possLbte to discover pLausLbLe arguments to pLn doMn the vaLues of aLmost aLL of the fundamentaL parameters p.129, a centraL part of hLs cLatm). Indeed DavLes hotds out the negatLng but (D prospect of beLng abte to do much more, constraLnLng the dtmensLonaLttg of space and ttme, the number of quarks and Leptons, numbers of fundamentaL forces, That reaLLg MouLd a sgnthesLs of consLderabLe poMer. It Ls a sgnthesLs, gtve moreover, MhLch can be absorbed or sLmuLated MLth Ln a upon mang-MorLds neutraLLsLng prLncLpLes MorLd bg etc. quantum seLectLon theorg prLncLpLes. and cosmo-Log LeaL repLacLng NonetheLess sgnthesLs, the anthropLc DavLes, the LLke maLnstream phgsLcLsts he artLcuLateLg represents, Ls uncomfortabLe MLth ang such that he LndLcates, ang such grand pLcture, and rLghtLg so, as the 3S sgnthesLs anthropLc expLanattons LnvoLved are far from entLreLg satLsfactorg. HostLg he seems to hope Lnstead that contLngencLes MLLL aLL be expLaLned as necessLtLes of (proposLtLons phgsLcs grand a pLcture, necessarg grand at Least Ln foLLoMLng Log LeaLLg from another theorg). But the hope Ls mLspLaced; Ln Large unLfLed measure Lt represents 17thC ratLonaLLsm over agatn. SometLmes, hoMever, he seems to feet desLgn Ln the untverse. - Ls Mhat features: to supposed emerge, and does emerge, from the numerLcaL Mhat anthropLc prLncLpLes vs. MorLd seLectLon prLncLpLes. Uhat Ls supposed to emerge depends upon hoM the matter Ls set up, hoM the pLcture emphasLaed. Ls Mhat presented, For exampLe, DavLes and LesLLe both set thtngs up so onLg tMo optLons are supposed to be open. In hLs Preface to Da^Le^ Ls The RcctdentaL UnLverse, suggests the sgstematLc aLternatLves are eLther reLLgLon or an anthropLc prLncLpLe. R sLmLLar cLaLm appears Ln LesLLe, Mho puts the aLternatLves as (ethtcaL) necessttg or anthropLc assumptLons. Thus hLs concLusLon (to L2, p.81) The cosmotogLcaL evidence can suppLg __ forcefut grounds for vLeMLng at Least one of these thtngs ss true. (1) God Ls reaL, though presumabLg as a creattve ethtcaLrequtrement rather than as a dtvtne person Mho LLteraLLg destgned our LLfe-contaLntng cosmos. [So the unLverse extsts because Lt shouLd.J (2) There extsts a Mortd EnsembLe [so the condtttons LeadLng to Ltfe are bound to occur someMhere (L2, p.55)J - and the attempt to dertve aLL the fundamentaL charactertstLcs of our cosmos from some untfted FLeLd Theorg Ls tn error. DavLes LnsLnuates that the obvtous Lnference from the cat3Logue of numerLcaL features Ls thts: a htdden prLncLpLe seems to be at Mork, organLstng the cosmos Ln a coherent Mag (p.110). Thts runs paraLLeL to argument from desLgn, hardLg an Lmprovement. One of the prLncLpLes htdden Ls hgpothests; but another Mhtch DavLes (unLtke LesLLe) generaLLg anthropLc prLncLpLe, to LncredLbLe accuracg 3nd Ls some sort of God favours Ls the a gutdtng prLncLpLe Mhtch serves to fLne-tune the cosmos for us (humans) - or Ltfe, or Ltfe-supportLng sgstems, or __ ? Or for observers,or LnteLLLgence, or not for angthtng. The chotce offered Ls reaLLg then an oLd famLLLar one, faced bg thtnkers at Least stnee the (so-caLLed) EnLtghtenment: God or Han, or after a recent ftrst correctton and Mtth a different emphasts, Humans -17- or God. In fact burted under �duaLitg, this is aLreadg as (Science) or Hunans or God. However the a nang tenpts favoured which option, Phgsics excLuded, in error . Rnd it is we as seen: have (coMprehensive) phgsics without netaphgsics, no scientific theorg no is Much scientist and phiLosopher, is increasinqLg seen as excLuded, as forbidden fruit or even as there at Least a three-wag choice: Phgsics giinpsed, without Large assunptions - which stands on its own. But further afieLd there is get is which option, another not excLuded: option here canvassed. The ciain to be eLaborated is this: no (deep-ecoLogicaL) principies of a tgpe not aLreadg required for Low LeveL senanticaL purposes worLd seLection principies) are caLLed for in expiaining the nunericaL (naMeig, features at Least as satisfactoriig as nor huMans Neither principies, gods such be upon popuiarig aLreadg foreshadowed, doing. in More in reMoving huMans features god-Like (and, universe. the principLe cones in a varietg of anthropic verg precise (incLuding Barrow's biocentric reforMutations). SoMe exaMptes give the inpression:- The existence as observers seLection bioLogicaL (D to the own used be can existence a as constants' (ibid). This presents severaL for renoving underiging ngsterg is verg different fron nunericat of expLanation, our p.viii); effect, ... to expLain the otherwise Mgsterious nuMericat disentangie; expLat,ning wiLL idea is to reiate basic worLd features to our own vaLues of the fundanentaL phgsicaL issues as such coLourfuL for nainstreaM phgsicists, atMost none of then prettg MostLg the upon hunans, associated inteLLigence) fron a new speciaL pLace Rs succeed options other the are essenti3t. Since gods do not figure in anthropic wiLL focus the incidentaLLg, forMS, object-theoru far-out the features. sorts, various or Rnd nag these turn in have further theg Mag be siMpig contingent, refLecting seLection without specific purpose. Sone phgsicists go so far as to ciain: our existence constrains the structure of the universe, indeed it even it (0 p-112), for to us , quote froM Hawking and CoLLins. connection in this sweeping context h3s been dubbed this j^s Davies the does, have nothing specificaLLg to do inteLLigence, or with Life, etc. The Dicke argunent, for Eddington-Dirac expLain coincidence, is based of principLe : anthropic the show with what work the or hunans, with designed exanpLe, to onig on the presence of heavg eieMents, and so gives but a hint of bioLogg, if that. So reversaL Invoking the huMan forMuLaticn of the principLe (D p.112)! But quite generaLLg the argunents advanced, which do principLe seLects reaLLg there is no spirit of the Copernican revoLution' in this fashion (pace D p.115, barter, and others). The conditionaL principLe estabLished bg the Dicke arguMent is essentiaLLg J) If [because, g^ven] there exist heavg eieMents, then the universe is such that the Eddington-Dirac coincidence ho ids. The fuLL expLanatorg argunent conprises, as weLL as the detaiLed phgsics that goes toward J), the nodus ponens inference: -18- �The Eddington-Dirac coincidence hotds. There exist heavy eLements, J) More generaLiy, the anthropic way gives principie to physicatiy a argued conditionai scheme of the enthymematic form K) if F then T, or its contrapositive K ) if not-F then not-T, where F is a hard factuai ciaim or more commoniy its existentiat reiativety generaiisation , and T is a more theoretic3i ciaim concerning typicaity features of the worLd, such as numericai features. The short form of anthropic exp Lanation, or better status quo expLanation, is then the argument form F, if F then T L) . .T. famiLiar ontoLogicaL proofs, for instance of an externaL worLd from the Moore s fact that exist, hands arguments. such omit typicaLLy proofs phiLosophers just are difference The is that the soLid argumentation that goes into estabLishing the conditionai schemes of status quo expianations; for instance, makes LittLe effort in this direction, and the required entaiLment rather Moore evidentLy faiLs to hoLd (see fn 30). Other formutations of the anthropic principie in the Literature are than better those hardLy 3tready exhibited. LesLie, who at Least (Like Barrow) moves humans a LittLe off centre stage, puts it in this counterfactuaL way: if our universe had been [everywhere] hostiie to Life then nobody wouLd be observing it (L2, p.66). If the consequent simpiy contextuaLLy impiies that something a Live is doing the observing, then the principie is ana Lytic, and scarceLy up to the intended expLanatory tasks (without requisite information that the the universe contains Life, and much eLse being separateLy pumped in). MhiLe if does not require this, it appears fatse; the Latest seeing-eye robot consequent did survive the hoLocaust, or did just happen as a resuLt of the quantum fLuctuation. In such as Dicke's most purported argument. offers faces reLated difficuLties: worLd appLications of the anthropic The other version of the principie LesLie NecessariLy we conscious beings observe a which is Life-containing (LI, p.lt+1). Rs it stands, this is faLse; for we mightn t exist. Nor wiLL appropriate deLetion consciousness retain we' of fix things. the worLd is, Me might but not be observers, aLL being in vats. But repaired the version is pretty use Less. It bears onLy tangentiaLLy (through that vacuum any case the formuiation Lacks sufficient generaLity; it faiLs to connect appropriateLy with scheme, the but contingency, Life its consequent, containing) on what is at issue concerning numericaL features. The materiaL on us, on observers and the Like, is strictLy irreLevant, a hang-over again presumabLy constructions of quantum theory. -1?- from bad ideaList �* The that the Copernican principte has suffered some sort of set-b3ck idea because of the essentiai rote of anthropic principies in explaining Large-number can be traced back through Carter, who heLped popuLarise the rote coincidences, between of anthropic principies and made the (rather obscure) distinction strong weak has been exaggerated subservience to the 'Copernican principte' [which is] that we must and not assume principies. anthropic gratuitoustg that we Recording to Carter, there occupg a priviLeged centraL position in the (C p.231). The regrettabLe tendency, he sags, has been to universe extend the to a most questionable dogma to the effect that our situation cannot principte be priviLeged in ang sense ... (in extreme form ... the 'perfect cosmoLogicaL principLe ...)'. The Latter assumption is certaintg untenabLe (as Dicke pointed because the universe is bg no means spatiaLLg homogeneous on a LocaL scaLe out) and speciaL conditions (of terrestrial temperature, chemicaL environment) do prevaiL on Earth. But its removaL does nothing to undercut Life the Copernican principLe, or to boost the anthropic principLe in the wag thinks Lt For does. is Carter his bracketed comment after his first formuiation of the anthropcc principle is that Lt for requisite aLthough our situation is not necessaritg centraL, inevitabLg priviLeged to some extent' (C p.291). It is doubtfuL that our position is centraL; whether it is so priviLeged depends on the intended contrast, but whatever the privilege is, it hardlg seems inevitabLe. Carter gives severaL non-equivaLent formuLations of the anthropic principLe, the first of which takes the quasi-anaLgtic but ambiguous form, LJhat we C3n expect to observe must be restricted bg the conditions necessarg for our presence as observers' (C p.291; repeated D p.119). This is certs inLg not the same as Davies condensation of it, what he caLLs the weak principLe, that observers construaL, restrict the observed'. On the obvious (but Less charitabLe) this is but rampant verificationism, of a tgpe verg familiar however from interpretations of quantum theorg. Uhat exists is independent of observers; and observers, especiaLLg remote ones, mag have no significant impact on what iL5 observed. The condensation is accordingLg false. So also, for different reasons, is what it condenses. For one thing, our expectations mag run astrag. True, what we observe is restricted bg the conditions for our doing just that, nameLg being as observers. But this tautologg imposes no phgsical constraints, being equaLLg true for Xing as observing; and no such connection is appeaied to in ang of the derivations of coincidences that Carter sketches. Once again aqain the present arguments never have angthing in detail to do with humans, or even "observers 4-c? -20- .2-1 �(and surety animats observe). Fit best the arguments are directed to the presence of water or carbon 12 or some such - things sometimes erroneousiy equated Life, and often, rather dubiousty, said to be necessary for Life.^S The situation is of this sort with Carter's "iiiustration" of the weak better Locat) anthropic principte, which he formutates as foitows: 'we must (or be prepared to take account of the fact that our Location in observers universe is existence as the necessariLy priviLeged to the extent of being compatibLe with our p.233). In order to get to grips with this recondite formuiation (C Let us remove the initiaL intensionaL functors (which my empiricist friends to with assure are me not essentiaL in physics, despite ubiquity, and their physicists procLivities to modaLs). Now our position can hardLy be priviLeged (despite Carter s tru necessariLy since human-types just might be itaLicization), uniformLy distributed through the universe or again might not exist at aLL. LJhat necessity there is enters in a different way. LJhat we are Left de Let ion, with since misLeading, probabiListic arguments suitabLe for Life in the universe (some detaiLs justified is Like more something unique (though principte this need require of Hh3t may be met. In this humans we are Long-Lived stars Rnd stiLL much more than a weak is dragged in. It is enough, for seLeet ion, universe contains Locations, neighbourhood Sag3n). we're working at it); even on Terra much of the rest of the animat kingdom is simitarLy favoured. seLeet ion in priviLege of habitats miLLions suggest are to this: we are favoured in that the physicaL conditions for our existence, as observers, are hardLy due Our Location in the universe is priviLeged to the extent of is then: be',ng compatibLe with our existence as observers'. But this ciaim cs after in where fact heavy Like the earth, in the metaLs occur, and so on (for certain other pureLy geotogicaL features). BoLtzmann s expLanation of the present high degree of which Ls extremety improbabLe cosmic organisation (in a thermodynamicaL setting) is aiso said to appLy a weak anthropic principte ; witness this the onLy reason that we are priviLeged to exceedingLy untikeiy occurrence is that our very existence [etc.J -21- O.2.2.. �* depends upon the condition which atone can be bg estabiished remarkabte that (D p.123). But again onLg gross phgsicaL organisationat principLes fLuctuation are seLected for; and no more than a weak seLection principte is required. beveraL expLained , so Carter and Davies ci3im, be cannot coincidences simpig bg a weak principte (at Least in the muLti-universes). of is made to the strong (or better gLobaL) principte: appeaL these absence The universe ... must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some in barter s (p.120). formuLation exist is for manifesttg faLse. So, Cartesian paraphrase Carter gives of the strong different cogito ergo mundus taLis est . The worLd wouLd presumabtg not be principte, verg theg is this appaLLing the necessarg; the universe does. Rnd since observers mag verg easiLg never given have evotved in the universe, reasons, stage R coroLLarg of the strong principte in this heaviLg necessitated guise is that observers are conditionaLLg must For so different were the contingent premiss faLse; and certainLg the premiss mag Least be true but the cone Lus ion faLse. But at Loading, necessitg gets and principte the appropriate conctusion. For, propertg ideaLLg this the inferentiaL form, with the into formuLated, abandons paraphrase scheme the as is before, Law Like conditionaL of basic form, if F then T, where however T is a a genuinetg gLobaL cLaim that the universe is such 3nd such (e.g. the universe now contains more matter than radiation). The scheme, so then, recast is feature distinctive some theoreticaL LocaL strong the that T is hoListic assertion 3bout the universe, incLuding essentiaL reference to it, not, as it mag be on about of the weak principte, of the universe, which can readiLg be features stated or restated without reference to the universe. But the distinction is not particuiarLg important. The robust, troubie is it from 3 worLd-seLection gives Lt a misLeading most LawLike Mag requisite within consequent. For exampLe, there is stiLL no (egocentric) thought matter; to phgsicaLLg without Descartes God to puLL him out. universe the taiLor-made is for framework of idea - in essence it cLaims a wag Living organisms are subsequentig assured of existence. [So it is]... akin mankind to inhabit. products secuLar expLanations. teteoLogicaL R duLg cLaims anthropic worLd for (D p.121). Such erroneous presentations have done much to encourage both a new anthropocentrism and the idea that are unLike habitation, 3nd that both the Laws of to traditionaL retigious expLanation of the worLd: that God made the are from Hard as it is to credit, Carter is phgsics and the initiaL conditions obLigingLg arrange themseLves in such that an procLivitg to ideaiism exceLLed bg Davies, who sags of the strong principte that that in route respectabLe Carter's (exhibited in C2)), he mag weLL get stuck in the argue to bounds to the intended phgsicaL given and of satisfactorg impression antecedents for the scheme, and makes it presentLg impossibLe appropriateLg verg perspective Carter's extravagant Cartesian paraphrase of the strong with that is principte nor on a par reformuLated Davies with, strong and in schema expLanations anthropic competition supports design with, none of the makes regarding the universe. Nor, as wiLL appear, expLanations, when made presentabLe, -22- akin to retigious �features of the worLd. The expLanations take different LogicaL of explanations forms and LnvoLve quite different ingredients. To see what is reaLLy required for the strong schema to operate, it pays to Look at Then appLications. it becomes evident observercentric that considerations are strictLy irreLevant. Once again far stronger, and biocentric more dubious, conditions than are required for the estimates actuaLLy made been For introduced. instance, (BoLtamann) K, is a good exampLe of a prediction based on what strong' anthropic principLe' (C p.23^); (8) is as foLLows: K aLL f < that is 2 " Tl_ 5 have according to Carter, his condition (8), which imposes an order of magnitude upper bound on cosmoLogicaL But and constant may be termed the 3 ' "P , P invoLved in obtaining this bound, retevance, is the of assumption that ' the un iverse is not radiation dominated aLL its [finite] Life (i.e. that the matter contribution ... to the mean mass density ... becomes greater at some stage Insofar this as is than the necessary radiation (C ...)' contribution pp.233-^.). at aLL - since the estimates concern onLy very broad features, and not LocaL variations - it is 3s necessary for Lichen as for Larkspurs. DLL that is required is a sLightLy stronger worLd seLection principLe than mereLy that worLd contain heavier eLements at some stage; but stiLL the onLy a gLobaL geophysicaL principLe. Rnd this is aLL that here. The same set of points amounts to appLies to Carter's further use of the strong principLe, to estimate the Lower bound on K, which appLies the conventionaL that gaLax Les ... are formed by condensation, starting as reLativeLy hypothesis smaLL density fLuctuations in an otherwise homogeneous further The strength tendentious assumption in background (C p.2St+). this appiication is that gaiaxies are necessary for the formation of stars and hence of Life (C p.23!*). NonetheLess there are arguments for the strong anthropic principLe, though faLLacious ones obviousLy. They come firstLy from positivism. It is cLaimed that if the universe exists then it must be observabLe; so there must be observers - a modaL faLLacy. Davies (in his exposition of Barrow and not argues universe which from the faLse premiss that onLy what is observed exists, that a did then others) admit observers is meaningLess' (D p.I21). This is ideaListic garbage. They come secondLy from an aLLeged expianatory rote, in expLaining coincidences. But it is unnecessary for this purpose as initiaL worLd seLection wiLL serve. They come thirdLy from human chauvinism; thus, too human existence is said to be responsibLe for the very speciaL structure of the universe' (D p.121)! The connection is not however causaL; so what is it supposed There is be: teLeoLogicaL? thus a serious probLem as to how this responsibitity, hardLy evident, is exercised. FinaLLy a strong principLe might uniformity to - one principLe to cover be argued for on grounds of aLL cases. But better a weaker correct -23- �principLe than a strong faLse or geophgsicaL principLe wouLd suffice Rnd principLe. dubious doubt no a weaker aLL phgsicaL constants. (Of course, for there reMains the natter of this worLd seLection. This worLd does exhibit Life, incLude hunans, and so on. But these features, Like the present species of does eucaLgpts expLanations, or reLevant, cLasses of worids.)"^ and are RnusingLg, astroLogicaL and More converses hunan affairs; white under gerMane not the to extravagant anthropic principies are to astroLogg, ceiestiaL events infLuence anthropic hunan anaLogue, affairs infLuence CeiestiaL events and processes incLude those of the sun. Moon events ceiestiaL its are abstracted fron in seLecting expLanatorg Recording other. each of wonbats, grazing of whereabouts and and other pLanets (especiaLLg). Rnd these certaintg appear to have an (indirect) weak infLuence, especiaLLg through the soLar atMosphere and pLanetarg Large pLasMas, on terrestriaL phenoMena (Fegerabend, p.93). The anthropic converse, in this forM danagingtg anthropocentric and exhibiting an excess of hubris, is Much further froM the truth. Not just the anthropocentric, but the eMphasis of nuMericat features. Rnd despite the bioLogicaL anaLogies, just Lt,ke explanation seLection without vaLues, so even Rs are there there is seLection without seLectors. More, RLthough seLection is sonetiMes accoMpiished through seLectors, often takes not is naturaL seLection. It is not seLection for, for fitness, survivaL, or whatever. Nor, More iMportant is it seLection bg, bg soMe agent. vaLues MispLaced. is insistence, Life is not essent-iaL in Mang worids Le^Lie Despite biocentric seLection without seLecters, randonig or otherwise - this tiMe as in naturaL pLace seLection, which does not require a personified Nature to do the have evoLutionarg theories as/oid ageneg. In avoiding ageneg, seLection is Like that seLecting, as enphasised. Such expLanation can straightforwardig of Darwinian evoLut- ionarg theorg; and seLection contrasts with direction as incLuded in aLternative evoLutionarg Though accounts (cf. DarLington, p.l^ff). anthropic principies coMe in a varietg of forMs, depending upon how the conditionaL scheMa ^nvoLved is fitted out, none of theM, then, does what is saud, none depends essentiaLLg on the presence of huMans, or of Life. SgntacticaLLg, theg etaborate usuaLLg status quo arguMents, of forM L), with factuaL fir^t preMis^ F concerning the state of the worLd LocaLLg (weak forM) whoLe (strong seLection forM). SenanticaLLg, or as a the factuaL preMisses function as worLd principies; theg serve to Mark out the cLass of phgsicaL wortds or to narrow then down to these or those, e.g. to those where heavier eieMents such as carbon occur, those where Long-Lived stars, such as the sun, appear. It is that carbon is sonetiMes taken to provide an "order-of-Magnitude" approxiMation for Life (that is the nearest Long-Lived star is supposed to to hunans provide that the the "approxinations" get); Life as the arguMents a steadg warMth required for the evoLution of Life (but Long-Lived stars, water, and heavier objects are as to true near need get). But these additionaL, and nore dubious, detaiis are unnecessarg for the Main thrust of status quo arguMents, as distinct -24- �from their anthropic 3nd biocentric augmentations. meet Given that the worids seiected are of this and that cast - in generai geophgsicai gross Less, up the to constraints — other features of them can be derived (more or standards rough accepted in and physics) in expLained, particuLar, how and that it is that certain (fundamentaL) physicaL constants Lie in restricted ranges, narrow and unexpected ranges. These arguments, duty fitted out, do provide exp Lanations, non-causat exp Lanations, of physicaL features of a contingent, mereLy LmprobabLe universe. Much there is, however, in these most ctaims, that has been contested, from the psycho LogicaL such of inadequacy a universe to the worth of such expLanations, if expLanations they are at aLL. objections to the cosmo-LogicaL synthesis; and finding unLikety, an in comfort and with Prob Lems mereLy universe. contingent, Somehow contingent universes have acquired the reputation of being coLd, remote and uncaring - a not habitat for sensitive creatures. But the reputation is undeserved, since fit contingency does not bear on any of these things. Mhat is contingent can be just as weLL as coLd or neither; caring or not, so far as the appLication sense aLL; at and hot makes so on. One can be warm and comfortabLe in bed on a wet and wintry night. One can be at home, comfortabLe in, in tune with, a tiny part of an improbabLe universe, as some tribaL peopLes are. None of these virtues are Ln any way undermined by contingency, matter of a necessary universe. or aLways assured by the quite separate a degree of harmony between us Furthermore, there can be, or have evoLved, and our surroundings , without principLes, as that our worse, that the universe is universe such exaggerated cLaims, on based anthropic are very speciaL and tuned to us' or, surroundings made for us'. Me humans can be in with tune the without having the universe tuned to us, as we can foLLow and ornament a song on the wind or in the woods. But so far, especiaLLy recentLy, we humans coLLectiveLy are not doing too weLL in attuning oursetves to the worLd. Rs this iLLustration begins to metaphysicaL and psychoLogicaL reveaL, predeLiction^ may pLay a not inconsiderabte rote in choice of, and ornamentation of, physicaL theory, especiaLLy of controvers LaL theories such as quantum theory and cosmoLogicaL theory. In the case of such theories there is a certain bag technicaL so to say tricks, tricks, equations and so on, which are de rigeur - a theory-skeLeton - and beyond that both an interpretation and setting for the bag integrating of theM and suppLying of with some sort of meaning, and them usuaLLy aLso some further formaLism connecting the tricks together or to a wider theoreticaL background. For exampLe, even in accounts of too much in the way of interpretation theory where is commonLy frowned upon, extensive correspondence ruLes Linking the formaLism with upon quantum cLassicaL physics are retied heaviLy. Rt Least for everything beyond the theory-skeLeton, which is what is appLied in most concrete day-to-day appLications of the theory, there is much room for rivaL fLeshing out of the skeLeton - Latitude -25- such as there is in �archeological reconstructions of peoples from some scattered bones. Recasting quantum theorg, as in the mang-worlds interpretation, offers not as merelg a basis for fleshing out the theorg non-idealisticallg, but for combining it with general to subject much of the criticism, much of it directed more broadlg at most Happilg as However such recasting, when not reLativitg. largelg ignored (the common fate of nonstandard theories), is criticism. well plural world theories in general, misses the neutral modification. There are firstlg a batch of aesthetic and ontological objections. These commonlg take off from the of unattractiveness duplication or replication of profligate such worLds. LJeLL, tastes and vaLues, Like intuitions, do varg with sub-cuLture. Some of us, who escaped over-exposure to worlds the ReaLitg do PrincipLe, stories illuminating and attractive, indeed verg inviting. So, next, the whole thing is said to be unbelievable: no one can reasonabLg existence believe worLds nonetheless, especiaLLg in explanation. these in (the these unlimited numbers of universes. Granted, we do not believe of) in this either. These other worLds do not exist; but we can make of neutral find heavg Load of objections carrging on about excess use extensive In this wag we avoid a baqgage. ontic also Ue main criticisms based on Occam s razor. (RLL these objections are short-circuit met, in much detail, in JB.) Linked to such Occamist protests are a batch of objections that are pictures worlds effect the to over-engineered, both too complex 3nd including too much baggage. Thus in thermodgnamics a smalt fluctuation producing some order is more LikeLg than one producing Lots of order, one galaxg more LikeLg than Lihg do similarlg we not find ourselves in a one galaxg universe, which is far more LikeLg? The answer is in part: because Less LikeLg contingencies hold. Is the ubiquitg No, (D p.123)? mgsterg instance, the on the commenting of of numbers approaches reasons. in these unwarranted presuppositions. The that the universe was set others Like be explained. For Dicke Thus and Peebles remark, in of the universe for a few conscious individuals, overdesign revealed well one of a thing is itself verg unlikelg. Find just special can, that a single galaxg cosmos might be ruled out bg the can observed galaxies in our universe ... therefore a such evolution further there mag be mang. up Mach's Moreover, principle. questions and remarks are based on various overdesign" for idea, for example, presupposes some individuals; but the worlds picture correctLg avoids thLS assumption. The things in this world that exist happen to be there, probable or not, and often, for reasons we can sometimes explain, not. But there is tittle solid evidence that theg are arranged, for us or others. In its original form the unfocussed "overdesign" objection was mainlg directed at cruder anthropic principles, as were unverifiabilitg and unfalsifiabilitg. a batch of objections The well-worn criticism, that notorious psgchoanalgtic and Marxist principles did too much, being so designed that covered everg protested that case, was redirected from against anthropic principles. it is hard to see how the anthropic principLe can be It used theg was to make testable predictions, because ang theorg inconsistent with our existence is �4 M3nLfestLg Not faLse . such protests been weakened bg avant garde have onLg phLLosophg of science, but, as Carter has poLnted out, anthropLc arguments couLd varLous Ln prLncLpLe have been used to predLct theg Rnd notLced. were faLsLfLcatLon, e.g. where erroneous that unLLkeLg assumptLons prLncLpLes, regards Rs fLrst). under but Ls worLd-sgnthesLs, aLL that worLds the whether Ln wLth cosmoLog Les and of verLfLcatLonLst seLectLon whLch semantLcs, or phgsLcs exLst, LnvoLved of themes objectLons do have some verLfLabLLLtg vLrtue of what Ls meant bg bg bg neutraLLsed ex Lsttng. But the force of these objectLons Ls theorg. as conversLon, object-theorg Granted LnterpretatLon. of Often, Lt (though of weaker forms wouLd be abandoned, other surrendered force agaLnst mang-worLds theories, assume derLved object Lons are LargeLg mLsdLrected, because what are at Lssue are phgsLcaL semantLcs, are coLncLdences premLss factuaL be wouLd verLfLabLLLtg not the anthropLc arguments do admLt of of 3ssumptLons the before coLncLdences numerLcaL neutraL worLds objectLons, the crLtLcLsms of mang-worLd such prLncLpLes anthropLc as geophgsLcaL or prLncLpLes are LntertwLned, and dLsentangLLng the crLtLcLsms Ls enough to partLg So them. def Late aLso wLth the reLated charge th3t the neutraL worLd- Ls Lt sgnthesLs theorg Ls unscLentLfLc or at much turns Least dubLousLg scLentLfLc.PLaLnLg on what Ls admLtted Lnto that esteemed categorg, scLentLfLc. But on most accounts, use of seLectLon prLncLpLes succeeds Ln gettLng LncLuded. Rnd so, pLaLnLg enough, does mang-worLds quantum theorg. Rfter 3LL, Lt has 3pproxLmateLg as the same sorts of predLcatLve and test capabLLLtLes more That fact of narrow empLrLcaL LndLstLnguLshabLLLtg mag be the source of theorg. other compLaLnts, but Lt gtves no ground for the charge worLd Ls seLectLon prLncLpLes excLuded! are It at hand. of scLentLfLc and theorLsLng experLmentLng true that some theoretLcaL and wouLd (per prefer LmpossLbLe) and wantLng to st Lek to a uLtLmate and unLfLed expLanatLons. No doubt such semantLcaL apparatus does faLL fouL of the the substance of the charge, consLder some of the crLterLa often beLng theLr theorg narrower sLmpLg reveaLs further serLous defects Ln such vLews. But to reach that vLews: fuLLer the narrower (hgpothetLco-deducttve) methodoLogg, are uneasg wLth worLds seLectLon, sureLg But phgsLcLsts, and mang phLLosophers, LosLng sLght of what enters Lnto range quantum orthodox scLentLfLc. UnfaLsLfLabLe? SureLg set down for Ln areas where the framework Ls not pLnned down bg phgsLcaL theorg. OvercompLLcated and LnsuffLcLentLg gLven what the worLds theorg Ls Lntended to accompLLsh sLmpLe? Not (e.g. the semantLcaLLg theoretLcaL work Lt Ls aLso put to Ln areas such 3s LLnguLstLcs). Etc., etc. Perhaps the most teLLLng theorLes LLke worLd—sgntheses objectLons whLch agaLnst LncLude status quo arguments, and them, concern theLr expLsnatorg capacLtg. StrangeLg theg have been condemned both as expLaLntng too much - ang thLng at aLL can be brought out Ln some worLd - and as expLaLnLng too LLttLe and beLng trLvLaL. Not both these objectLons are LLkeLg to succeed, as theg tend to undercut one another. IndependentLg, Lt seems cLear that the arguments do provLde expLanatLons, for LnvoLved Lnstance, of the strength of the strong nucLear force. It aLso seems cLear that the expLanatLons afforded are of vargLng -27- depth, �+ depending in part on the depth of the underlying physicaL theory invoLved, this and the pLausibiLity of the further assumptions made in the arguments. Better exempiific3tions of status quo arguments in physics satisfy not oniy more ordinary requirements for expLanation; they aLso meet assembLed conditions considerable time, by HempeL, mainstream the which conditions on position demanding for represented, some what counted as a scientific expLanation. Furthermore, the chief objections to have more the HempeLian the account that emerged have been to the effect that it is too rigorous, not that it faiLs to provide jointLy sufficient conditions for expLanation. To make a prima facie case that better status quo arguments do provide exp Lanations, it is enough then show to expLanation LogicaL HempeL s that conditions on the (p.2t+7ff) have been met. By contrast conditions design with scientific of the arguments, 3re satisfied. The expLanandum T is a LogicaL adequacy of pattern basic consequence of the physicaL argument eLaborating the schemas F, if F then T; the expLanans has empiricaL content, at Least in the shape of expLanans F; which connection if F then T, provides expLanans are true, Uere a foLLows from arguments using physicaL Laws. FinaLLy, the demanding empiricaL condition of adequacy, that the premisses used in the is satisfied in better status quo arguments. the basic pattern aLso necessary for scientific expLanation, it wouLd be an easy coroLLary that many poorer status quo arguments fait to provide expianations (beginning with Carter s and Descartes is there the and contains general, Laws which are actuaLLy used in the derivation. For, in better status quo arguments, the conditionaL schema, Law Like premiss much quo status that such Cogito arguments), and that arguments cannot presentLy expLain decentLy, '^ncLuding such major puzzLes as Life and inteLLigence in the LocaL worLd. It can be independentLy argued, moreover, that poorer status quo arguments, which patentLy (or short meeting HempeLian conditions, fait to generate satisfactory of satisfying) expianations. TriviaL, dogmatic, forms, such as that things 3re the way they are because that is how they are, represent a virtuaLLy worse of sort. this But possibie. weakening to principte, that what The universe is inhabitabie, because we are here, because ask Forrest so is aLso humans inhabit The universe is suited to inteLLigent Life because there are peopLe such questions upon). focusses inferences, is sLightLy embroidered, are arguments with connecting principLes Such, the earth , case better, or more informative, are those arguments scarceLy which appLy the possibility Like faLL (exampies adapted from the sorts of anthropic arguments These short; patentLy faLL arguments, which they LnvoLve offer no aimost immediate further appropriate basic (HempeLian) argumentation making use of generaL Laws. Given that better status quo arguments do afford scientific expianations, and given further that the arguments do serve to remove and not without predictive force, why have they been genuine puzzLement fauLted as expianations, and sometimes criticised 3S not providing expianations are at aLL (e.g. Forrest)? The main reason offered, that back-to-front , these "expianations" are appears to rest on the assumption that aLL genuine expLanation -28- �shouLd be broadLg causaL, and accordingLg exhibit (time-) the direction or controi. Status quo expLanations are certainLg not causaL, and mag causation weLL run counter to causaL direction, expLaining features of the earig the through of distribution present universe of eLements. That is, however, perfectLg in order. For satisfactorg expLanation is not causaLLg restricted either ordinariLg or scientificaLLg. HempeL suppLies severaL different sorts of pattern basic of causaLLg or controL directed (pp.352-3). EspeciaLLg striking in this exampLe opticaL straightforward his of his which are not causaL expLanation or expLanation scientific exampLes regard is a particuLar event...satisfactoriLg of expLained bg reference to subsequent occurrences'; but his exampLe of two-wag where the period of a penduLum serves to expLain the Length of the expLanation, penduLum as weLL as converseLg, is aLso highLg re Levant. For it is too expiaining commonLg assumed numericaL that shouLd coincidences be the presence of water, carbon and the Like in the universe, not vice versa. But there is no iLLuminating reason quo status whg direction shouLd expLanation the instead not in run the as weLL as, vice versa. That of, iLLuminating direction is after aLL from the famiLiar to the much Less famiLiar, and more in need of expLanation. such It is true of course that more simpig means that status quo expLanations ad hominem stgLe of status quo expLanation, for are. Like expLanations, most further unreasonabLg stop deeper expLanation. The expLanation-stopping forms are and form: contraposed inquirers verg for expLanation if it weren t so gou woutdn t be here to ask the question. However such put-downs (in the envisaged persistent Legitimate the those (which Forrest discusses) where the response to a request for the Long. wouLd contexts) not more charge, damaging feature of the universe, Then PF. seLecting worLds where PF hoLds. But the theorg. the then, is that worLd-sgnthesis can expLain too much. The charge is backed up bg the foLLowing sort of consideration. puzzLing deter Theg wouLd be awag in search of further expLanations, such as better status quo arguments mag furnish (at Least for t ime be ing). The not begin in the middLe wag. Nor do theg, except in speciaL, rather theg uLtimate: takes famiLiar, the presence of water and carbon, aLso caLLs for expLanation; but that as quest the charge it Take ang can be expLained simpig bg misrepresents worLd-sgnthesis There is more to it than this. There is a cruciaL argumentative Linkage aLso invoLved, between PF and gross geophgsicaL features of the worLds (near factuaL worLd T) which are seLected. Or, put differentig, the seLection does not take pLace on basis the of PF, but (mereLg) under the constraint of gross geophgsicaL features; accordingLg if the argumentative Linkage from satisfactorg status quo arguments worLd-sgnthesis. is missing, PF is not to be expLained through In short, then, worLd-sgnthesis theorg offers expLanations when bg and then the expLanations mag varg greatLg in quaLitg depending on the depth of the phgsicaL the framework is suitabLg fLeshed out phgsicaL theorg; information invoLved in the argumentative Linkage. EssentiaLLg the same points undermine Forrest's further objection to such -2?- �many-worLds explanation, truths; contingent have we aLL do to coaches easiLy as the pumpkins of turning numericsL coincidences. But there is no such free as seLection of phusicaL worLds - which do not incLude worLds vaLidating magicaL as faiL, can schema connecting arbitrary and practices. Status quo expianations may not be easy transformations at aLL, but physicaLLy comp Lex, they are not atways and they as is to posit suitabLy many and varied (p.9). Thus the theory is aLLeged to expLain worLds into that it "expLains" contingent faLsehoods as easiiy an when assumption invoLved easiLy avaiLabte, and the eLaboration of the in , and the argumentative schema issues in a contingent faiLs faLsehood. For a necessary condition that a status quo expianation be successfuL is that the argument be correct; but then given that the argument form is vaiid, the cone Lus ion cannot be simpiy f aLse. is It that satisfactory expianations, with conforming to such conditions of adequacy as deductive vaiidity in and quo status expianations winning in expianations differ from decisiveLy design which are sometimes seen as on an expianatory LeveL competition with status quo and expianations their piuraL-worLds setting (thus e.g. LesLie), and sometimes even confused with them. Design arguments characteristicaLLy take the deductiveLy invaLid abductive modus toLLens form: Things are (surprisingLy) so and so F If a design hypothesis heLd (e.g. the universe anticipated observers, a design-force operated), things woutd be (unsurprisingLy) so and so. If H then F Therefore, a design hypothesis (probabLy) hoLds. .. H Nor in design arguments is the connecting schema normaLLy eLaborated by appropriate scientific argument; nor, where God is invoked, i§; there any way of suitabLy confining the argument scientificaLLy. Thus support first the LesLie's of Larger cLaims is faLse:- the LiorLd EnsembLe hypothesis rather than the God hypothesis. !^e do not have...strong evidence of an EnsembLe' (LI, p.150). for Science does not their existence No branch of physics in a way commanding wide acceptance (LI, p.S3). The main reason is that the Bod hypothesis is not part of a physicaL theory that many-worLd theory is caLLs in the way of quantum theory (thus, e.g., there is no physics text corresponding to DeLiitt and Graham for the God hypothesis), [^hiie the Last cLaim is true, it does not teLL against the truth of neutraL many-worLds theory. Uhat science supports is science, not the the metaphysics it presupposes. Physics is not however aLL of science by any means, and even science doesn't do everything, onLy a rather narrow seLection of things. Richard SyLvan -30- 11 �RPPENDIX 1. Some Rncient Rntecedents The Non-Limited is the originaL materiaL of existing things; further the source] from which existing things derive their existence is a iso that to which they' return at their destruction, according to necessity [for reparation]... —----- So, in the 6th Century B.C., said Rnaximander, perhaps among the first aLso to set down a story of the evoLution of humankind.Something the same was said in text, though on the favoured taLe a Heideggerean and Taoist touch was Lent, the with Nothingness repLacing the Non-Limited. In the on beginning, there was nothing; and uLtimateLy, too, there wiLL be nothing. have been paid. The p3raLLeL with Rnaximander can be pressed further. In account origins, of of worLd the contemporary charged pairs of particLes are created in the oppositeLy 'the order, wiLL Reparation process of pair formation from the vacuum; white in Rnaximander's story formation story, this opposites the of which are present Ln the one [the Non-Limited], are separated out from it' (but 'the "opposites" are the hot, coLd, the dry the , the moist, and the rest : see Robinson p.25). There is aLso a phenomenon which corresponds to some Limited extent to the Big Bang, nameLy Vortex. the It seems cLear, however, from the materiaL Burnet assembLes, that Rnaximander's position amounted to the first Less satisfactory resoiution, matter or substance aLways. For the BoundLess or Infinite was a materiaL cause, -^*-*dstance (p. 5k<); it is eternaL and ageLess is brought about the origin of the worids. did — Further, according to SimpLicius, not ascribe the origin of things to any aLteration of matter, but said that the oppositions separated encompasses aLL worids substance". RLso there is in it eternaL motion, in which which makes it a queer he and out . If in that the substratum was which a boundLess body, were is right — and it may not be, especiaLLy given Later ontotogicaL infLuences (cf. p.61) - then the matter is cLear. Rnaximander beiieved there were innumerabLe worids (p.58). These worids were concurrent, not successive. coex istent remains uncLear, but Later in the Whether Bound Less" they tradition (biassed) took them exist, making Rnaximander's position a many-existent-wortds theory. The to Law of compensation, under which for borrowing or variation reparation must be made, becomes the Law of repayment aLL were of conservation. The reparation paraLLeLs the borrowed" mass-energy. The more generaL steering of aLL things - overarching order in naturaL processes - becomes the Laws of nature which govern (reguLate) the processes. 'The orderLiness ... is grounded in the nature of things as such . Rnaximander's account represents an immenseLy -31- important stage in the �transition from world-order is myth from science. to first to ... Last 'Hesiod's account of the origin of the anthropomorphic. account Rnaximanders represents, in principLe, a complete break with this mode of thought (Robinson p.27). From this angle the anthropic and idealistic fixes of contemporary science show marked regression. That transition, beyond anthropic creation stories, is also accomplished in the main philosophical essentials of the favoured resolution can where Taoism, be found. Something flowed from nothing, in a seemingly paradoxical way? but not through ang creation or agency. There was a the before time when beginning nothing at aLL existed. The problem of Laws (of nature) was also recognised, and resolved. did Laws not exist (independently at least of things that did) but were exhibited in in things that did exist. So it seems to follow that, stage at restricted property to duty what separated, and was mainly Lacking ascriptions Taoism Such nothing. a and deep in cosmogonic tales, then, from the ^.th C. B.C. until the 20th C., was a plausible explanatory story as to how come from together. of does exist. (Fuller details of Taoist cosmology, under this type of interpretation, are ventured in ecology', written with D. Bennett.) Mhat the which nothing existed, the taws could hold without having 3ny sort of existence, i.e. truth and existence were existence at story a few something could humans are Just beginning to piece NOTES Thi^ passage from Misner, Thorne and Uheeter, p.1212, is given an appropriately grander setting Ln the text. The passage Ls also quoted by DavLes, G p.222, who Lt to Wheeler. In Davies the idea of ascribes foundations for cosmology simple and unassailable Logical is given a different exposure, and is then linked with restrictions, to zero, on God s range of choice of universe to make. 2 Especially by those whose inquisitiveness and sense of blunted or destroyed by the mainstream culture and its wonder h3s educational not been practices, practices much mainstream philosophy reinforces and tries to justify. 3 Indolent philosophers tend to assign those of these questions that they write off (e.g. as semantically defective or as betraying philosophical uonfuslon or hang—upz?) to science. But they are not Just a matter for and scientists tend to come up with philosophically loaded, naive, theories scientists remain, insofar as they address the cannot questions and at often science; enough all. Too many Like too many RustraLian phiLosophers, in the grips of awfuL metaphysics, such as narrow empiricism and/or physicaiism. -32- �^The anaLysis semantical It of naturaL a is Law is that' Law-constrained worLds, naturaL worids. The interpretation ruLe for necessity. Terra, appLy but to Like is It shouLd be noted that geophysicaL features, appLied in seLecting worLds, are not of course confined to systems. in terns of geophysicaL pLanetary other "Rn eLaboration of this type of answer can be further expLoited to heLp why actuaL the standard ot worLd is science expLain comparativeLy so that simpLe, mathematicaLLy tractabLe, etc. HameLy, it is convenientLy so because the actuaL worLd seLection invoLved impLicitLy to render it so, by choice of a serves worLd with the compLexity of richer worLds removed and onLy tractabLe ideaL etements (such as scientific universaLs) adjoined. &RLtern3tiveLy, through quantum and borrowing positive feedback, a massive firebaLL forms. The story admits of much variation. ? The prob Lems, as the questions of the Lattice in diagram 2 indicate, what expLaining phiLosophers does exist, Lie with what does not. In a reLated way, 3LL those not papers on the prob Lems nonexistence of and nonexistents have misjudged the prob Lernatic, and misconceived the onus of proof. For commonLy the probLems concern existents and their behaviour; nonexistents, especiaLLy those functioning in expLanatory rotes as regards existentiai often behaviour, are very weLL behaved by comparison with existents. It has been suggested, by D. Lewis, that the underLying theory of items (of JB) renders everything exists. But it nonexistent, is and makes it 3 reaL probLem, how anything patentiy faLse that the theory of items render everything nonexistent. There are criteria for existence, which are often JB, chapter 9). Every thing nominaLists normaLLy take to satisfied (cf. exist satisfies the to be justified; it cannot (with any pretension to satisfactoriness) just be cLaimed, in the fashion of so many phiLosophers. In any case, Lewis can be simuLated: whatever ind iv idua Ls exist criteria. Beyond that existence has in Lewis worLds wiLL exist in worids-seLection theory. Rnd it is. a genuine phiLosophicaL probLem how anything exists. g in 19t+6; see his cosmoLogicaL text. Llhitrow aLso appLied, more than RpparentLy a quarter of a century ago, PrincipLe , in his what has now been eLevated to the Rnthropic answer to why the dimensions of space are three; nameLy, th3t this atone permits the evoLution of Nan, the formuiator of the probLem'. However 'Uhitrow's reasons concern not mankind but stabLe pLanetary orbits and compLex neurai networks' (LI, p.!^). g Compare the binding energy which keeps etectrons bound to a nucLeus, where correiativeiy energy stored up in overcoming forces of repuLsion is positive. -33- �e a story couLd be totd to bring Laws within the expLanation framework. However It wouid teLLing invoLve Laws first evoLved or happened to hoLd, the how before vacuum fLuctuations. (For some interesting specuLation, from which the ontic and anthropic commitment can be removed without totaL Loss, see Barrow pp. 151-2, where "chaotic gauge theory" is considered.) The issue of uLtimate is expLanation again up taken seLf-justifying postulate as serving refLexive, expLanation. Note that in UQ, to the resoLve the matter the especiaLLy of probLem uLtimate, PostuLate Characterisation a of of object-theory is an initiaLLy promising candidate for such a principte. issue is that, on the story as toLd, quantum phenomena assume Another serious decidedLy they course Of macro-dimensions. may, Schrodinger s cat iLLustrates, but perhaps not in the parabLe the as supposed of catastrophic form. In the absence of any approved quantization of general, reLativity, there onLy are Lax physicaL controis on what is in and what is out in specuLation here. Rnd, of course, the second story couid There are other mechanisms for the sudden be rise in eLaborsted other ways. e.g. white mass-energy, of ho Les in geometrodynamics. In his second paper, Tryon makes a rather casuaL beginning on meeting some of difficuLties the with the vacuum fLuctuation theory the cosmos, and of expLains the advantages of combining the theory with that of a (stiLL probLematic) "infLationary" universe, to boost the fLuctuation. But the theory stiLL awaits aporopriateLy detaiLed deveiopment and modeLLing. 12 There are various other issues concerning the physicaL constants, incLuding the question of the (sLow) evoLution of "constants" over time. LJeLL, do evoLve, the they if same sort of probLems arise for the parameters which repLace them (L.e. at each time t, for c(t)). There are putative arguments to the effect that there can be no very grand unified theory, and no finaL eLimination of constants, because any such theory wouid do too much in determ in ing the worLd (and things). But it is unctear at present how such an argument gets duty eLaborated. R tight argument uneLiminabiLity of some physicaL constants from physicaL principLes for the wouLd be of much interest. 13 Th',s is what is reaLLy accompLLshed in Carter. To some extent we have emerging in this area a contemporary scientific numeroLogy. 1L Convergence arguments, e.g. for such things as the Church-Turing thesis, underLying connections, but not co-operation. l^Even Less, seemingLy, is the universe an accident, 'an event proceeding from an unknown cause; something unexpected; a casuaLty, a mishap, l&If however the worLd reaLLy were necessary, such improbabiLity must be grossLy -34- �reduced. How can that be: how can these contingencies be not what theg seem? 1? How M3ng worLds? ContinuousLg mang worLds? There is no reason whg not. But the answer is: as mang at Least as required. In object-theorg numbers don t short matter though much, so difficuLties technccaL controL Ls advantage. an are There as to measures, e.g. of fewness, in infinite modeLLings. Yet the notions are Ln order, e.g. among the naturaL numbers primes are few. 18 point, ThL^, and the inestimabLLitg specific of probabLLLties Ln (e.g. Ls argued, though in insufficient detaiL, bg TouLmLn among others meteoroLogg) Bg the wag, sureLg a creator wouLd have increased probabLLitLes bg seeing to a unLverse for fit decent habitation; a variation upon the argument from evLL infiltrates itseLf Ln probabiLitg guise here. 13 worked There are in fact mang proposed soLutions, most of them not theg (because far verg out have onLg few proponents), most of them not comprehensive certainLg (but it couLd be argued that this is a faLse ideaL), severaL of them discussed bg Everett, DeMLtt, Lande and others. 20 MheeLer s sequentiaL modeL another, so satisfgLng the theorg (Like certain offers a simitar range of worLds, but one after 'reaLLtg principLe". EarLLer MheeLer had adopted cosmoLogies) Eastern with in muLtLpLLcitg a both sequent La LLg and Lnto the possibLe; but recent Lg he has abandoned dimen^Lon^,, the Latter, partig on erroneous ontoLogLcaL grounds. 21 It Ls of course not the onLg reaLLstLc-stgie LnterpretatLon whLch does thLs: envisage everu Lande s LnterpretatLon is another. 22 From a neutraL viewpoint, Lt ts entLreLg taLse that atom ... as Me must constantLg engaging in this tgpe of scattering sctLvitg, therebg spLLtting the worLd again and again Lnto a stupendous number carbon-copLes of of LtseLf. The unLverse must therefore be LLkened to a tree, whLch branches 3nd (D p.I25). Nor Ls rebranches universe. 23 To anticipate, schemas of what the form, happens "if the tree-structured sgstern of universes the is as foLLows:- The antecedents of "anthropic" there exist so and so [e.g. observers] then ang phgsLcaL worLds must be such and such", are appLLed to phgsLcaL worLds. Rs there certainLg do exist so and so, narrow ctass the phgsLcaL worLds of are restricted to those that are such and such. gL It cs stLLL reasonabLe to 3sk whg - indeed to e.g. whg do we inhabit it?, whence a Long pose' severaL whg questions, evoLutionarg storg. Mhg are the constants those theg are?, then aLternative answers, LncLudLng brute fact, are among the possibiLities. -35- �roundLg defeated Shapiro. 26 bg the sorts considerations advanced bg Feinberg and of Davies aLso suggests that mang-worLds theorg can provide a pLausibLe phgsicaL (as opposed to phiLosophicaL) justification for the strong principte (D p.122 middLe). In fact he never reaLLg shows this satisfactoriig (nor can it be so shown), and in pointing to the power of the m3ng—universe theorg he undermines the strong principte, showing it otiose. 2? arguments are presented in modat form, with the connecting quo status Often scheme set in either necessitated form, if F that) (e.g. T if exist there necessaritg then (it if possibLe modaLities are de dicto and and that invoLved cLaims the It such). if F then T. The modaLitg invoLved is not one of LogicaL contingent nomic of that strength, but can be adequateLg NecessariLg, necessitg, an The error. argument guarantee the concLusion, NecessariLg T, nor does it pretend form these or even in Lowest common denominator form. To attach the (reLative) modaLitg simpig to consequent T wouLd be second is 'it is more than mereLg rather reads that seems represented, as usuaL, through a necessitated connecting schema, one F form, (e.g. what is the case LocaLLg (what observers observe, T etc.) is onLg possibLe if phgsics is such aLwags be and so, then the universe must have, or so conform to, such and such features), or, in quasi-transcendentaL onLg must to do does not so. The is a LittLe more probLematic; but it appears to assert that F is inconsistent with not-T, and so, through obvious connections, the same as the rectified first form. 28 Mhat we have are devices, that fragments of theories, ruLes thumb, of appear to work in a range of cases. and caLcuLating It is these parts that mag generate successfuL technoiogg. The picture is Like engineering. 29 R main charge made bg LesLie against mang-worid cosmoLogies, e.g. LI, p.l^Sff. It is a surprising turn, given the popuLaritg of hgpothetico-deductive methodoLogg, to have it aLso objected that mang-worLd theorg voids induction. Putting chance in controL of inter-worLd differences erodes confidence in our sampLe of ReaLitg, on which our inductions are based' (LI, p.1^.3). this objection gets off the ground (it is transparentLg Insofar cLear as that it does), it depends on assuming the reaLitg of the entire worLd ensembLe. So Lt not Lapses against a neutraL theorg. 30 R reLated phitosophicaLLg important exampLe where the schema does so far is in Moore s proof of an externaL worLd, noted above. The reason is that the existence of arbitrarg materiaL objects, such as hands or does f3it not guarantee that the requirements (order, isoLated unitg, cabbages, coherence, mcnd-cndependence, etc.) for an externaL worLd are satisfied. 31 Rn earLier version of this paper was presented at the RustraLasian Rssociation of PhiLosophg Conference, Rugust 138^. The -36- heLpfuL comments bg David �Rrmstrong, Brian Ellis and David Lewis, unreferenced above, were the discussion. commentaries; Both several made during John Leslie and Jack Smart supplied me with worthwhile their points have been incorporated, but some have of been resisted. The initial Univerity preprint series. version W3S published in an Rustralian National 32^ See Freeman, p.IS. for fuller discussion of need for reparation, see Burnet. Rnaximander's on position; the REFERENCES J.D. Barrow, Rnthropic definitions', Quarterly Journal of Royal the Rstroncmical Society 21^ ( 1983) lt+6-153 H. Bondi, Cosmology, Second edition, Cambridge University Press, I960. R, Brout, F. Englert and F. Gunzig, The creation of the universe as a quantum phenomenon' RnnaIs of Physics 115 (1978) 78-106. J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Fourth edition, Rdam & Charles Black, London, 1930. B. Carter, Large number coincidence and the anthropcc principle is in Longair, 291-98. B. Carter, The anthropic principle and its implications cosmology', biological for evolution , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London (1983) St* 7-363. C.B. Collins and S.U. Hawk eng, Uhy is the universe isotrophic?', 19310 Rstrophqsics Journal 180 (1973) 317. C.D. Darlington, Darwin's Place in History, Blackwell, Oxford, 1959. P. Davies, The Rccidental Universe, Cambridge Universitu Press, Cambridge, 1982; referred to as D. P. Davies, God and the New Physics, Dent, London,1983; B.S. DeUitt referred to as G. and N. Graham, The Many-Uorlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1973. R.H. Dicke and P.J.E. Peebles, in S.U. Hawking and U. The big bang cosmology - enigmas and nostrums , Israel, eds, Genera 1 relativity: an Einstein centenary survey, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 501^-517. -37- �G.F.R. ELLis, 'is the universe expanding?', GeneraL Reiativitg and Gravitation 9(2) (L973) 87-9L. G. Feinberg and R. Shapiro, Life Beyond Earth, Morrow, New York, 1980. P. Feyerabend, Science Ln a Free Society, New Left Books, London, 1978. 'RnthropLc answers and the existence of P. Forrest, Proceedings God', of the Russet Lan Society, University of Sydney, 7 (1982) 1-13. K. Freeman, RncLLLa to the Pre-Socratic Phitosophers, BLackweLL, Oxford, 1971. N. Griffin and R. SyLvan, Provisionai Rnswers to ULtimate Questions, typescript, Canberra, 1981}.; referred to as UQ. S. Hawking and G.F. ELiis, The Large-Scaie Structure of Space-time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973. M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, (trans. R. Mannheim), YaLe University Press, New Haven, 1959. C.G. HempeL, Rspects of Scientific Exp LanatLon, Free Press, New York, 1965. Lande, The Laws behLnd the quantum Laws , BrLtLsh JournaL for the PhiLosophu of Science 27 (1976) 27-^3. J. L^sLLe, RnthropLc prLncLpLe, worLd ensembLe, desLgn , RmerLcan PhLLosophLcaL QuarterLy, 19 (1982) l^l-lSl; referred to as LI. J. LesLLe, Cosmo Logy, probabLLity and the need to exp La Ln LLfe', Ln ScLentLfLc ExpLanatLon and UnderstandLng (ed. N. Rescher), UnLversLty Press of RmerLea, MaryLand, M.S. LongaLr 1983, 53-82; referred to as L2. (ed.), Confrontat Lon of Cosmo Log LeaL Theories wLth ObsservatLonaL Data, ReLdeL, Dordrecht, 1971}.. C.U. MLsner, K.S. Thorne and J.R. UheeLer, GravLtatLon, Freeman, San 1973. G.E. Moore, PhLLosophLcaL Papers, RLLen and UnwLn, London, FrancLsco, 1959. R. RobLnson, Essays Ln Greek PhLLosophg, CLarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. R. RoutLey, ExpLorLng MeLnong's JungLe and Beyond, Research SchooL ScLences, RustraLLan NatLonaL UnLversity, 1980; referred to as JB. -38- of SociaL �Sagan Broca's Brain: Ref Leet ions on the Romance of Science, New York, Random House, 1973. S.Tou Lm in, The Return to CosmoLogy: Postmodern Nature, University of CaLifornia Press, BerkeLey Ca., 1982. Is the universe a vacuum fLuctuation?', Nature 2^6 (1973) 396-7 E.P. Tryon, E.P. Tryon, Science and the Theo Logy of *Mhat made the worLd?', New Scientist 101 (198!+) It+00, 1!+-16 FLN. Mhitehead, Process and ReaLity, Cambridge University Press, 1929. 6.H. Uhitrow, The Structure and Evo Lution of the Universe, Harper, New York, 1959. Second edition, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document RBSTRRCT The proposed syntheses Ls set Mithin generat object-theorg. tde3 The undertging the sgnthesis ts that the 3tternative Mortds sewantics - arrived 3t tn of pursuit of a tnctudtng senanttes universat ones) retevant and, semantics generat (a as connectedLg, part for of att a Languages, comprehensive object-theorg - be apptted atso tn fundamentat phgstcs, Most importanttg to the natter of the ortgtn, htstorg, 3nd phgstcat features of the cosmos, but as Mett, agatn connectedtg, theorg. etseMhere, Ln particutar Ln the LnterpretatLon of quantum a The unLversat semantics Ls a mang Mortds - theorg. The poLnt of such apptgLng an mang nonexistent Mortds - LnterpretatLon Ln cosmotogg atso Ls exptained bg Mag of examp Les, concernLng the understandLng of the contLngencg of exLstence and of present arrangements. improbabititg the R resotutton of the basLc question, sketched, a as Marm-up exerctse 'Nhg does angthLng at for exLst?' att questions as to Mhg various other the prominent features of the universe are as theg are, notabtg Mhg the constants of phgstcs appear to have. have the fundamentat parttcutar surprtstngtg senstttve vatues theg Chauvinistic ansMers through anthroptc prLnctptes are crLttcattg Ln favour of resotutLon bg Mag of Mortd sgntactLcattg, status quo arguments, MhLch use setection^ and gross rejected, correspondLng features geophgsLcat thLs and neLghbourLng unLverses to exp La Ln the surprLsLng vatues of The character of the Mortd—sgnthests resotutton - reaLLg a resotutton Ls ts of constants. frameMork fLLLed out Ln the course of countering a Mide SMeep of objections, and of exp La LnLng Mhg the resotutton frameMork invotving seLeet ion satisfactorg of the main tgpes LLLustrated in the four-fotd: is the most IMPROVED CO3MO-LOCICRL 3YMTHE3I3 TOWRRD RH There Logicai is a foundations tradition persistent - impiging simpLe and get undiscovered - for the whoLe of cosmoLogg. The as tradition, which peaked in modern rationaiism, continues strong in cosmoLogicai specuLation. unassaiiabLe Thus, contemporarg for exampLe, recent rationaiistic theories of the universe, ambitiousLg aimed at mathematico-iogicai expression and capture of nature. Thus, of MheeLer: for exampLe, the bottom Line to the mang theoreticaL enterprises LittLe astonishment shouLd there be, therefore, if the description of nature carries one in the end to Logic, the ethereat egrie at the center of mathematics. If, as one beiieves, aLL mathematics reduces to the mathematics of Logic, and aLL phgsics reduces to mathematics, what aLtemative is there but for aLL phgsics to reduce to the mathematics of Log ic ? Logic is the ontg branch of mathematics that can think about itse Lf'. Logic reassumes its ancient roLe 3S the fundamentaL science; the Mord expresses a LogicaL recipe. Even white abandoning some of the it Lus ions of grand reduct ion istic schemes, and undermining the EnLightenment power guest for the LogicaL the theoreticaL capture and can The sgnthesis outiined in setting. contribute what foLLows LiberaLised bg are semantics and to the organisation of a unified fits into this more modest It is achieved bg suitabig reLocating cosmoLogg as a part of semantics (generousig construed, for exampie, to admit contextuaL eLements). then, to controt of the universe, there is much of a more modest character that recent LogicaL theorg, as nonstandard sgstematisation, worid picture. kegs universaL So unified, semantics, re Levant semantics and cosmoLogg, as suggested in a preLiminarg wag in diagram 1. RCTURL X L ORLD(S) GEOPHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE PHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE RELEVRHT SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE MORLD SPRCE Comment. The subspaces are Marked out by ctosure and other requirements, that of by cLosure of each worLd under deducibiLity (reLevant deriva— systems reLevant biLity), that of physicaL systems by cLosure aLso under physicaL Laws formuLated terMS Ln (suitabLy of condLtLonaLs) and perhaps factuaL constraints as weLL. actuaL (or better t3ctuai) worLd Ls a seLect coMMon worLd the to nested spaces. The underLytng Lde3 of the synthesis is siMpiy this: a subspace of is aLso a suitabLe framework for cosmoLogy, for an interpret— semantics worids neutrai *3 L Lon of the Log iceL theory of the universe as a whoLe. In Less condensed form, the ide3 is that the aLternative worids semantics arrived at in the pursuit of a semantics universaL part connectedLy, as semantics comprehensive (a theory the of aLL of for aLL be objects, Languages) and, aLso appLied physics - most importantiy to the matter of the origin, history and fundamentaL physicaL features of this cosmos, but 3S weLL eLsewhere, in interpretation theory. quantum of particuLar Ln That stripping. ontoLogicai of Load MorLd-ensembLe terms of nonexistent Mortds. Hot surprisingiy, in the recasting the in theory j^s for is, the theory can be recast in existentiaLLy neutraL terms, wcthout the originaL object ionabLe theory, the Rnd in the case of quantum theory there is aLready, most convenientiy, a many-universe or worLd-ensembLe theory, ready neutrai in (e.g. changed unobservabLe the spiitting worLd of the Everett other worids interpretation gives way to future— directed worLd branching). The setting in terms of do which objects not exist, especiaLLy, is essentiaL. For one reason, the idea grew out of investigation (with Griffin for the provisionaL but so far nonexistent book UQ) of what is normaLLy taken to be a phiLosophicaL question, indeed by some such as as the fundamentaL question of metaphysics, nameLy exist? . Reset in worLd terms this becomes a question worLd such Mhy does anything at aLL of seiection the - a contains be to taken exist. For then the oLd circLe is simpiy reentered, expiaining existence in terms of more existents. Here the circLe is metaphysics: 3 much more tractabLe question. But the recasting Loses expLanatory merit shouLd aLL the worids invoived objectionabie of that we find ourseLves in which contains something existent (us as among other existent things) as opposed to an aLternative worLd, which nothing Heidegger cf. JB broken, as it is eLsewhere (particuLarLy in chapter 2), by expiaining what exists by way of what does not. It is the faiLure to duty aLLow for and -2- acknowLedge this pattern of expLsnatLons, though Lt represents coMMon practLce Ln the theoretLcaL sciences, that has wade Lssues LLke the Lntractab Le. In fact quest Lons Lihg Hetdeggerean the concernLng does angthLng quest Lon onLg Ls exLst? question LLke Lt so ftrst of a LattLce of the the character and nature of the cosMos Ln whLch Me happen to be, that are LLabLe to be asked , questLons ascendLng to (Just) seen Ls? ; questLons Uhg Ls thLs cosMos Mhtch MorLd ModeLLLngs wag fruLtfuLLg be to appLLed, as an Lwportant fLrst step Ln eLLcLtLng sone ansMers. (Bounded) LattLce of questLons. DIRGRRM 2. 7 Uhg does Mhg does angthLng evergthLng at aLL exLst? exLst as Lt Uhg do 7 Hhg do eLectrons Lihg does Lnte L L Lgent ex Lst? (Ln LLf e LLfe forns the nunbers exLst? (Ln the ex Lst? theg do?) forM Lt does?) In the reorLentatLon of MorLds senantLcs fron Languages to cosnoLog Les, f row Language to the MorLd, there are certaLn features that shouLd be kept fLrriLg Ln vLeM - apart fron such notorLous features as that anong the MorLds of the node L L Lngs are a range of bLzarre, absurd, LncoMpLete and MaverLck MorLds, and that each (nonexLstent) MorLd has a LncLudes donaLn of objects though Lt a subdoMatn (perhaps nuLL) of ent Lt Les, tgpLcaLLg contaLns nonexLstent objects, both posstbLe and not, phgsLcaLLg reaLLsabLe and the MhLch, feature of not. In partLcuLar, MorLd seLectLon shouLd not be Lost sLght of. For Lnstance, Ln assessing truth, a factuaL MorLd T Ls seLected - Ln one Mag or' another, but tgpLcaLLg bg a choLce functLon on a cLrcunscrLbed evaLuatLons are Morked out (recursLveLg) at I. cLass NaturaLLg and ho LdLng the assessnent of truth MLLL generaLLg Lead begond MorLd T LtseLf. For (reLevant) <deducLbLLLtg a subsgstew of dertvatLonaLLg cLosed MorLds Ls defLned; for poss Lb L L Ltg a subsgsteM coMprLsLng consLstent MorLds Ls Marked out; for naturaL LaMLLkeness a subsgsteM of phgsLcaL MorLds Ls dLstLnguLshed^; and so on for other cases of subsgstew and group seLectLon. $I- The Mang MorLds approach to the "Uhg does angthLng at aLL exLst?" quest Lon. -3- There ere Many canvassed answers to thts questton, and stLLL More Mays of trytng to dtsMtss Lt. RLL dtsposat the atteMpts are defective, 3nd Most of the canvassed answers are unsattsfytng (so Grtfftn and I devote a good deat of space tn UQ to showtng). One approach that ts not inadequate — but perMtts however devetopMent tn severat dtfferent dtrecttons - ts the Many wortds approach. It ts true (and argued eLsewhere, e.g. JB) that R) SoMe thtngs extst. Thts truth enjoys a Modat status, that of conttngency tn fact. weaker ctatM sufftees, naMety But, to begtn, a C) It ts conttngentty true that sone thtngs extst. For the extstence that Most thtngs enjoy or regret ts conttngent. The obvious truth of the More controverstat ctatM that nothtng necessartty Left open for the present. extsts, can be NeutraL wortds ModeLLtng of theMe C) yteLds dtreetty a Many wortds picture, wtth soMe wortds, tnctudtng the actuat wortd T, contatntng extstents, and wtth soMe posstbte wortds contatntng no extstents (but perhaps soMe nonextstents). Likened to a dtsp Lay of baLLoons: DIRGRRH 3. Static pteture of a 0 : 0 : 0 Object doMatns contatn 0 ____ _________ extstents 0 0 : 0 0 worLds ModeLLtng for theMe 0). 0 : 0 0 It can be 0 00 DoMatns contatn no 0 extstents posstbte worLds Such a neutraL nodeLLLng begs no sertous onto Log teat questions, invotves no ontoLogtcaL prodtgaLLty. For tt ts not assuMed that any of these Ln worLds extst, any way. (It ts not dtfftcuLt to represent what does not extst.) Nor need Lt prejudtee Matters unduty agatnst necesstty theMes such even were Lt Lf Lnterpretatton MistakenLy Lnststed, as as agatnst God-hypotheses. the For stratghtforward of C), whtch aLLows Lt ts necessartty true (under soMe necesstty deterMtnabLe) that soMe thtngs extst, a retated Many worLds pteture woutd resuLt; the dashed LLne woutd stMpty Move down the diagraM). But Let us st Lek wtth what ts rtght, C. It ts More reveattng to take theMe C) as tensed - after aLL extstence ts existence now (JB chapter 2) - and to tntroduce, what further Lnvesttgatton wLLL require, dynaMtcat ModeLLLngs. Then, wtth soMe evtdent eMbrotdery, the foLLowtng sort of pteture eMerges: -4- Dgnantc ptcture untverses. DIRGRRfl t*. MorLds of nodeLLLng of thene C), ML th sanpLe t 3 EXI5TEHTS (FULL CONSERVRTION) RLse and faLL of HD ] A Lt SOMET IME EXISTENTS^ R NULL LJORLD f* ExternaL ttne scats (tsLgnLfLes the Locat present) Consents. r-bjch Ls presupposed Ln the wag the pLcture Ls draMn (e.g. that sone Measure of exLstents C3n be obtained, bg Mag of partLcLe nunbers)^ but these presupposLtLons can be nodLfLed or renoved. The such as sane sort nodeLLLng serves aLso to vaLLdate thenes LLnked to C), of D) There mag have been a tLne Mhen nothLng exLsted. ConsLder seLectLon, noM (or done Ln terns of of the cructat wetter of T-seLectLon, L.e. factuat Mortd 6-seLectLon, L.e. referentLaL sub-Mortd seLectLon). ThLs Ls certaLn features these Mortds have, such as contaLnLng entttLes, LncLudLng observers, exhLbLtLng LLfe, nanLfestLng LnteLLLgence or wLnd - to antLcLpate features conLng up and sonetLnes proposed for MorLd seLectLon. Such seLectLon pLcks out thts MorLd fron the ensenbLe of MorLds (our Mortd aLso, as Lt happens). Rnd the Mortd thus seLected LncLudes exLstents. Mhg does angthLng at aLL exLst? Because thts MorLd, T, LncLudes, happens to LncLude, extstent objects. To thts extent Lt Ls -5- a natter of fortune - qood it night be hazarded, since the worLd exhibits enough that is good 3nd fortune, enough potentiaL for good. Rs a contingent Matter, this worLd contains (in its object donain) '.tens that exist. So T-setection deLivers a worLd n3king it true objectiveLg that sone things exist.^ The answer Mag seeM trite; that but is in Measure Large because the and answer are taken in isoLation, apart froM issues as to the detaiLs question of the process, the how questions, such as H) How does it happen that soMething exists? The issue can be considered in uLtinateLg exists is question terns this of of nass-energg, since evergthing that kind (so it is argued in JB chapter 9). To the H ) How does it happen that sone Mass-energg exists? tMo sorts of answer are possibte. FirstLg, there is the conservative answer: sone atwags existed. There is an end Less ongoing sea of Mass-energg, which sinpLg fLuctuates, Moves, recgcLes, etc. There are pLentg of probLens with this answer; for instance, phgsicaL prob Lens, such as how did the Big Bang of standard cosMOLogg occur, what was happening before it? But there are aLternative MatheMaticai stories now being toLd, for instance, of a Massive singuLaritg Located in space (rather than at phgsic3t tine t = 0 as with the Big Bang), which trg to offer a phgsicaL account of a continuous universe (see e.g. G. ELLis). Rnd the singuLaritg stories offered can be enriched (aiong Lines rather Like what wiLL be ventured in the case of the second answer). RLnost aLL traditionaL phiiosophicai and theoLogicat accounts, aLL v^rtuaLLg honage paging to ontoLogicaL assunptions, shouLd be inciuded aMong the conservative, existence-aiwags answers. But the nonnateriaLLst accounts anong these characteristicaLLg invoLve LeveL shifts^^Thei is back to the existence of God or the (uLtinate) One, who, on a higher LeveL, serves as eternaL sustainer, and perhaps fashioner, of the MateriaL universe. The conceptual and other probtens of such answers are sufficientLg notorious. SecondLg, there is stage nothcng existed. The energg. the Rt More appeaiing and siMpLe radicaL answer: at sone that difficuLtg before tiMe, the that anccent Long-received probLeM orthodox of how prejudice, sonething that nchLi fct, is invariabLg reinforced bg again Bang, there was no for this picture is how Mass-energg ever appeared froM the MacroscopicaLLg tranquiL sea of nothingness. past Big can It is no great feat to get coMe froM nothing. The froM nothing nothing cones, ex nihiLo Mistaken ontoLogicaL assunptions (see JB chapter 2). Yet even when these ontoLogicaL assunptions are set aside, there is the awkward natter of C3usai nechanisn. But an unLikeig storg can be toLd, a ngth retated, expLaining how sonething -6- a may (suddenly) emerge from nothing, jet of mass-energy the from sea of nothingness. The story borrows from the quantum theory of the vacuum (or rather, ot suitabie vacuums). There is suddeniy an avaianche of energy borrowing , 3nd mass creation of particies in a concentrated area.& This is the beginning of the Big Bang (at internaL time zero). It is unigue (in experience) because such a singuiarity is very improbabte. (Even a SmaLL Bang wouid be rather improbabie.) The net energy "borrowed" is borrowed on a very Long term (at high interest?), with a gradu3i repLayment pLan. This ties concerning the run-down eventuaL eventuaLLy (though perhaps over this of very a with principLes universe. protracted of thermodynamics, On this story, it wiLL time) subside back into From nothing everything existent originaLLy came; into nothingness everything existent wiLL uitimateLy process. nothingness. It is one thing to such devise 3 story, or rather the (or outLine scaffoLding) of a story; it is another to condense it into science. before But scorn is poured on such a story, Let it be noted that the story is Less bizarre, more and informative, than other extant phiiosophicaL stories. For exampLe, it appears more piausibie than the ideaList story of the construction of the physicaL worid from idea, or than the set-theoreticaL myth of the construction of the entire universe from the nuLL set - undoubtedLy a it as earLy encompasses existent individuaLs, construction, insofar of something existent from nothing, not since, despite orthodox cLaims to the contrary, the nuLL set certainty does exist (JB 9.9). There are reasons for much preferring the second styLe of story to the first - though it may appear to some to viotate conservation principLes such that mass-energy: of as in fact it need not. One is that the end Less mass-energy story faits to account for the presence of mass-energy. By contrast, nothingness does not reguire expLanation: it is, so to speak, the rest position. In terms of the range of possibiiities here, existence is what is unusuaL, what is atypicaL, what especiaLLy caLLs for expLanation, not nonexistence.? Hence the expLanatory superiority of the radicaL answer. Rs one might expect in varying such an obvious and ancient story, and as is easity discovered, scientific condensation and assessment has begun, especiaLLy in the Last decade. The idea that the totaL energy of the universe is zero was considered a human generation ago by Mhitrow&, refLecting on Flach s phiLosophy of motion. More recentLy, Tryon has argued the zero totaL energy theme, assuming a cLcsed universe and appeaLing the standard treatment of gravitationai to If the universe contains just enough potentiaL energy as negative energy. mass to cLose it, then the negative energy must more or Less exactLy canceL the energy (mc^) invoLved in the existence of that mass. Hence, the argument runs, even a a cosmos as impressiveLy Large and ancient as this universe couLd exist as deveLopment quantum vacuum through in borrowing fLuctuation on a a zero-energy vacuum, that is, through grand scaLe in a reiativistic setting. Such vacuum fLuctuations can occur by dispensation of the AE.At --h; when the mass-energy AE of a physicaL object -7- uncertainty principLe approaches zero, its LLfe,tLMe At can becoMe verg targe. OnLg the Merest begLnnLng on reMOvtng certaLn object Lons and to wore scLenttfLc storg MtLL be atteMpted. FLrstLg, there are, LnevLtabLg a such obstacLes Lt seews, onto Log LeaL and verLfteat Lontst object Lons. Hang of these turn hoMever on assuMtng that a vacuuM and ewptg space Must soMehoM exLst, at Least bg Mag of sort of exLstLng contaLner or structure. Such assuMpttons are wtstaken: no (pre-) exLstence need be assuwed. Such objects 3s vacuuws and unoccupLed space sone nonexLstent are and dLstLnctLve Mtth objects assessLbLe MatheMatLcaLLg propertLes. Though theg nag not be access LbLe to observatton, and Ln thLs narroM respect are outsLde the range of experLence, then concernLng tnvesttgattons exactLng for there to LnfornatLon Ls suffLcLent be Made of theLr features. SLnLLar potnts teLL agaLnst the objection that Lt Ls Mrong to Lwpose an externat spatLaL or tewporaL Measure on (Mass-energg) cLosed space-tLMe; for exawpLe, Mhat happened before the BLg Bang, or to ewbed the curved space-ttMe of LnquLre the unLverse Ln a Larger spatLaL or tenporaL settLng. Rs a Matter of fact, cosMOLogLsts wang exh Lb Lt no unease Ln ashLng Mhat happened before the BLg Bang even Mhen assuwLng no Matter before that, though verLftcattonLsM MouLd no doubt such to ruLe guesttons out as weanLngLess or otherMtse out of order. More to the potnt, bounded Metrtcs can atMags be extended (HubbLe ttMe Ls just wtstahe though fruLtfuLLg, soMettnes bounds vertfLcatLontst one are exaMpte), exceeded. and Rnother has been to assuwe that NothLng, stnee nonexLstent, Ls entLreLg Mtthout structure or organLsatton and ungoverned. Indeed tMo dtaMetrtcaLLg opposed poLar v,eMS of Lt have prevented, and even been run together: of NothLng chaottc, as and so excessLveLg rtch, and of Nothing as entLreLg bLank, and so excessLveLg tMpovertshed. Both are Lnadequate. R More tnteresttng ontoLogtcaL objeetton (ratsed bg Rrwstrong) Ls that such an account of the ortgtn of the unLverse takes granted for exLstence the naturaL LaMS, and so does not expLaLn hoM sowethLng ex Latent cane frow objecttons Such confuse truth neo-PLaton Law. LaMS hoLd, but do not vteMs, Mhere LaMS Mtth exLstence, exLst - bg after contrast Mtth nothLng. fashLon the of of neo-PLatonLc reLatLons of unLversaLs, MhLch exLst. On object-theorg are (such as that of JB), hoMever, unLversaLs do not exLst, and so LaMS are not thus extstentLaLLg Loaded. Once truth Ls duLg separated frow exLstence, there Ls of course the further questton of Mhg the LaMS that hoLd or evoLve do hoLd. But thts Ls a separate, and vextng, questton of uLttMate expLanatton.^ SecondLg, are there More technLcaL adwLttedLg shakg phgstcaL account; for quantuM nuwbers of objeettons, instance, that dtrected But Lt the Mtth the the vacuuw MtLL constst equaLLg of Matter and antt-Matter, and qutckLg vantsh agatn, Mhereas features of the unLverse perstst tMbaLance. agaLnst fLuctuattons and suggest noM seeMs that a verg sLLght (and, so Lt Ls satd, deLLcate) tMbaLance earLg Ln the evoLutton of the unLverse after the BLg Bang Ls just Mhat Ls required for present perMLtted features of the unLverse; and such an LMbaLance, on recent (GUT) theorLes, catastrophtc fLuctuatton hardLg excLudes. R thLrd connected obstacLe used to be sertous: Lt -8- has been presupposed that a state can be assigned to the whoLe universe.^ But that is now aLright; quantuM according for neutraL to of) (adaptation the Everett Many-universe interpretation of quantuM theory, a state function i covers the behaviour of the P worLds phgsicaL I (with P c K), which presuMabig evoLve according to a e reLativised Schrodinger equation of the fom SE(T). To soMe expLain of the recent appeaL of this sort of wortd-ensewbLe interpretation, it is worth turning to the interesting and curious business of the phgsicaL constants. The §2. of constants of phgsics and sone of their neat interreLations. natter The interesting cLaiM is that the setting or adjustMent of certain constants surprisingLg deLicate, and if the constants (and soMe of their constant that ratios) were different bg ontg sMaLL Margins, then the actuaL universe woutd very is be with the resuLt, aMong Mang other things, that we shoutdn't be different, here to observe ang of its LocaL passing show. Now the possibiLity of exp Lanation of the specific vaLues of these the in terMS of phgsicaL theory itseLf is not so far exciuded. Perhaps no constants constants in physics are uLtiMateLy fundaMentai, Various ways eiiMinating of constants though seeMS that unLikeLy. are now faMitiar, e.g. soMe represent new scaie factors and are eiiMinated by re-scaLing or choice of coordinates. Others are reMoved by More radicaL ways of reLooking at things, as in Einstein s treatMent of gravitation. But sone resist eiiMination - so far. in For, phgsicaL any theory, what case, fundaMentai is depends and soMe previousLg fundaMentat constants (such as Rvogadro s nuMber) have turned out to be derivative as theory constants on the given shape of advanced new and (deeper) were introduced. There is the reMote possibiLity, obviousLy cherished that bg soMe scientists, that in the end aLL phgsicaL constants can be reMoved, a constant-free (very grand unified) theorg in which aLL constants can be reMoved wiLL resuLt. This is not obviousLg iMpossibLe in the wag that a coMpLete eiiMination of LogicaL constants froM Log teat theorg is, that a finat triuMphant reMovat of the Scheffer stroke froM cLassicaL propositionaL Logic is iMpossibLe. However, it is too Much to expect that a "deep MatheM3tic3i anaLgsis" aLways do the job. For one thing, exp Lanations of this sort do give is an arguMent for this out. can There froM the backward proceeding character of deductive expLanations to More generaL preMisses (appLging the content-incLusion character of deduction proper). There are no MatheMaticaL anaigses without assuMptions, without a systeM of postutates. The hope (expressed by MatheMaticat Carter and others), that generaLLy deeper underlying theories can be found, wiLL not 3iwags be fuLfiLLed, of necessity. Since transforMations, such as seating, aLter or reMove constants, can transfer the Big Bang back to Minus-infinity, and so on, there is no soLid to expLain, underLying the ELLis, for one, aLLegedLy probLeMatic nuMericaL features (so data B. contends). UhiLe it is true that which constants feature, and what their vaLues are, wiLL depend on initiaL choice of units, whatever that at Least some of the constants wiLL emerge. Thus there wiLL be features choice, and vatues which require expianation, and exptanation of the however transforming the done. is For S3me broad tgpe, the present, 3nd immediate future at Least, there is no getting rid of the constants, and white theg to continue figure their numericaL vatues and ratios set some trickg prob Lems. There is the probtem, first of aLL, of describing the reLevant phgsicat data neutraL non—prejudiciaL fashion. The facts of the matter are more or Less a Ln as foLLows:- Present phgsicat theories incLude mang (phgsicaL) constants, which occur in the formutation of Laws and principtes. R number of these constants are fundamentsL, in that theg are not derived from other constants (or deduced from deeper phgsicat theorg). Two things have been noticed concerning fundamentat constants of present phgsicat theorg, both of which caLL for expLanation:If 1) the of certain constants Lag outside a rather narrow band (sur­ vatues rounding their perhaps universe wouLd be ascertained vatue), gross features of the geophgsicaL different. this - hopefuttg without CaLL prejudice, since its contra­ position represents the substantiat core of the anthropic poss ib Le principte - the sens i t iv i tg numer teat f eature. va Lues For record, the the geophgsicaL principte resuLting from contraposition takes the foLLowing form: certain gross features of the geophgsicaL universe are onLg possibie in present form if the numericaL vatues of certain constants Lie within a narrow sensitivitg band. Examptes of such gross features are isLand gataxies, Long-Lived stars, ptanets, recognised ittustrate, water, hgdrogen, heavg carbon, metats. RLL the forces, for instance, exhibit the sensitivitg features. To phgsicat the strong nuctear force were marginattg stronger, nuctei coutd if grow much begond the present Limits and att hgdrogen woutd Long have ago been converted to heLium, with the resutt that there wouLd be no Long-Lived stars (of present tgpe) and no water. On the other side, a decrease in the strong force wouLd prevent the formation of nucLei of heavg metaLs. R dozen further and more of simitar phgsics Literature. sensitivitg mag be assembLed from the re Levant easiLg 2) The Pgthagorean feature. Large numbers arrived at in ions famous turn of Eddington s out these to coincide Large reLation, exampLes astronomicaL computat­ (to within order of magnitudes). Perhaps the most number stating coincidences', the universe is the inverse square of the number as theg are mostLg caLLed, of gravitationaL other exampLes are assembLed in Bondi.) -10- particLes coupLing in the constant. is visibLe (Mang These two nunericaL features sensitivitg features co inc idences. are are (or can be) These nunericaL features are cited LaMs) conservation of inportanttg that in Large exptain to used nunber as evidence Justifging the introduction of various exotic theories (e.g. invoLving phgsicaL Most interconnected, departures exaMpies earLg Mhich froM accepted norMaLLg Mere the "verging G theories of Dirac and Jordan . So Mrites Carter, Mho appeais to soMe differentig exotic principies, anthropic principtes, Mithin features in order froM far opposite the phgsics Bang) thesis: (GeneraL cosMoLogg and Mhich couLd in principLe have been used to unsurprisingLg, the order of the dag in Mag and be great fun. It cosnoLogg. course Of that the is distiLLation specuLation is is Mith the conversion of this stuff to in received MisdoM, or even knoMLedge, that caveats shouLd be Mhen cLaiM froM evidentLg estabLished. But Large cLains on fLinsg foundations are, far fine, i.e. ReLativistic predict theM 3LL in advance of their observation' (p.291) - 3 Large is nuMericat evidence in favour of exotic theories these coincidences being shouLd rather be considered as confirMing "conventionat" Big the noM received cosMoiogicai setting. Mith the heLp of these the anthropic principies he canvasses, as he puts it, that expLain to prejudiciaL, in e.g. that entered, especiaLLg it points to favoured cone Lus ions such as priviLege or design (for huMans) in the universe. Much capitaL has aireadg been Made of the nuMericat features, of Mhat is referred to - gou C3n see the Loading straightaMag - as a cataLogue of extra­ ordinarg phgsicaL coincidence and apparentig accidentsL co-operation' (0 p.110). Here is a tgpicaL beat-up, bg Davies: The structure of the phgsicaL MorLd is deiicsteig dependent on a varietg of apparent nunericaL accidents. hang of the rather basic features of the universe are deternined in essence bg the vaLues that are assigned to the fundanentaL constants of nature, such as G, a, Mp and so on, and these features MouLd be drasticsLLg aLtered if the constants assuned even noderateig different vaLues. ... for nature to produce a cosnos even renoteLg resenbLing our own, Mang apparentLg unconnected branches of phgsics have to co-operate to a renarkabLe degree (D p.lll; sone of the prejudiciaL terninoLogg is under L ined). The part Last is particuiarig Meak: so our ignorance of interconnections is disclosed, ignorance Me Might have forestaLLed froM arguMent theorg integrated resist apparentLg fitting of unreLated phgsics: together. the topics' present if Carter serves is right. RLL the to reveaL is Lack of an theorg is bits and pieces, Mhich Nor do Large nunber coincidences point to ang hidden co-operation, but rather to over Looked connections Mhich can be argued toHards (as bg Dicke, Carter and others) using fairLg conventionaL phgsicaL equations.^ Rs for the hidden purpose terMinotogg, for nature to produce ...', MeLL, the Justificatorg case for its use is not Mereig not evident, but entireLg The sane appLies to other Lacking. terns Mhich Davies and others infiLtrate, such as -11- * 'conspire' (Dp.Ill), 'fine-tuned', deiicateiy baianced', 3ii of which suggests agents with certain purposes. Re Lated happening not objections te rm ino Logy, be some against Lodged accident , it accidentaL; be shouLd of the improbab Le coincidence , etc. R contingent worLd need is not accidentaL that Griffin Lives in Troy, Ontario, though it is contingent certainty. Rn improbabLe worLd need not be accidentaL either. RccidentaL means, according to the Concise EngLish Dictionary (CED), Occurring by chance, unexpectedLy, not according to the usuaL order of non-essentiaL'. The misp Laced for the actuaL worLd; and adventitious, th ings; generaL thrust of the notion is decidedLy accidentaL universe is a misdescription.^ To be sure, there is some considerabLe sLackness in terms Like accidentaL', wh Lch can come cLose aLso, when appLied as in schoLastic theory, to meaning contingent. The term vac i L La t ion, as its of condition dictionary coinciding; concurrence nicety coincidence' a definition remarkabLe iLLustrates makes instance the The pLain: of we L L-known act, fact or apparentLy fortu itous Large-number The coincidences are of the first type; there is LittLe case for making them out as of the second type. argue, To however, that the actuaL worLd is not mereLy contingent, but improbabLe, Lt is hardLy necessary to go so far afieLd as advanced physics. Some more homeiy exampies have managed ho Les wiLL do, such as the matter of aLL the Lucky goLfers who in one. consider Or foLLowing the from argument contingencies, to the improbabiLity of the actuaL worLd. Take some contingency, e.g. that person 1 in some ordering of the audience <^s wearing a green top. She might have been wearing any other cotour. Say there are 100 shades to choose from in the cLothing coLour cards. Then the probabiLity that she is in green is no more than 1 in 100. eut the same sort of probabiLity hoids for every other person on the earth presentLy wearing 3 top, and these probabiLities are LargeLy independent, say in I(US) bit Lion cases, i.e. 10^ cases. That is, the probabiLity of the present array of tops is no more than 1 in loH. That aLready makes present arrangements exceedingiy unLikeLy, before we go into the coLours of other bits of appareL peopie are customariLy bedecked in, the coLours towards 16 improbabLe. Lead of the NonetheLess, of motor cars and so on. So even surface contingencies books, cone Lus ion that the worLd actuaL is astronomicaLLu the situation with the fundamentaL constants does differ. Rn important difference between these day-to-day improbabilities, such as have the spouses we do, and those the constants induce is things these this:- Even that if aLL (coLours, e.g.) had been different, the worLd wouLd not be a very different pLace. Contrast the constants: their significant variation wouLd the we make worLd a very different pLace. Is there a difference in kind, with 3 radicaL improbabiLity appearing as regards the constants, degree? OnLy in degree, picture wiLL serve for the bridging range exampies of cases, or tend for -12- mereLy a difference in to suggest. The same broad everyday and cosmoLogicaL contingencg. §3- Back to mang worLds: improbabiLities and the universaL quantum theorg. Mhere that broad - Leads picture so sgnthesis sought the suggests, as does an increasing amount of cosmoLogicaL theorg - is to the mang-worLds of interpretation Quite evidentLg, worLds semantics are not the onLg semantics improbabiLitg. that can be offered for probabiLitg. few But other offer semantics simitar universaLLtg and informativeness, and some of the aLLeged competitors (not to be taken too serioustg as face damaging circuLaritg in this area, e.g. rivaLs) probabiListic semantics, urn semantics. The idea of the modeLLing naturaLLg It is improbabLe that gou have the spouse gou have , is true bg virtue of this: fact the is that in onLg a few worLds of the modeLLing, incLuding the actuaL one, do gou have gour current spouse; mostLg (insofar as gou occur) gou do not. In preciseLg the same improbabiLities, cosmic wag such particuLar as numericaL vaLues for phgsicaL constants, Lead to mang universe modeLLings. is argument to mang-universes from improbabiLities . The description of the the situation phgsicaL coincidence of probabiListic requires remarkabLe constants, notions, features', e.g. etc. extraordinarg semantics But probabiListic notions caLLs for aLternative worLds. (Thus Davies archerg Les Lie s and This goLf exampLe Of course Davies tends to see worLds used for exampLe). probabiLities as a conceptuaL device (D p.128); Everett invariabLg sees them That reaL. is, what we have emerging is repLag then do improbabiLities the as of universaLs issue! But universaLs do not exist, and nor do these expLanatorg worLds (cf. JB onLg of 8.8). Not Lead to a mang-nonexistent-worLds picture; converseLg the muLti-universe theorg expLains the improbabiLities. envisaged modeL contains ref Leet a huge coLLection of certain intervaL of accuracg); thus worLds the range of (naturaL) vaLues of the fundamentaL constants. RLL initiaL arrangements of matter and motion are refLected in worLds is The worLds. the chances of the present smaLL, exceedingig which expLains (at Least within universe a resuLting various improbabiLities. Does it than matter that we can t normaLLg quantifg these improbabiLities? Rng more we can quantifg the (Large) probabiLitg of nucLear war? No; there is something offensive about the repeated demand for quantification.^ Quantum theorg circumscribed affords situations, a the aLternative phgsicaL situations. actuaL worLd - is seLected, simiLar state mang worLds function is On measurement, one apparentLg at random picture. Least Rt for a superposition of severaL particuLar worLd - the (D p.12!*). This approach enab Les immediate resoLution of an important prob Lem in orthodox quantum theorg. R standing probLem with a compLete universe state function is that sgstem we must have some measuring apparatus that is sgstem. ... Mhen the not itseLf to measure a part of the sgstem is the entire universe, the notion of a piece of externaL measuring apparatus is meaningLess (D p.I2t+). So emerges the famiLiar conundrum for quantum theorg presented aLong orthodox (von Neumann) Lines: If there is nothing Left with which to measure [or otherwise interfere with] the -13- state the of how universe, universe the can transition from a the make superposition of many possibLe worids to one, concrete, actu3t wortd?' (D p.12^) is, There asserts, Davies interpretation many-universes one oniy - which comprehensive however a resoLution 'accept[s] simuitaneous the reaiity of aLL the possibte atternative universes' (D p.I2i+). But, given the route we have come, it is easy to ontccaLLy atternative neutrai this, to direct that see from there an is object-theory. atternative assumes many universes atso, but onty some at any stage are This actuat. It is obvious enough is that the probabilistic spread of quantum states does not require existent states, any more than the range of atternative dress states for someone probabty attired in requires green, the existence of the person in different ctothes. Measurement now shows which wortd/state an object such as etectron or person in. actuatty is an In these terms it does not cotLapse the probabiLity wave packet, or set of worLds, but marks one out. Lihat isn't known measurement is which worLd (or narrower set of worLds) is actuaL (or the before actuat etectron is in). quantum description, Uhen nothing the entire cosmos encompassed is the within Left to coLLapse the wave' (D p,12S). Rather is nothing in the way of externat measurements is avaiLabLe to determine which is the actuaL worLd; however internaL information can be made use of in the usuaL experimentaL ways. To set interpretations many-worids Everett the quantum of theory and in the contrasting neutrai worLds perspective, here (adapting OeLJitt and Graham) are some Leading features: i) R separate cLassicaL sphere externaL to any and every is not required; quantum set-up it makes sense to consider and investigate a state vector for the whoLe universe. ii) The state vector covering the totaL system never universes) (of coLLapses, and so the totatity it describes can be deterministic. iii) LJhat is described through variabLes dynamicaL the jointLy, comprehensive is not aLL equaLLy reaL; vector and the the actuaL worLd but a system comprising many worLds. (On the Everett are state interpretation on the neutraL worLds these interpretation they are not, other worLds than actuaL ones Lacking of any sort of reaLity.) iv) Through chronoLogicaL deveLopment of the dynamicaL the state vector decomposes naturaLLy ref Leeting a progressing branching of the into system orthogonaL universe worLds) into a set of mutuaLLy unobservabLe worLds. variabLes, (and (On account this is described as a continuaL spLitting into vectors system the of Everett equaLLy reaL worLds; but not in neutraL theory which disposes of this reLativism.) v) In each worLd good" measurements yieLd definite resuLts, and in many -14- worLds, incLuding the actuaL, famiLiar statisticaL quantum Laws hoLd, indeed C3n be derived or approximated. *- -^ince the neutraL version directLg avoids mang of the to theorg, what is the case for the Everett form? In main part it consists Everett simptg of mistaken ontoLogicaL assumptions, as such objections the what that ReaLitg overactive an principte, has phgsicaL properties must exist.The further argument that aLL branches must be equaLLg reaL, is not compeLLing. Thus DeMitt contends: Because there exists neither a mechanism within the framework of the formaiism nor, bg definition, an entitg outside of the universe that can designate which branch of the grand superposition is the reaL worLd, aLL branches must be regarded as equaLLg reaL (p.178). But we can easiLg incLude actuaL worLd seLection (as group worLd seLection) within cone Lus ion does not foLLow. the weLL and framework; other as given difficuLties the Everett specific, there is, Ln the first pLace, reaList theories such Everett's. as permissive regarding such worLds. In reaList-reLativist a demarcation SecondLg, fact, the however, interpretation theorg avoids. To be faced prob Lem not neutraL theorg the of this the intended It has been objected (e.g. bg Lewis) that the neutraL worLd encounters kinds neutraL bg is too theorg is restrictive about worLds; and few or none of worLds of contemporarg reaLists (^uch as Lewis) get into the picture, since aLL such worLds incLude as existents certain universaLs. OnLg neutraLised anaLogues of such worLds appear fn case, the theorg can be as restrictive as is appropriate about ang In 7). aLso (see which worLds are phgsLeaL, or phgsicaLLg possible. Requisite subcLasses such worLds phgsicaL can marked be out conform tig to phgsicaL Laws and through framework requirements (e.g. that the ensembLe forms a HLLbert space). it is an iLLusion that reaLism as Moreover soLves the reLevant demarcation probLem. It simpLg covers it up, in an unsatisfactorg wag. highLight To us varg a in stock of coupLe pertations, some of what is different in a neutraL iLLustrations of reaListic interpretation, the ontic mang-worLds Let inter- the famiLLar two sLit interfer­ wag. Consider first ence affair. On a straightforward the neutraL approach, we appear forced to concLude that each eLectron traverses both sLits in a wave Like form' (Les Lie LI, p.I!+6), is to the dcaLectic interpretation that the eLectron goes through that both sLits. The mang- worLds approach avoids such contradiction^, aLLowing eLectron to traverse just one sLit in the actuaL worLd - onLg in another branching from this, the the worLd, eLectron traverses the other sLit, therebg inducing probabiListic interference with the actuaL-case eLectron. The wave function provides a superposition of two such possibLe cases, not two actuaL cases. In the transition other worLds are not mang-worLds theorg). from phgsicaL (or potentiaL) worLds to the actuaL one, 'destroged' (as LesLie suggests in his criticism of Nor is the interaction of worLds causaL. There are few or -15- no causaL effects even on the Everett reaLity version; is spiitting thus not not actuaity observed (cf. virtuai worLds, reLations, etc.). Though there seen, are transworLd interreLations on object-theory these do further criticaL point is that physicaL worLds are not probabiListicaLLy The entities. as exist not independent. But that s aLright; since probabiLity is an natter, intensionaL probabiListic interference is unprobLenatic (cf. "possibiLity" interference). scattering exanpLe where an eLectron is Consider next Davies at fired a proton. The probabiLity wave in such scattering represents a set of worLds for the eLectron. 'The quantun wave provides a Measure of the probabiLity of finding the eLectron 3t the Location: where the eLectron is Most LikeLy to be found ation, and disturbance is greatest there the wave (D p.l2i*). Fleasurenent deterMines the Loc­ so aLters the probabiLities, thus on the orthodox view reducing the wave. Recording to the Everett on however, interpretation, neasurenent the universe divides into two, ... one containing a right Moving eLectron ... Each worLd is equaLLy rest inhabiting each since it is not The observer conscious upon that MeasureMent down-right is spiitting so thus, by occurs; the for there certain a is so near­ probabiLities, anending scattering, that, possibie the because of the uncertainties physicaL states of universe, corres­ ponding to the probabiLity wave, are increased. Lihere there was one for the actuaL possibLities). worLd in possibiLity regard, now there are N Many (N Mirroring the this R nany-worids interpretation of physicaL theory provides a naturaL for neutraL a new state function resuits, appearing to coLLapse 'the wave. since RLL that happens wuth worLd branching is guaranteed copy worLds. But onLy one worLd is actuaL, and represents the (reaL) of universe. Heasurenent can deterMine which this is, and one spLits, MisLeading. There is no spiitting; rather in quantuM processes worLd-branching takes pLace, rep Licat ion atso wortd . Even on the Everett interpretation this is inaccurate, it interpretation ... principLes which aMong seLect detinit or wortds, as setting what are caLLed anthropic principLes, and aLso non-chauvinistic reptaceMents for then such as geophysicaL principLes, can serve to do.^ Rnd in this setting expLanations, of a sort and of varying adequacy, The of aLL the nunericaL features can be furnished. under Lying reason is not (siMpty) that there wiLL aLways be sone universes, which are duty seLected, where the nuMbers coMe out right, but that sone and universes conditions (for of the right sort are aLso decent physicaL universes (a Much More difficuLt requirenent to satisfy). sone such coincidences) It is as these, furtherMore, that are observed (by us), contain universes carbon and water LocaLLy, and so forth. It is then no surprise that we perceive a universe to which so Many speciaL conditions pertain, for we have seLected fron the enseMbLe onLy by our very existence' (0 p.126). But it again, taLk of our seLecting is MisLeading (though taLk of seLection, or naturaL seLection, is not). It is rather that, as a contingent natter, we happen to inhabit such universes^. Rnd such taLk negLects the iMportant point that further work is required, for satisfactory expianation - that piausibte argunents, not invoLving us, but connecting gross geophysicaL features with nuMericaL features, have aLso -16- to be suppLLed. In thts Mag, ustng the MorLd-ensembLe hgpothests ... [but] MLth[out] the Meak anthropLc prLncLpLe, Lt Ls possLbte to discover pLausLbLe arguments to pLn doMn the vaLues of aLmost aLL of the fundamentaL parameters p.129, a centraL part of hLs cLatm). Indeed DavLes hotds out the negatLng but (D prospect of beLng abte to do much more, constraLnLng the dtmensLonaLttg of space and ttme, the number of quarks and Leptons, numbers of fundamentaL forces, That reaLLg MouLd a sgnthesLs of consLderabLe poMer. It Ls a sgnthesLs, gtve moreover, MhLch can be absorbed or sLmuLated MLth Ln a upon mang-MorLds neutraLLsLng prLncLpLes MorLd bg etc. quantum seLectLon theorg prLncLpLes. and cosmo-Log LeaL repLacLng NonetheLess sgnthesLs, the anthropLc DavLes, the LLke maLnstream phgsLcLsts he artLcuLateLg represents, Ls uncomfortabLe MLth ang such that he LndLcates, ang such grand pLcture, and rLghtLg so, as the 3S sgnthesLs anthropLc expLanattons LnvoLved are far from entLreLg satLsfactorg. HostLg he seems to hope Lnstead that contLngencLes MLLL aLL be expLaLned as necessLtLes of (proposLtLons phgsLcs grand a pLcture, necessarg grand at Least Ln foLLoMLng Log LeaLLg from another theorg). But the hope Ls mLspLaced; Ln Large unLfLed measure Lt represents 17thC ratLonaLLsm over agatn. SometLmes, hoMever, he seems to feet desLgn Ln the untverse. - Ls Mhat features: to supposed emerge, and does emerge, from the numerLcaL Mhat anthropLc prLncLpLes vs. MorLd seLectLon prLncLpLes. Uhat Ls supposed to emerge depends upon hoM the matter Ls set up, hoM the pLcture emphasLaed. Ls Mhat presented, For exampLe, DavLes and LesLLe both set thtngs up so onLg tMo optLons are supposed to be open. In hLs Preface to Da^Le^ Ls The RcctdentaL UnLverse, suggests the sgstematLc aLternatLves are eLther reLLgLon or an anthropLc prLncLpLe. R sLmLLar cLaLm appears Ln LesLLe, Mho puts the aLternatLves as (ethtcaL) necessttg or anthropLc assumptLons. Thus hLs concLusLon (to L2, p.81) The cosmotogLcaL evidence can suppLg __ forcefut grounds for vLeMLng at Least one of these thtngs ss true. (1) God Ls reaL, though presumabLg as a creattve ethtcaLrequtrement rather than as a dtvtne person Mho LLteraLLg destgned our LLfe-contaLntng cosmos. [So the unLverse extsts because Lt shouLd.J (2) There extsts a Mortd EnsembLe [so the condtttons LeadLng to Ltfe are bound to occur someMhere (L2, p.55)J - and the attempt to dertve aLL the fundamentaL charactertstLcs of our cosmos from some untfted FLeLd Theorg Ls tn error. DavLes LnsLnuates that the obvtous Lnference from the cat3Logue of numerLcaL features Ls thts: a htdden prLncLpLe seems to be at Mork, organLstng the cosmos Ln a coherent Mag (p.110). Thts runs paraLLeL to argument from desLgn, hardLg an Lmprovement. One of the prLncLpLes htdden Ls hgpothests; but another Mhtch DavLes (unLtke LesLLe) generaLLg anthropLc prLncLpLe, to LncredLbLe accuracg 3nd Ls some sort of God favours Ls the a gutdtng prLncLpLe Mhtch serves to fLne-tune the cosmos for us (humans) - or Ltfe, or Ltfe-supportLng sgstems, or __ ? Or for observers,or LnteLLLgence, or not for angthtng. The chotce offered Ls reaLLg then an oLd famLLLar one, faced bg thtnkers at Least stnee the (so-caLLed) EnLtghtenment: God or Han, or after a recent ftrst correctton and Mtth a different emphasts, Humans -17- or God. In fact burted under duaLitg, this is aLreadg as (Science) or Hunans or God. However the a nang tenpts favoured which option, Phgsics excLuded, in error . Rnd it is we as seen: have (coMprehensive) phgsics without netaphgsics, no scientific theorg no is Much scientist and phiLosopher, is increasinqLg seen as excLuded, as forbidden fruit or even as there at Least a three-wag choice: Phgsics giinpsed, without Large assunptions - which stands on its own. But further afieLd there is get is which option, another not excLuded: option here canvassed. The ciain to be eLaborated is this: no (deep-ecoLogicaL) principies of a tgpe not aLreadg required for Low LeveL senanticaL purposes worLd seLection principies) are caLLed for in expiaining the nunericaL (naMeig, features at Least as satisfactoriig as nor huMans Neither principies, gods such be upon popuiarig aLreadg foreshadowed, doing. in More in reMoving huMans features god-Like (and, universe. the principLe cones in a varietg of anthropic verg precise (incLuding Barrow's biocentric reforMutations). SoMe exaMptes give the inpression:- The existence as observers seLection bioLogicaL (D to the own used be can existence a as constants' (ibid). This presents severaL for renoving underiging ngsterg is verg different fron nunericat of expLanation, our p.viii); effect, ... to expLain the otherwise Mgsterious nuMericat disentangie; expLat,ning wiLL idea is to reiate basic worLd features to our own vaLues of the fundanentaL phgsicaL issues as such coLourfuL for nainstreaM phgsicists, atMost none of then prettg MostLg the upon hunans, associated inteLLigence) fron a new speciaL pLace Rs succeed options other the are essenti3t. Since gods do not figure in anthropic wiLL focus the incidentaLLg, forMS, object-theoru far-out the features. sorts, various or Rnd nag these turn in have further theg Mag be siMpig contingent, refLecting seLection without specific purpose. Sone phgsicists go so far as to ciain: our existence constrains the structure of the universe, indeed it even it (0 p-112), for to us , quote froM Hawking and CoLLins. connection in this sweeping context h3s been dubbed this j^s Davies the does, have nothing specificaLLg to do inteLLigence, or with Life, etc. The Dicke argunent, for Eddington-Dirac expLain coincidence, is based of principLe : anthropic the show with what work the or hunans, with designed exanpLe, to onig on the presence of heavg eieMents, and so gives but a hint of bioLogg, if that. So reversaL Invoking the huMan forMuLaticn of the principLe (D p.112)! But quite generaLLg the argunents advanced, which do principLe seLects reaLLg there is no spirit of the Copernican revoLution' in this fashion (pace D p.115, barter, and others). The conditionaL principLe estabLished bg the Dicke arguMent is essentiaLLg J) If [because, g^ven] there exist heavg eieMents, then the universe is such that the Eddington-Dirac coincidence ho ids. The fuLL expLanatorg argunent conprises, as weLL as the detaiLed phgsics that goes toward J), the nodus ponens inference: -18- The Eddington-Dirac coincidence hotds. There exist heavy eLements, J) More generaLiy, the anthropic way gives principie to physicatiy a argued conditionai scheme of the enthymematic form K) if F then T, or its contrapositive K ) if not-F then not-T, where F is a hard factuai ciaim or more commoniy its existentiat reiativety generaiisation , and T is a more theoretic3i ciaim concerning typicaity features of the worLd, such as numericai features. The short form of anthropic exp Lanation, or better status quo expLanation, is then the argument form F, if F then T L) . .T. famiLiar ontoLogicaL proofs, for instance of an externaL worLd from the Moore s fact that exist, hands arguments. such omit typicaLLy proofs phiLosophers just are difference The is that the soLid argumentation that goes into estabLishing the conditionai schemes of status quo expianations; for instance, makes LittLe effort in this direction, and the required entaiLment rather Moore evidentLy faiLs to hoLd (see fn 30). Other formutations of the anthropic principie in the Literature are than better those hardLy 3tready exhibited. LesLie, who at Least (Like Barrow) moves humans a LittLe off centre stage, puts it in this counterfactuaL way: if our universe had been [everywhere] hostiie to Life then nobody wouLd be observing it (L2, p.66). If the consequent simpiy contextuaLLy impiies that something a Live is doing the observing, then the principie is ana Lytic, and scarceLy up to the intended expLanatory tasks (without requisite information that the the universe contains Life, and much eLse being separateLy pumped in). MhiLe if does not require this, it appears fatse; the Latest seeing-eye robot consequent did survive the hoLocaust, or did just happen as a resuLt of the quantum fLuctuation. In such as Dicke's most purported argument. offers faces reLated difficuLties: worLd appLications of the anthropic The other version of the principie LesLie NecessariLy we conscious beings observe a which is Life-containing (LI, p.lt+1). Rs it stands, this is faLse; for we mightn t exist. Nor wiLL appropriate deLetion consciousness retain we' of fix things. the worLd is, Me might but not be observers, aLL being in vats. But repaired the version is pretty use Less. It bears onLy tangentiaLLy (through that vacuum any case the formuiation Lacks sufficient generaLity; it faiLs to connect appropriateLy with scheme, the but contingency, Life its consequent, containing) on what is at issue concerning numericaL features. The materiaL on us, on observers and the Like, is strictLy irreLevant, a hang-over again presumabLy constructions of quantum theory. -1?- from bad ideaList * The that the Copernican principte has suffered some sort of set-b3ck idea because of the essentiai rote of anthropic principies in explaining Large-number can be traced back through Carter, who heLped popuLarise the rote coincidences, between of anthropic principies and made the (rather obscure) distinction strong weak has been exaggerated subservience to the 'Copernican principte' [which is] that we must and not assume principies. anthropic gratuitoustg that we Recording to Carter, there occupg a priviLeged centraL position in the (C p.231). The regrettabLe tendency, he sags, has been to universe extend the to a most questionable dogma to the effect that our situation cannot principte be priviLeged in ang sense ... (in extreme form ... the 'perfect cosmoLogicaL principLe ...)'. The Latter assumption is certaintg untenabLe (as Dicke pointed because the universe is bg no means spatiaLLg homogeneous on a LocaL scaLe out) and speciaL conditions (of terrestrial temperature, chemicaL environment) do prevaiL on Earth. But its removaL does nothing to undercut Life the Copernican principLe, or to boost the anthropic principLe in the wag thinks Lt For does. is Carter his bracketed comment after his first formuiation of the anthropcc principle is that Lt for requisite aLthough our situation is not necessaritg centraL, inevitabLg priviLeged to some extent' (C p.291). It is doubtfuL that our position is centraL; whether it is so priviLeged depends on the intended contrast, but whatever the privilege is, it hardlg seems inevitabLe. Carter gives severaL non-equivaLent formuLations of the anthropic principLe, the first of which takes the quasi-anaLgtic but ambiguous form, LJhat we C3n expect to observe must be restricted bg the conditions necessarg for our presence as observers' (C p.291; repeated D p.119). This is certs inLg not the same as Davies condensation of it, what he caLLs the weak principLe, that observers construaL, restrict the observed'. On the obvious (but Less charitabLe) this is but rampant verificationism, of a tgpe verg familiar however from interpretations of quantum theorg. Uhat exists is independent of observers; and observers, especiaLLg remote ones, mag have no significant impact on what iL5 observed. The condensation is accordingLg false. So also, for different reasons, is what it condenses. For one thing, our expectations mag run astrag. True, what we observe is restricted bg the conditions for our doing just that, nameLg being as observers. But this tautologg imposes no phgsical constraints, being equaLLg true for Xing as observing; and no such connection is appeaied to in ang of the derivations of coincidences that Carter sketches. Once again aqain the present arguments never have angthing in detail to do with humans, or even "observers 4-c? -20- .2-1 (and surety animats observe). Fit best the arguments are directed to the presence of water or carbon 12 or some such - things sometimes erroneousiy equated Life, and often, rather dubiousty, said to be necessary for Life.^S The situation is of this sort with Carter's "iiiustration" of the weak better Locat) anthropic principte, which he formutates as foitows: 'we must (or be prepared to take account of the fact that our Location in observers universe is existence as the necessariLy priviLeged to the extent of being compatibLe with our p.233). In order to get to grips with this recondite formuiation (C Let us remove the initiaL intensionaL functors (which my empiricist friends to with assure are me not essentiaL in physics, despite ubiquity, and their physicists procLivities to modaLs). Now our position can hardLy be priviLeged (despite Carter s tru necessariLy since human-types just might be itaLicization), uniformLy distributed through the universe or again might not exist at aLL. LJhat necessity there is enters in a different way. LJhat we are Left de Let ion, with since misLeading, probabiListic arguments suitabLe for Life in the universe (some detaiLs justified is Like more something unique (though principte this need require of Hh3t may be met. In this humans we are Long-Lived stars Rnd stiLL much more than a weak is dragged in. It is enough, for seLeet ion, universe contains Locations, neighbourhood Sag3n). we're working at it); even on Terra much of the rest of the animat kingdom is simitarLy favoured. seLeet ion in priviLege of habitats miLLions suggest are to this: we are favoured in that the physicaL conditions for our existence, as observers, are hardLy due Our Location in the universe is priviLeged to the extent of is then: be',ng compatibLe with our existence as observers'. But this ciaim cs after in where fact heavy Like the earth, in the metaLs occur, and so on (for certain other pureLy geotogicaL features). BoLtzmann s expLanation of the present high degree of which Ls extremety improbabLe cosmic organisation (in a thermodynamicaL setting) is aiso said to appLy a weak anthropic principte ; witness this the onLy reason that we are priviLeged to exceedingLy untikeiy occurrence is that our very existence [etc.J -21- O.2.2.. * depends upon the condition which atone can be bg estabiished remarkabte that (D p.123). But again onLg gross phgsicaL organisationat principLes fLuctuation are seLected for; and no more than a weak seLection principte is required. beveraL expLained , so Carter and Davies ci3im, be cannot coincidences simpig bg a weak principte (at Least in the muLti-universes). of is made to the strong (or better gLobaL) principte: appeaL these absence The universe ... must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some in barter s (p.120). formuLation exist is for manifesttg faLse. So, Cartesian paraphrase Carter gives of the strong different cogito ergo mundus taLis est . The worLd wouLd presumabtg not be principte, verg theg is this appaLLing the necessarg; the universe does. Rnd since observers mag verg easiLg never given have evotved in the universe, reasons, stage R coroLLarg of the strong principte in this heaviLg necessitated guise is that observers are conditionaLLg must For so different were the contingent premiss faLse; and certainLg the premiss mag Least be true but the cone Lus ion faLse. But at Loading, necessitg gets and principte the appropriate conctusion. For, propertg ideaLLg this the inferentiaL form, with the into formuLated, abandons paraphrase scheme the as is before, Law Like conditionaL of basic form, if F then T, where however T is a a genuinetg gLobaL cLaim that the universe is such 3nd such (e.g. the universe now contains more matter than radiation). The scheme, so then, recast is feature distinctive some theoreticaL LocaL strong the that T is hoListic assertion 3bout the universe, incLuding essentiaL reference to it, not, as it mag be on about of the weak principte, of the universe, which can readiLg be features stated or restated without reference to the universe. But the distinction is not particuiarLg important. The robust, troubie is it from 3 worLd-seLection gives Lt a misLeading most LawLike Mag requisite within consequent. For exampLe, there is stiLL no (egocentric) thought matter; to phgsicaLLg without Descartes God to puLL him out. universe the taiLor-made is for framework of idea - in essence it cLaims a wag Living organisms are subsequentig assured of existence. [So it is]... akin mankind to inhabit. products secuLar expLanations. teteoLogicaL R duLg cLaims anthropic worLd for (D p.121). Such erroneous presentations have done much to encourage both a new anthropocentrism and the idea that are unLike habitation, 3nd that both the Laws of to traditionaL retigious expLanation of the worLd: that God made the are from Hard as it is to credit, Carter is phgsics and the initiaL conditions obLigingLg arrange themseLves in such that an procLivitg to ideaiism exceLLed bg Davies, who sags of the strong principte that that in route respectabLe Carter's (exhibited in C2)), he mag weLL get stuck in the argue to bounds to the intended phgsicaL given and of satisfactorg impression antecedents for the scheme, and makes it presentLg impossibLe appropriateLg verg perspective Carter's extravagant Cartesian paraphrase of the strong with that is principte nor on a par reformuLated Davies with, strong and in schema expLanations anthropic competition supports design with, none of the makes regarding the universe. Nor, as wiLL appear, expLanations, when made presentabLe, -22- akin to retigious features of the worLd. The expLanations take different LogicaL of explanations forms and LnvoLve quite different ingredients. To see what is reaLLy required for the strong schema to operate, it pays to Look at Then appLications. it becomes evident observercentric that considerations are strictLy irreLevant. Once again far stronger, and biocentric more dubious, conditions than are required for the estimates actuaLLy made been For introduced. instance, (BoLtamann) K, is a good exampLe of a prediction based on what strong' anthropic principLe' (C p.23^); (8) is as foLLows: K aLL f < that is 2 " Tl_ 5 have according to Carter, his condition (8), which imposes an order of magnitude upper bound on cosmoLogicaL But and constant may be termed the 3 ' "P , P invoLved in obtaining this bound, retevance, is the of assumption that ' the un iverse is not radiation dominated aLL its [finite] Life (i.e. that the matter contribution ... to the mean mass density ... becomes greater at some stage Insofar this as is than the necessary radiation (C ...)' contribution pp.233-^.). at aLL - since the estimates concern onLy very broad features, and not LocaL variations - it is 3s necessary for Lichen as for Larkspurs. DLL that is required is a sLightLy stronger worLd seLection principLe than mereLy that worLd contain heavier eLements at some stage; but stiLL the onLy a gLobaL geophysicaL principLe. Rnd this is aLL that here. The same set of points amounts to appLies to Carter's further use of the strong principLe, to estimate the Lower bound on K, which appLies the conventionaL that gaLax Les ... are formed by condensation, starting as reLativeLy hypothesis smaLL density fLuctuations in an otherwise homogeneous further The strength tendentious assumption in background (C p.2St+). this appiication is that gaiaxies are necessary for the formation of stars and hence of Life (C p.23!*). NonetheLess there are arguments for the strong anthropic principLe, though faLLacious ones obviousLy. They come firstLy from positivism. It is cLaimed that if the universe exists then it must be observabLe; so there must be observers - a modaL faLLacy. Davies (in his exposition of Barrow and not argues universe which from the faLse premiss that onLy what is observed exists, that a did then others) admit observers is meaningLess' (D p.I21). This is ideaListic garbage. They come secondLy from an aLLeged expianatory rote, in expLaining coincidences. But it is unnecessary for this purpose as initiaL worLd seLection wiLL serve. They come thirdLy from human chauvinism; thus, too human existence is said to be responsibLe for the very speciaL structure of the universe' (D p.121)! The connection is not however causaL; so what is it supposed There is be: teLeoLogicaL? thus a serious probLem as to how this responsibitity, hardLy evident, is exercised. FinaLLy a strong principLe might uniformity to - one principLe to cover be argued for on grounds of aLL cases. But better a weaker correct -23- principLe than a strong faLse or geophgsicaL principLe wouLd suffice Rnd principLe. dubious doubt no a weaker aLL phgsicaL constants. (Of course, for there reMains the natter of this worLd seLection. This worLd does exhibit Life, incLude hunans, and so on. But these features, Like the present species of does eucaLgpts expLanations, or reLevant, cLasses of worids.)"^ and are RnusingLg, astroLogicaL and More converses hunan affairs; white under gerMane not the to extravagant anthropic principies are to astroLogg, ceiestiaL events infLuence anthropic hunan anaLogue, affairs infLuence CeiestiaL events and processes incLude those of the sun. Moon events ceiestiaL its are abstracted fron in seLecting expLanatorg Recording other. each of wonbats, grazing of whereabouts and and other pLanets (especiaLLg). Rnd these certaintg appear to have an (indirect) weak infLuence, especiaLLg through the soLar atMosphere and pLanetarg Large pLasMas, on terrestriaL phenoMena (Fegerabend, p.93). The anthropic converse, in this forM danagingtg anthropocentric and exhibiting an excess of hubris, is Much further froM the truth. Not just the anthropocentric, but the eMphasis of nuMericat features. Rnd despite the bioLogicaL anaLogies, just Lt,ke explanation seLection without vaLues, so even Rs are there there is seLection without seLectors. More, RLthough seLection is sonetiMes accoMpiished through seLectors, often takes not is naturaL seLection. It is not seLection for, for fitness, survivaL, or whatever. Nor, More iMportant is it seLection bg, bg soMe agent. vaLues MispLaced. is insistence, Life is not essent-iaL in Mang worids Le^Lie Despite biocentric seLection without seLecters, randonig or otherwise - this tiMe as in naturaL pLace seLection, which does not require a personified Nature to do the have evoLutionarg theories as/oid ageneg. In avoiding ageneg, seLection is Like that seLecting, as enphasised. Such expLanation can straightforwardig of Darwinian evoLut- ionarg theorg; and seLection contrasts with direction as incLuded in aLternative evoLutionarg Though accounts (cf. DarLington, p.l^ff). anthropic principies coMe in a varietg of forMs, depending upon how the conditionaL scheMa ^nvoLved is fitted out, none of theM, then, does what is saud, none depends essentiaLLg on the presence of huMans, or of Life. SgntacticaLLg, theg etaborate usuaLLg status quo arguMents, of forM L), with factuaL fir^t preMis^ F concerning the state of the worLd LocaLLg (weak forM) whoLe (strong seLection forM). SenanticaLLg, or as a the factuaL preMisses function as worLd principies; theg serve to Mark out the cLass of phgsicaL wortds or to narrow then down to these or those, e.g. to those where heavier eieMents such as carbon occur, those where Long-Lived stars, such as the sun, appear. It is that carbon is sonetiMes taken to provide an "order-of-Magnitude" approxiMation for Life (that is the nearest Long-Lived star is supposed to to hunans provide that the the "approxinations" get); Life as the arguMents a steadg warMth required for the evoLution of Life (but Long-Lived stars, water, and heavier objects are as to true near need get). But these additionaL, and nore dubious, detaiis are unnecessarg for the Main thrust of status quo arguMents, as distinct -24- from their anthropic 3nd biocentric augmentations. meet Given that the worids seiected are of this and that cast - in generai geophgsicai gross Less, up the to constraints — other features of them can be derived (more or standards rough accepted in and physics) in expLained, particuLar, how and that it is that certain (fundamentaL) physicaL constants Lie in restricted ranges, narrow and unexpected ranges. These arguments, duty fitted out, do provide exp Lanations, non-causat exp Lanations, of physicaL features of a contingent, mereLy LmprobabLe universe. Much there is, however, in these most ctaims, that has been contested, from the psycho LogicaL such of inadequacy a universe to the worth of such expLanations, if expLanations they are at aLL. objections to the cosmo-LogicaL synthesis; and finding unLikety, an in comfort and with Prob Lems mereLy universe. contingent, Somehow contingent universes have acquired the reputation of being coLd, remote and uncaring - a not habitat for sensitive creatures. But the reputation is undeserved, since fit contingency does not bear on any of these things. Mhat is contingent can be just as weLL as coLd or neither; caring or not, so far as the appLication sense aLL; at and hot makes so on. One can be warm and comfortabLe in bed on a wet and wintry night. One can be at home, comfortabLe in, in tune with, a tiny part of an improbabLe universe, as some tribaL peopLes are. None of these virtues are Ln any way undermined by contingency, matter of a necessary universe. or aLways assured by the quite separate a degree of harmony between us Furthermore, there can be, or have evoLved, and our surroundings , without principLes, as that our worse, that the universe is universe such exaggerated cLaims, on based anthropic are very speciaL and tuned to us' or, surroundings made for us'. Me humans can be in with tune the without having the universe tuned to us, as we can foLLow and ornament a song on the wind or in the woods. But so far, especiaLLy recentLy, we humans coLLectiveLy are not doing too weLL in attuning oursetves to the worLd. Rs this iLLustration begins to metaphysicaL and psychoLogicaL reveaL, predeLiction^ may pLay a not inconsiderabte rote in choice of, and ornamentation of, physicaL theory, especiaLLy of controvers LaL theories such as quantum theory and cosmoLogicaL theory. In the case of such theories there is a certain bag technicaL so to say tricks, tricks, equations and so on, which are de rigeur - a theory-skeLeton - and beyond that both an interpretation and setting for the bag integrating of theM and suppLying of with some sort of meaning, and them usuaLLy aLso some further formaLism connecting the tricks together or to a wider theoreticaL background. For exampLe, even in accounts of too much in the way of interpretation theory where is commonLy frowned upon, extensive correspondence ruLes Linking the formaLism with upon quantum cLassicaL physics are retied heaviLy. Rt Least for everything beyond the theory-skeLeton, which is what is appLied in most concrete day-to-day appLications of the theory, there is much room for rivaL fLeshing out of the skeLeton - Latitude -25- such as there is in archeological reconstructions of peoples from some scattered bones. Recasting quantum theorg, as in the mang-worlds interpretation, offers not as merelg a basis for fleshing out the theorg non-idealisticallg, but for combining it with general to subject much of the criticism, much of it directed more broadlg at most Happilg as However such recasting, when not reLativitg. largelg ignored (the common fate of nonstandard theories), is criticism. well plural world theories in general, misses the neutral modification. There are firstlg a batch of aesthetic and ontological objections. These commonlg take off from the of unattractiveness duplication or replication of profligate such worLds. LJeLL, tastes and vaLues, Like intuitions, do varg with sub-cuLture. Some of us, who escaped over-exposure to worlds the ReaLitg do PrincipLe, stories illuminating and attractive, indeed verg inviting. So, next, the whole thing is said to be unbelievable: no one can reasonabLg existence believe worLds nonetheless, especiaLLg in explanation. these in (the these unlimited numbers of universes. Granted, we do not believe of) in this either. These other worLds do not exist; but we can make of neutral find heavg Load of objections carrging on about excess use extensive In this wag we avoid a baqgage. ontic also Ue main criticisms based on Occam s razor. (RLL these objections are short-circuit met, in much detail, in JB.) Linked to such Occamist protests are a batch of objections that are pictures worlds effect the to over-engineered, both too complex 3nd including too much baggage. Thus in thermodgnamics a smalt fluctuation producing some order is more LikeLg than one producing Lots of order, one galaxg more LikeLg than Lihg do similarlg we not find ourselves in a one galaxg universe, which is far more LikeLg? The answer is in part: because Less LikeLg contingencies hold. Is the ubiquitg No, (D p.123)? mgsterg instance, the on the commenting of of numbers approaches reasons. in these unwarranted presuppositions. The that the universe was set others Like be explained. For Dicke Thus and Peebles remark, in of the universe for a few conscious individuals, overdesign revealed well one of a thing is itself verg unlikelg. Find just special can, that a single galaxg cosmos might be ruled out bg the can observed galaxies in our universe ... therefore a such evolution further there mag be mang. up Mach's Moreover, principle. questions and remarks are based on various overdesign" for idea, for example, presupposes some individuals; but the worlds picture correctLg avoids thLS assumption. The things in this world that exist happen to be there, probable or not, and often, for reasons we can sometimes explain, not. But there is tittle solid evidence that theg are arranged, for us or others. In its original form the unfocussed "overdesign" objection was mainlg directed at cruder anthropic principles, as were unverifiabilitg and unfalsifiabilitg. a batch of objections The well-worn criticism, that notorious psgchoanalgtic and Marxist principles did too much, being so designed that covered everg protested that case, was redirected from against anthropic principles. it is hard to see how the anthropic principLe can be It used theg was to make testable predictions, because ang theorg inconsistent with our existence is 4 M3nLfestLg Not faLse . such protests been weakened bg avant garde have onLg phLLosophg of science, but, as Carter has poLnted out, anthropLc arguments couLd varLous Ln prLncLpLe have been used to predLct theg Rnd notLced. were faLsLfLcatLon, e.g. where erroneous that unLLkeLg assumptLons prLncLpLes, regards Rs fLrst). under but Ls worLd-sgnthesLs, aLL that worLds the whether Ln wLth cosmoLog Les and of verLfLcatLonLst seLectLon whLch semantLcs, or phgsLcs exLst, LnvoLved of themes objectLons do have some verLfLabLLLtg vLrtue of what Ls meant bg bg bg neutraLLsed ex Lsttng. But the force of these objectLons Ls theorg. as conversLon, object-theorg Granted LnterpretatLon. of Often, Lt (though of weaker forms wouLd be abandoned, other surrendered force agaLnst mang-worLds theories, assume derLved object Lons are LargeLg mLsdLrected, because what are at Lssue are phgsLcaL semantLcs, are coLncLdences premLss factuaL be wouLd verLfLabLLLtg not the anthropLc arguments do admLt of of 3ssumptLons the before coLncLdences numerLcaL neutraL worLds objectLons, the crLtLcLsms of mang-worLd such prLncLpLes anthropLc as geophgsLcaL or prLncLpLes are LntertwLned, and dLsentangLLng the crLtLcLsms Ls enough to partLg So them. def Late aLso wLth the reLated charge th3t the neutraL worLd- Ls Lt sgnthesLs theorg Ls unscLentLfLc or at much turns Least dubLousLg scLentLfLc.PLaLnLg on what Ls admLtted Lnto that esteemed categorg, scLentLfLc. But on most accounts, use of seLectLon prLncLpLes succeeds Ln gettLng LncLuded. Rnd so, pLaLnLg enough, does mang-worLds quantum theorg. Rfter 3LL, Lt has 3pproxLmateLg as the same sorts of predLcatLve and test capabLLLtLes more That fact of narrow empLrLcaL LndLstLnguLshabLLLtg mag be the source of theorg. other compLaLnts, but Lt gtves no ground for the charge worLd Ls seLectLon prLncLpLes excLuded! are It at hand. of scLentLfLc and theorLsLng experLmentLng true that some theoretLcaL and wouLd (per prefer LmpossLbLe) and wantLng to st Lek to a uLtLmate and unLfLed expLanatLons. No doubt such semantLcaL apparatus does faLL fouL of the the substance of the charge, consLder some of the crLterLa often beLng theLr theorg narrower sLmpLg reveaLs further serLous defects Ln such vLews. But to reach that vLews: fuLLer the narrower (hgpothetLco-deducttve) methodoLogg, are uneasg wLth worLds seLectLon, sureLg But phgsLcLsts, and mang phLLosophers, LosLng sLght of what enters Lnto range quantum orthodox scLentLfLc. UnfaLsLfLabLe? SureLg set down for Ln areas where the framework Ls not pLnned down bg phgsLcaL theorg. OvercompLLcated and LnsuffLcLentLg gLven what the worLds theorg Ls Lntended to accompLLsh sLmpLe? Not (e.g. the semantLcaLLg theoretLcaL work Lt Ls aLso put to Ln areas such 3s LLnguLstLcs). Etc., etc. Perhaps the most teLLLng theorLes LLke worLd—sgntheses objectLons whLch agaLnst LncLude status quo arguments, and them, concern theLr expLsnatorg capacLtg. StrangeLg theg have been condemned both as expLaLntng too much - ang thLng at aLL can be brought out Ln some worLd - and as expLaLnLng too LLttLe and beLng trLvLaL. Not both these objectLons are LLkeLg to succeed, as theg tend to undercut one another. IndependentLg, Lt seems cLear that the arguments do provLde expLanatLons, for LnvoLved Lnstance, of the strength of the strong nucLear force. It aLso seems cLear that the expLanatLons afforded are of vargLng -27- depth, + depending in part on the depth of the underlying physicaL theory invoLved, this and the pLausibiLity of the further assumptions made in the arguments. Better exempiific3tions of status quo arguments in physics satisfy not oniy more ordinary requirements for expLanation; they aLso meet assembLed conditions considerable time, by HempeL, mainstream the which conditions on position demanding for represented, some what counted as a scientific expLanation. Furthermore, the chief objections to have more the HempeLian the account that emerged have been to the effect that it is too rigorous, not that it faiLs to provide jointLy sufficient conditions for expLanation. To make a prima facie case that better status quo arguments do provide exp Lanations, it is enough then show to expLanation LogicaL HempeL s that conditions on the (p.2t+7ff) have been met. By contrast conditions design with scientific of the arguments, 3re satisfied. The expLanandum T is a LogicaL adequacy of pattern basic consequence of the physicaL argument eLaborating the schemas F, if F then T; the expLanans has empiricaL content, at Least in the shape of expLanans F; which connection if F then T, provides expLanans are true, Uere a foLLows from arguments using physicaL Laws. FinaLLy, the demanding empiricaL condition of adequacy, that the premisses used in the is satisfied in better status quo arguments. the basic pattern aLso necessary for scientific expLanation, it wouLd be an easy coroLLary that many poorer status quo arguments fait to provide expianations (beginning with Carter s and Descartes is there the and contains general, Laws which are actuaLLy used in the derivation. For, in better status quo arguments, the conditionaL schema, Law Like premiss much quo status that such Cogito arguments), and that arguments cannot presentLy expLain decentLy, '^ncLuding such major puzzLes as Life and inteLLigence in the LocaL worLd. It can be independentLy argued, moreover, that poorer status quo arguments, which patentLy (or short meeting HempeLian conditions, fait to generate satisfactory of satisfying) expianations. TriviaL, dogmatic, forms, such as that things 3re the way they are because that is how they are, represent a virtuaLLy worse of sort. this But possibie. weakening to principte, that what The universe is inhabitabie, because we are here, because ask Forrest so is aLso humans inhabit The universe is suited to inteLLigent Life because there are peopLe such questions upon). focusses inferences, is sLightLy embroidered, are arguments with connecting principLes Such, the earth , case better, or more informative, are those arguments scarceLy which appLy the possibility Like faLL (exampies adapted from the sorts of anthropic arguments These short; patentLy faLL arguments, which they LnvoLve offer no aimost immediate further appropriate basic (HempeLian) argumentation making use of generaL Laws. Given that better status quo arguments do afford scientific expianations, and given further that the arguments do serve to remove and not without predictive force, why have they been genuine puzzLement fauLted as expianations, and sometimes criticised 3S not providing expianations are at aLL (e.g. Forrest)? The main reason offered, that back-to-front , these "expianations" are appears to rest on the assumption that aLL genuine expLanation -28- shouLd be broadLg causaL, and accordingLg exhibit (time-) the direction or controi. Status quo expLanations are certainLg not causaL, and mag causation weLL run counter to causaL direction, expLaining features of the earig the through of distribution present universe of eLements. That is, however, perfectLg in order. For satisfactorg expLanation is not causaLLg restricted either ordinariLg or scientificaLLg. HempeL suppLies severaL different sorts of pattern basic of causaLLg or controL directed (pp.352-3). EspeciaLLg striking in this exampLe opticaL straightforward his of his which are not causaL expLanation or expLanation scientific exampLes regard is a particuLar event...satisfactoriLg of expLained bg reference to subsequent occurrences'; but his exampLe of two-wag where the period of a penduLum serves to expLain the Length of the expLanation, penduLum as weLL as converseLg, is aLso highLg re Levant. For it is too expiaining commonLg assumed numericaL that shouLd coincidences be the presence of water, carbon and the Like in the universe, not vice versa. But there is no iLLuminating reason quo status whg direction shouLd expLanation the instead not in run the as weLL as, vice versa. That of, iLLuminating direction is after aLL from the famiLiar to the much Less famiLiar, and more in need of expLanation. such It is true of course that more simpig means that status quo expLanations ad hominem stgLe of status quo expLanation, for are. Like expLanations, most further unreasonabLg stop deeper expLanation. The expLanation-stopping forms are and form: contraposed inquirers verg for expLanation if it weren t so gou woutdn t be here to ask the question. However such put-downs (in the envisaged persistent Legitimate the those (which Forrest discusses) where the response to a request for the Long. wouLd contexts) not more charge, damaging feature of the universe, Then PF. seLecting worLds where PF hoLds. But the theorg. the then, is that worLd-sgnthesis can expLain too much. The charge is backed up bg the foLLowing sort of consideration. puzzLing deter Theg wouLd be awag in search of further expLanations, such as better status quo arguments mag furnish (at Least for t ime be ing). The not begin in the middLe wag. Nor do theg, except in speciaL, rather theg uLtimate: takes famiLiar, the presence of water and carbon, aLso caLLs for expLanation; but that as quest the charge it Take ang can be expLained simpig bg misrepresents worLd-sgnthesis There is more to it than this. There is a cruciaL argumentative Linkage aLso invoLved, between PF and gross geophgsicaL features of the worLds (near factuaL worLd T) which are seLected. Or, put differentig, the seLection does not take pLace on basis the of PF, but (mereLg) under the constraint of gross geophgsicaL features; accordingLg if the argumentative Linkage from satisfactorg status quo arguments worLd-sgnthesis. is missing, PF is not to be expLained through In short, then, worLd-sgnthesis theorg offers expLanations when bg and then the expLanations mag varg greatLg in quaLitg depending on the depth of the phgsicaL the framework is suitabLg fLeshed out phgsicaL theorg; information invoLved in the argumentative Linkage. EssentiaLLg the same points undermine Forrest's further objection to such -2?- many-worLds explanation, truths; contingent have we aLL do to coaches easiLy as the pumpkins of turning numericsL coincidences. But there is no such free as seLection of phusicaL worLds - which do not incLude worLds vaLidating magicaL as faiL, can schema connecting arbitrary and practices. Status quo expianations may not be easy transformations at aLL, but physicaLLy comp Lex, they are not atways and they as is to posit suitabLy many and varied (p.9). Thus the theory is aLLeged to expLain worLds into that it "expLains" contingent faLsehoods as easiiy an when assumption invoLved easiLy avaiLabte, and the eLaboration of the in , and the argumentative schema issues in a contingent faiLs faLsehood. For a necessary condition that a status quo expianation be successfuL is that the argument be correct; but then given that the argument form is vaiid, the cone Lus ion cannot be simpiy f aLse. is It that satisfactory expianations, with conforming to such conditions of adequacy as deductive vaiidity in and quo status expianations winning in expianations differ from decisiveLy design which are sometimes seen as on an expianatory LeveL competition with status quo and expianations their piuraL-worLds setting (thus e.g. LesLie), and sometimes even confused with them. Design arguments characteristicaLLy take the deductiveLy invaLid abductive modus toLLens form: Things are (surprisingLy) so and so F If a design hypothesis heLd (e.g. the universe anticipated observers, a design-force operated), things woutd be (unsurprisingLy) so and so. If H then F Therefore, a design hypothesis (probabLy) hoLds. .. H Nor in design arguments is the connecting schema normaLLy eLaborated by appropriate scientific argument; nor, where God is invoked, i§; there any way of suitabLy confining the argument scientificaLLy. Thus support first the LesLie's of Larger cLaims is faLse:- the LiorLd EnsembLe hypothesis rather than the God hypothesis. !^e do not have...strong evidence of an EnsembLe' (LI, p.150). for Science does not their existence No branch of physics in a way commanding wide acceptance (LI, p.S3). The main reason is that the Bod hypothesis is not part of a physicaL theory that many-worLd theory is caLLs in the way of quantum theory (thus, e.g., there is no physics text corresponding to DeLiitt and Graham for the God hypothesis), [^hiie the Last cLaim is true, it does not teLL against the truth of neutraL many-worLds theory. Uhat science supports is science, not the the metaphysics it presupposes. Physics is not however aLL of science by any means, and even science doesn't do everything, onLy a rather narrow seLection of things. Richard SyLvan -30- 11 RPPENDIX 1. Some Rncient Rntecedents The Non-Limited is the originaL materiaL of existing things; further the source] from which existing things derive their existence is a iso that to which they' return at their destruction, according to necessity [for reparation]... —----- So, in the 6th Century B.C., said Rnaximander, perhaps among the first aLso to set down a story of the evoLution of humankind.Something the same was said in text, though on the favoured taLe a Heideggerean and Taoist touch was Lent, the with Nothingness repLacing the Non-Limited. In the on beginning, there was nothing; and uLtimateLy, too, there wiLL be nothing. have been paid. The p3raLLeL with Rnaximander can be pressed further. In account origins, of of worLd the contemporary charged pairs of particLes are created in the oppositeLy 'the order, wiLL Reparation process of pair formation from the vacuum; white in Rnaximander's story formation story, this opposites the of which are present Ln the one [the Non-Limited], are separated out from it' (but 'the "opposites" are the hot, coLd, the dry the , the moist, and the rest : see Robinson p.25). There is aLso a phenomenon which corresponds to some Limited extent to the Big Bang, nameLy Vortex. the It seems cLear, however, from the materiaL Burnet assembLes, that Rnaximander's position amounted to the first Less satisfactory resoiution, matter or substance aLways. For the BoundLess or Infinite was a materiaL cause, -^*-*dstance (p. 5k<); it is eternaL and ageLess is brought about the origin of the worids. did — Further, according to SimpLicius, not ascribe the origin of things to any aLteration of matter, but said that the oppositions separated encompasses aLL worids substance". RLso there is in it eternaL motion, in which which makes it a queer he and out . If in that the substratum was which a boundLess body, were is right — and it may not be, especiaLLy given Later ontotogicaL infLuences (cf. p.61) - then the matter is cLear. Rnaximander beiieved there were innumerabLe worids (p.58). These worids were concurrent, not successive. coex istent remains uncLear, but Later in the Whether Bound Less" they tradition (biassed) took them exist, making Rnaximander's position a many-existent-wortds theory. The to Law of compensation, under which for borrowing or variation reparation must be made, becomes the Law of repayment aLL were of conservation. The reparation paraLLeLs the borrowed" mass-energy. The more generaL steering of aLL things - overarching order in naturaL processes - becomes the Laws of nature which govern (reguLate) the processes. 'The orderLiness ... is grounded in the nature of things as such . Rnaximander's account represents an immenseLy -31- important stage in the transition from world-order is myth from science. to first to ... Last 'Hesiod's account of the origin of the anthropomorphic. account Rnaximanders represents, in principLe, a complete break with this mode of thought (Robinson p.27). From this angle the anthropic and idealistic fixes of contemporary science show marked regression. That transition, beyond anthropic creation stories, is also accomplished in the main philosophical essentials of the favoured resolution can where Taoism, be found. Something flowed from nothing, in a seemingly paradoxical way? but not through ang creation or agency. There was a the before time when beginning nothing at aLL existed. The problem of Laws (of nature) was also recognised, and resolved. did Laws not exist (independently at least of things that did) but were exhibited in in things that did exist. So it seems to follow that, stage at restricted property to duty what separated, and was mainly Lacking ascriptions Taoism Such nothing. a and deep in cosmogonic tales, then, from the ^.th C. B.C. until the 20th C., was a plausible explanatory story as to how come from together. of does exist. (Fuller details of Taoist cosmology, under this type of interpretation, are ventured in ecology', written with D. Bennett.) Mhat the which nothing existed, the taws could hold without having 3ny sort of existence, i.e. truth and existence were existence at story a few something could humans are Just beginning to piece NOTES Thi^ passage from Misner, Thorne and Uheeter, p.1212, is given an appropriately grander setting Ln the text. The passage Ls also quoted by DavLes, G p.222, who Lt to Wheeler. In Davies the idea of ascribes foundations for cosmology simple and unassailable Logical is given a different exposure, and is then linked with restrictions, to zero, on God s range of choice of universe to make. 2 Especially by those whose inquisitiveness and sense of blunted or destroyed by the mainstream culture and its wonder h3s educational not been practices, practices much mainstream philosophy reinforces and tries to justify. 3 Indolent philosophers tend to assign those of these questions that they write off (e.g. as semantically defective or as betraying philosophical uonfuslon or hang—upz?) to science. But they are not Just a matter for and scientists tend to come up with philosophically loaded, naive, theories scientists remain, insofar as they address the cannot questions and at often science; enough all. Too many Like too many RustraLian phiLosophers, in the grips of awfuL metaphysics, such as narrow empiricism and/or physicaiism. -32- ^The anaLysis semantical It of naturaL a is Law is that' Law-constrained worLds, naturaL worids. The interpretation ruLe for necessity. Terra, appLy but to Like is It shouLd be noted that geophysicaL features, appLied in seLecting worLds, are not of course confined to systems. in terns of geophysicaL pLanetary other "Rn eLaboration of this type of answer can be further expLoited to heLp why actuaL the standard ot worLd is science expLain comparativeLy so that simpLe, mathematicaLLy tractabLe, etc. HameLy, it is convenientLy so because the actuaL worLd seLection invoLved impLicitLy to render it so, by choice of a serves worLd with the compLexity of richer worLds removed and onLy tractabLe ideaL etements (such as scientific universaLs) adjoined. &RLtern3tiveLy, through quantum and borrowing positive feedback, a massive firebaLL forms. The story admits of much variation. ? The prob Lems, as the questions of the Lattice in diagram 2 indicate, what expLaining phiLosophers does exist, Lie with what does not. In a reLated way, 3LL those not papers on the prob Lems nonexistence of and nonexistents have misjudged the prob Lernatic, and misconceived the onus of proof. For commonLy the probLems concern existents and their behaviour; nonexistents, especiaLLy those functioning in expLanatory rotes as regards existentiai often behaviour, are very weLL behaved by comparison with existents. It has been suggested, by D. Lewis, that the underLying theory of items (of JB) renders everything exists. But it nonexistent, is and makes it 3 reaL probLem, how anything patentiy faLse that the theory of items render everything nonexistent. There are criteria for existence, which are often JB, chapter 9). Every thing nominaLists normaLLy take to satisfied (cf. exist satisfies the to be justified; it cannot (with any pretension to satisfactoriness) just be cLaimed, in the fashion of so many phiLosophers. In any case, Lewis can be simuLated: whatever ind iv idua Ls exist criteria. Beyond that existence has in Lewis worLds wiLL exist in worids-seLection theory. Rnd it is. a genuine phiLosophicaL probLem how anything exists. g in 19t+6; see his cosmoLogicaL text. Llhitrow aLso appLied, more than RpparentLy a quarter of a century ago, PrincipLe , in his what has now been eLevated to the Rnthropic answer to why the dimensions of space are three; nameLy, th3t this atone permits the evoLution of Nan, the formuiator of the probLem'. However 'Uhitrow's reasons concern not mankind but stabLe pLanetary orbits and compLex neurai networks' (LI, p.!^). g Compare the binding energy which keeps etectrons bound to a nucLeus, where correiativeiy energy stored up in overcoming forces of repuLsion is positive. -33- e a story couLd be totd to bring Laws within the expLanation framework. However It wouid teLLing invoLve Laws first evoLved or happened to hoLd, the how before vacuum fLuctuations. (For some interesting specuLation, from which the ontic and anthropic commitment can be removed without totaL Loss, see Barrow pp. 151-2, where "chaotic gauge theory" is considered.) The issue of uLtimate is expLanation again up taken seLf-justifying postulate as serving refLexive, expLanation. Note that in UQ, to the resoLve the matter the especiaLLy of probLem uLtimate, PostuLate Characterisation a of of object-theory is an initiaLLy promising candidate for such a principte. issue is that, on the story as toLd, quantum phenomena assume Another serious decidedLy they course Of macro-dimensions. may, Schrodinger s cat iLLustrates, but perhaps not in the parabLe the as supposed of catastrophic form. In the absence of any approved quantization of general, reLativity, there onLy are Lax physicaL controis on what is in and what is out in specuLation here. Rnd, of course, the second story couid There are other mechanisms for the sudden be rise in eLaborsted other ways. e.g. white mass-energy, of ho Les in geometrodynamics. In his second paper, Tryon makes a rather casuaL beginning on meeting some of difficuLties the with the vacuum fLuctuation theory the cosmos, and of expLains the advantages of combining the theory with that of a (stiLL probLematic) "infLationary" universe, to boost the fLuctuation. But the theory stiLL awaits aporopriateLy detaiLed deveiopment and modeLLing. 12 There are various other issues concerning the physicaL constants, incLuding the question of the (sLow) evoLution of "constants" over time. LJeLL, do evoLve, the they if same sort of probLems arise for the parameters which repLace them (L.e. at each time t, for c(t)). There are putative arguments to the effect that there can be no very grand unified theory, and no finaL eLimination of constants, because any such theory wouid do too much in determ in ing the worLd (and things). But it is unctear at present how such an argument gets duty eLaborated. R tight argument uneLiminabiLity of some physicaL constants from physicaL principLes for the wouLd be of much interest. 13 Th',s is what is reaLLy accompLLshed in Carter. To some extent we have emerging in this area a contemporary scientific numeroLogy. 1L Convergence arguments, e.g. for such things as the Church-Turing thesis, underLying connections, but not co-operation. l^Even Less, seemingLy, is the universe an accident, 'an event proceeding from an unknown cause; something unexpected; a casuaLty, a mishap, l&If however the worLd reaLLy were necessary, such improbabiLity must be grossLy -34- reduced. How can that be: how can these contingencies be not what theg seem? 1? How M3ng worLds? ContinuousLg mang worLds? There is no reason whg not. But the answer is: as mang at Least as required. In object-theorg numbers don t short matter though much, so difficuLties technccaL controL Ls advantage. an are There as to measures, e.g. of fewness, in infinite modeLLings. Yet the notions are Ln order, e.g. among the naturaL numbers primes are few. 18 point, ThL^, and the inestimabLLitg specific of probabLLLties Ln (e.g. Ls argued, though in insufficient detaiL, bg TouLmLn among others meteoroLogg) Bg the wag, sureLg a creator wouLd have increased probabLLitLes bg seeing to a unLverse for fit decent habitation; a variation upon the argument from evLL infiltrates itseLf Ln probabiLitg guise here. 13 worked There are in fact mang proposed soLutions, most of them not theg (because far verg out have onLg few proponents), most of them not comprehensive certainLg (but it couLd be argued that this is a faLse ideaL), severaL of them discussed bg Everett, DeMLtt, Lande and others. 20 MheeLer s sequentiaL modeL another, so satisfgLng the theorg (Like certain offers a simitar range of worLds, but one after 'reaLLtg principLe". EarLLer MheeLer had adopted cosmoLogies) Eastern with in muLtLpLLcitg a both sequent La LLg and Lnto the possibLe; but recent Lg he has abandoned dimen^Lon^,, the Latter, partig on erroneous ontoLogLcaL grounds. 21 It Ls of course not the onLg reaLLstLc-stgie LnterpretatLon whLch does thLs: envisage everu Lande s LnterpretatLon is another. 22 From a neutraL viewpoint, Lt ts entLreLg taLse that atom ... as Me must constantLg engaging in this tgpe of scattering sctLvitg, therebg spLLtting the worLd again and again Lnto a stupendous number carbon-copLes of of LtseLf. The unLverse must therefore be LLkened to a tree, whLch branches 3nd (D p.I25). Nor Ls rebranches universe. 23 To anticipate, schemas of what the form, happens "if the tree-structured sgstern of universes the is as foLLows:- The antecedents of "anthropic" there exist so and so [e.g. observers] then ang phgsLcaL worLds must be such and such", are appLLed to phgsLcaL worLds. Rs there certainLg do exist so and so, narrow ctass the phgsLcaL worLds of are restricted to those that are such and such. gL It cs stLLL reasonabLe to 3sk whg - indeed to e.g. whg do we inhabit it?, whence a Long pose' severaL whg questions, evoLutionarg storg. Mhg are the constants those theg are?, then aLternative answers, LncLudLng brute fact, are among the possibiLities. -35- roundLg defeated Shapiro. 26 bg the sorts considerations advanced bg Feinberg and of Davies aLso suggests that mang-worLds theorg can provide a pLausibLe phgsicaL (as opposed to phiLosophicaL) justification for the strong principte (D p.122 middLe). In fact he never reaLLg shows this satisfactoriig (nor can it be so shown), and in pointing to the power of the m3ng—universe theorg he undermines the strong principte, showing it otiose. 2? arguments are presented in modat form, with the connecting quo status Often scheme set in either necessitated form, if F that) (e.g. T if exist there necessaritg then (it if possibLe modaLities are de dicto and and that invoLved cLaims the It such). if F then T. The modaLitg invoLved is not one of LogicaL contingent nomic of that strength, but can be adequateLg NecessariLg, necessitg, an The error. argument guarantee the concLusion, NecessariLg T, nor does it pretend form these or even in Lowest common denominator form. To attach the (reLative) modaLitg simpig to consequent T wouLd be second is 'it is more than mereLg rather reads that seems represented, as usuaL, through a necessitated connecting schema, one F form, (e.g. what is the case LocaLLg (what observers observe, T etc.) is onLg possibLe if phgsics is such aLwags be and so, then the universe must have, or so conform to, such and such features), or, in quasi-transcendentaL onLg must to do does not so. The is a LittLe more probLematic; but it appears to assert that F is inconsistent with not-T, and so, through obvious connections, the same as the rectified first form. 28 Mhat we have are devices, that fragments of theories, ruLes thumb, of appear to work in a range of cases. and caLcuLating It is these parts that mag generate successfuL technoiogg. The picture is Like engineering. 29 R main charge made bg LesLie against mang-worid cosmoLogies, e.g. LI, p.l^Sff. It is a surprising turn, given the popuLaritg of hgpothetico-deductive methodoLogg, to have it aLso objected that mang-worLd theorg voids induction. Putting chance in controL of inter-worLd differences erodes confidence in our sampLe of ReaLitg, on which our inductions are based' (LI, p.1^.3). this objection gets off the ground (it is transparentLg Insofar cLear as that it does), it depends on assuming the reaLitg of the entire worLd ensembLe. So Lt not Lapses against a neutraL theorg. 30 R reLated phitosophicaLLg important exampLe where the schema does so far is in Moore s proof of an externaL worLd, noted above. The reason is that the existence of arbitrarg materiaL objects, such as hands or does f3it not guarantee that the requirements (order, isoLated unitg, cabbages, coherence, mcnd-cndependence, etc.) for an externaL worLd are satisfied. 31 Rn earLier version of this paper was presented at the RustraLasian Rssociation of PhiLosophg Conference, Rugust 138^. The -36- heLpfuL comments bg David Rrmstrong, Brian Ellis and David Lewis, unreferenced above, were the discussion. commentaries; Both several made during John Leslie and Jack Smart supplied me with worthwhile their points have been incorporated, but some have of been resisted. The initial Univerity preprint series. version W3S published in an Rustralian National 32^ See Freeman, p.IS. for fuller discussion of need for reparation, see Burnet. Rnaximander's on position; the REFERENCES J.D. Barrow, Rnthropic definitions', Quarterly Journal of Royal the Rstroncmical Society 21^ ( 1983) lt+6-153 H. Bondi, Cosmology, Second edition, Cambridge University Press, I960. R, Brout, F. Englert and F. Gunzig, The creation of the universe as a quantum phenomenon' RnnaIs of Physics 115 (1978) 78-106. J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Fourth edition, Rdam & Charles Black, London, 1930. B. Carter, Large number coincidence and the anthropcc principle is in Longair, 291-98. B. Carter, The anthropic principle and its implications cosmology', biological for evolution , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London (1983) St* 7-363. C.B. Collins and S.U. Hawk eng, Uhy is the universe isotrophic?', 19310 Rstrophqsics Journal 180 (1973) 317. C.D. Darlington, Darwin's Place in History, Blackwell, Oxford, 1959. P. Davies, The Rccidental Universe, Cambridge Universitu Press, Cambridge, 1982; referred to as D. P. Davies, God and the New Physics, Dent, London,1983; B.S. DeUitt referred to as G. and N. Graham, The Many-Uorlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1973. R.H. Dicke and P.J.E. Peebles, in S.U. Hawking and U. The big bang cosmology - enigmas and nostrums , Israel, eds, Genera 1 relativity: an Einstein centenary survey, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 501^-517. -37- G.F.R. ELLis, 'is the universe expanding?', GeneraL Reiativitg and Gravitation 9(2) (L973) 87-9L. G. Feinberg and R. Shapiro, Life Beyond Earth, Morrow, New York, 1980. P. Feyerabend, Science Ln a Free Society, New Left Books, London, 1978. 'RnthropLc answers and the existence of P. Forrest, Proceedings God', of the Russet Lan Society, University of Sydney, 7 (1982) 1-13. K. Freeman, RncLLLa to the Pre-Socratic Phitosophers, BLackweLL, Oxford, 1971. N. Griffin and R. SyLvan, Provisionai Rnswers to ULtimate Questions, typescript, Canberra, 1981}.; referred to as UQ. S. Hawking and G.F. ELiis, The Large-Scaie Structure of Space-time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973. M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, (trans. R. Mannheim), YaLe University Press, New Haven, 1959. C.G. HempeL, Rspects of Scientific Exp LanatLon, Free Press, New York, 1965. Lande, The Laws behLnd the quantum Laws , BrLtLsh JournaL for the PhiLosophu of Science 27 (1976) 27-^3. J. L^sLLe, RnthropLc prLncLpLe, worLd ensembLe, desLgn , RmerLcan PhLLosophLcaL QuarterLy, 19 (1982) l^l-lSl; referred to as LI. J. LesLLe, Cosmo Logy, probabLLity and the need to exp La Ln LLfe', Ln ScLentLfLc ExpLanatLon and UnderstandLng (ed. N. Rescher), UnLversLty Press of RmerLea, MaryLand, M.S. LongaLr 1983, 53-82; referred to as L2. (ed.), Confrontat Lon of Cosmo Log LeaL Theories wLth ObsservatLonaL Data, ReLdeL, Dordrecht, 1971}.. C.U. MLsner, K.S. Thorne and J.R. UheeLer, GravLtatLon, Freeman, San 1973. G.E. Moore, PhLLosophLcaL Papers, RLLen and UnwLn, London, FrancLsco, 1959. R. RobLnson, Essays Ln Greek PhLLosophg, CLarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. R. RoutLey, ExpLorLng MeLnong's JungLe and Beyond, Research SchooL ScLences, RustraLLan NatLonaL UnLversity, 1980; referred to as JB. -38- of SociaL Sagan Broca's Brain: Ref Leet ions on the Romance of Science, New York, Random House, 1973. S.Tou Lm in, The Return to CosmoLogy: Postmodern Nature, University of CaLifornia Press, BerkeLey Ca., 1982. Is the universe a vacuum fLuctuation?', Nature 2^6 (1973) 396-7 E.P. Tryon, E.P. Tryon, Science and the Theo Logy of *Mhat made the worLd?', New Scientist 101 (198!+) It+00, 1!+-16 FLN. Mhitehead, Process and ReaLity, Cambridge University Press, 1929. 6.H. Uhitrow, The Structure and Evo Lution of the Universe, Harper, New York, 1959. Second edition,  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 57, Item 2: Draft of Toward an improved cosmo-logical synthesis Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft, correction version. Paper published, Sylvan R (1985) 'Toward an improved cosmo-logical synthesis', Grazer philosophische Studien, 25:135-179. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 57, Item 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:991d123">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:991d123</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - location not listed in manuscript finding aid Box 57: Miscellaneous Logic https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/5cb229c3d9affba38077a07c721b6799.pdf 864475d38dc9bafca72f1f6da54ba711 PDF Text Text �������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 1264: Characterizing anarchism Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten on scrap paper. Description An account of the resource Verso of leaves not digitised Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 1264 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [8] leaves. 4.58 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:709ee89">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:709ee89</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Bookcase - 1st on Right - 3rd Shelf Down - First Pile Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Bookcase > 1st on Right > 3rd Shelf Down > First Pile Box 17: Green Projects in Progress https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/cee3998747324ca8cfafd9916c99b05c.pdf 694d7c85ceace8f227cc36d1f9729f33 PDF Text Text �J ��SHORT CONTENTS OF TOWARDS GREEN ANARKISM: EUCRATIC POLITICAL INVESTIGATION? ? 0. PROLOGUE 1. EXPLICATIONS 2. ELABORATIONS 3. ARGUMENTS I 4. ARGUMENTS II 5. VARIETIES AND OPTIONS TAKEN 6. ECONOMIC ELEMENTS: PROPERTY, CAPITAL, MARKETS, TAX 7. POLITICAL ELEMENTS: ORGANISATION, DEMOCRACY, BUREAUCRACY 8. SOCIAL THEORY ELEMENTS: NATURE, CULTURE 8A LEGAL ELEMENTS 9. ECOREGIONAL STRUCTURES, EUTOPIAN MODELLING 10. ROUTES, TRANSITION 11. FURTHER CRITICISMS FOILED 12. PROBLEM RESOLUTION 13. EPILOGUE. BIBLIOGRAPHY (INCLUDING RESOURCES) by a minor marginaZi-s^J p/iiZo-yop/^r writing in 7. ? Richard Sylvan, Za^ At^nri^f/i c^nfary. ��PROLOGUE WHY GREEN ANARKISM? Green anarchism is not merely an intellectually attractive intersection of anarchism with genuine environmentalism; it is also a rational imperative. Modem states are not merely without justification; they are a major force driving and facilitating degradation and destruction of global environments, to points of no return for many natural species and environments, and even seriously threatening future human viability. Anarchism would, with full justification, remove these major problem sources. Green anarchism derives from anarchism coloured by a deeper environmentalism. Anarchism itself is said to be essentially a modem ideology, arising after, and in opposition to, the modem state. Though there may be significant anticipations of anarchism in earlier philosophy, and though there are many worthwhile examples of early anarchistic societies, the main intellectual work begins only in the late eighteenth century (with the eruption of the French Revolution). Since then there have been waves of anarchistic output of varying strength, the most recent initiated in Paris again in 1968^(immediately following a series of academic texts pronouncing that anarchism was dead)L In important respects this received picture, ever so lightly sketched, is misleading. Anarchist ideas were already advanced in those similar ancient ideologies, Taoism and Stoicism,** in opposition to ancient empires. Lao Tzu, shadowy founder of Taoism, was not merely a trenchant critic of the Empire, but advocated a society in which the ruler, the Prince, disappeared into a do-nothing exemplary and merely legendary figure. What Taoism asserted is virtually tantamount to Thoreau's small but crucial anarchist amendment to Jefferson, that the best government is the one that does not govern at all. In a similar vein, "Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, advocated a society without government. Laws should be abolished[!], since virtue and morality would only be achieved in liberty'.2 That common ancient tradition, spanning East and West, though often submerged, has never been lost. The Taoist tradition persisted (if often in degenerate form) in China, and heavily influenced west Asian adaptations of Buddhism. Stoicism survived, as (often degenerate) internal critic, for the duration of the western Roman Empire, and was directly incorporated into early Christianity. Although anti­ authoritarian features were subsequently suppressed in the Stoic-Christian tradition, elements survived even in the increasingly authoritarian climate of that religion, and the positive ideas have resurfaced again and again in religious freer-thinkers. 1 For details see Marshall pxi. Amusingly anarchism in Australia has more recently also been * Taoism and Stoicism can almost be seen as variants upon one another, back to the very names. It is tempting to conjecture that they may have both arisen from a proto-Toi-ism. Lehner, H of I, p.71. On Taoism as anarchist, see Clark, ch7, Marchall, ch4, and UT. 2 �2 The term * anarchism' was however introduced into English in a highly perjorative sense, signifying disorder, chaos, lawlessness and the likeA It is regularly displayed in this negative connotation, in politically unstable times in England, long before much theoretical work on anarchism began (nonetheless there were tracts, like that of Winstanley). As a result, the term 'anarchy' got away to a very bad start in English. It was used, from the early 16th century onwards, to mean confusion, disorder, lawlessness, licence, and absence or nonrecognition of authority. Similarly for most of its cognates 'anarch', 'anarchal', 'anarchial', 'anarchic', 'anarchical', 'anarchially', 'anarchism', 'anarchist' and 'anarchize', (see OED entries). 'Anarchism' itself had also acquired its re/evanf modem sense of 'the principles and practice of anarchy or anarchists', namely 'the Doctrine Position or Art of those that teach anarchy; also the being itself of people without a Prince or Ruler' by 1656 (in Blount GZo^^gr). As a political theory anarchism is standardly said, however, to have emerged much later (and there are stock, 'inconsistent' presentations: a state without a state, government without government, theory without doctrine, order without order, etc.) It is the interaction between popular longer-standing usage and later serious ideological use that helps account for the astonishing folkloric history of the term aKarc/n-yTK. It also reflects one facet of the pervading amateurism of anarchism, its lack of industrious research. Consider what certain encyclopaedias say, beginning with one that is not so much wrong as sloppy. Historically the word "anarchist", which derives from the Greek an arc/io-y, meaning "no government", appears first to have been used pejoratively to indicate one who denies all law and wishes to promote chaos. It was used in this sense against the Levelers during the English Civil War and during the French Revolution by most parties in criticizing those who stood to the left of them along the political spectrum. The first use of the world as an approbatory description of a positive philosophy appears to have been by Pierre Joseph Proudhon when, in his (W%<3/ Af property?, Paris, 1840), he described himself as an anarchist because he believed that political organization based on authority should be replaced by social and economic organisation based on voluntary contractual agreement (Woodcock p. 111). According to a rival encyclopaedia, however, The word "anarchy" describing a stateless society was used[?J for the first time by Louis Armand de Labortan in his voyage Z' (1703), describing the Indians living in a society without state, laws, prisons, priests, private property, in short "in anarchy" (Lehning p.71). A glance at the OED, such as we took above, along with a comparison of the stories, reveals the falsity of many of these interesting contentions. Much historical detail remains to be sorted out satisfactorily. Though there are many histories of anarchism, until very recently a 3 The pejorative sense was not contrived or imposed following some significant political incident, such as the pivotal Chicago events of 1886, which is what Jp^ies 86 implies. No doubt, however, following the Chicago events, stigmatisation and denigration of anarchism, and its automatically assumed association with violence and disorder, were deliberately orchestrated and propagated in USA. Such an outcome contributed further to development of an already established anti-anarchist mythology. �3 reasonably satisfactory one had yet to be written. Fortunately that has now changed (during the drafting of this text). Conveniently we are now absolved from lamenting the absence of such work and likewise from attempting more historical detail.^ For Marshall's massive text, has now appeared, it can be deferred to (by no means always uncritically) on many historical issues and for mad detail, to which it affords fine access. The concentrate on systematic and theoretical matters. Most of the seminal and interesting work on anarchism has come from outside present text can now universities and standard intellectual circles, and often from political amateurs. Academics have contributed histories, surveys and (usually not so sympathetic) criticisms, but, with a very few exceptions, little original thought. $ For typically they are ideologically stuck with the state, be it a pathetically minimal one. Intellectuals are so inured to the state that they are inclined to such pronouncements as that the idea of abolishing the state entirely must strike us as utopian .6 Yes, as eutopian. 'Most political philosophers in the past few generations have been unable to escape what the psychoanalysts might call a "state fixation". Even those those temper and reason caused them to distrust a nationalist philosophy could not deal with the state except as a rigid entity. They wished it large or small, isolated or cosmopolitan, but in any case a rounded unit which had to be taken as it was and maintained as such in any reconstruction of... society'7 It is easy to speculate on reasons for this, connected with academics being part of the expensive state scene. While anarchism has vanished from the mainstream academic scene, it is again becoming visible, if hardly prominent, in alternative (especially green) scenes and in work of disaffected academics associated with them. A surprising amount of the adventurous anarchist literature now appears, like the earlier utopian literature, in fiction, especially science fiction (and so, under prevailing division of labour, tends to become a subject for literary criticism, not political philosophy). But the ideas and plans appear there in quite insufficient detail. There, moreover, it can easily be dismissed as fantasy, as unrealistic, not a serious and proper contribution to political dialectic. The entire range of political discussion concerns whether there should be marginally more government intervention, or marginally less; marginally more public expenditure on welfare services is marginally less. Nobody [much] challenges the whole system, still less the existence of the state itself. The state's own socialisation processes see to that (Luard p.52). While virtually all political discussion undoubtedly traffics in such marginalia, powerful and warranted challenges there certainly have been: It is plain that on general principles of law and reason ... the Constitution is no contract; that it binds nobody, and never did bind anybody; and that all those who pretend to act by its authority, are really acting without any legitimate authority at all: that, on general principles of law and reason, 4 5 6 7 In contrast thus to James 186 who reiterates the familiar lament. Even the very occasional (here deliberately unspecified) exceptions are exceedingly cautious. Miller p.182. Mitrany p.98. �4 they are mere usurpers, and that everyone ... has the right... to treat them as such.s Given the United States is not contractually legitimated, what other state is? None appears to have superior credentials! None is rationally legitimated, so it will be argued in detail. The State in general and in abstract is not justified. So, whether it can be exploited for environmental and social purposes or not, its use is not justified. Environmentalism is still more modem than anarchism. Though it has ancient roots, and though the movement grew substantially in the 19th century, fusing there with an earlier romantic movement, environmentalism is an archetypically 20th century ideology. The more widely diffused green movement is essentially a contemporary phenomena, no doubt the most distinctive new political force of the late 20th century (the feminism movement is older). Green anarchism draws together elements from environmentalism and anarchism. While it can be seen as continuous with environmentally sensitive later 19th century social anarchism (of Morris, Kroprotkin, and others), environmental problems now appear in a new light and take on a new urgency. For we are now confronted by what is not inaccurately referred to as the envzronmenfa/ crAyZy, combining the cumulative efforts of rapid human population growth, rapid concomitant growth of vast industrial and human pollution threatening and undermining biological life support systems, rapid depletion of habitats species and nonrenewable resources, and very extensive and worsening environmental deterioration. In the present parlous environmental predicament those concerned to take some requisite action, active environmentalists, have two opposently diametrically opposed courses open;9 * Supporting, and working through, strengthened states to try to avert the crisis. Central to 'most environmental justifications of [expanded] state power", according to social individualists, is the argument that people will not voluntarily r&yfram themselves from doing those things of which the environmental crisis is the aggregate effect. They will not voluntarily refrain from hunting whales and other species threatened with extinction, from having "too many children"", from discharging untreated wastes into rivers and lakes, and so on (Taylor pp 1-2, quoted in Grofman p.108). As in collective action theory (advanced typically by individualists), it is concluded (invalidly as will be seen) that state power is required to compel restraint and to undertake compulsory rectification. * Working outside states in more direct efforts to avert elements of the crisis. The alternative, that is, is to abandon the state. Here lies the main chance, and the only genuine long term alternative for a deep, as opposed to merely reformist, environmentalism. For under state regimes, more and more of remaining environments are degraded or destroyed, in the march of 8 9 Spooner (M? Treason) pp 27-8. The omitted phrase asserts that everyone has not only the right but is wtoraZZy to treat them thus. But here Spooner goes further than data seems to warrant, converting supererogation to obligation. (The phrase following the quotation echoes Miller p.38). These choices are differently presented and explained in SM, a main intellectual ancestor of the present work. The approaches complement one another. �5 state growth and economic progress. In fact, there are several reasons for the extra-state anti­ state course. There are serious limits to what states can accomplish, especially in international issues in the interstrices of states, but also as regards individual environmentally-hostile action. Moreover, even when it appears that states can a^t, or contribute, there are sharp limits to what they are prepared to do or attempt. States of course explain their tardiness or reluctance to move in various ways: prior higher commitments (e.g. endless economic ones such as creating jobs, containing inflation, etc.), the need for balance (with a constituency after unparaxeded of any environmental crisis, or wanting, like comments operating with anarchist discount rates, to party now), etc. Concerned environmentalists should take both courses: use the state and exploit state power where opportunities offer (without thereby endorsing the state and its standard practices), but also, more important, they should work outside states and against states. For mam co/ifn&Mfmg coarse o/The anJ ov^ra/Z o/?^rafmg fa worsen if. Given this (no doubt jaundiced) sfa^-mfrz'car^ thesis, surely it is hypocritical also to work through them and use them. Not at all; for states acquire and hold, have expropriated to themselves, considerable social wealth, which arguably should be directed to social concerns, including environmental amelioration. However, while states may properly be used so long as they persist, still ultimately halting the new ubiquitous environmental rot, salvaging or conserving some of what remain of viable environments, will involve, if it can be done, dissolution of states. There are powerful environmental reasons for trying to terminate / the present era of states. States are ineluctably committed to economic growth, of almost any sort; indeed they are main proponents of such growth. This commitment, certainly highly conspicuous, is not merely accidental, and is bound to impact negatively on environments. Australia, for example, needs a growth rate (in GDP) of at least 3% just to provide employment for its school-leavers, more to cater for immigrants, more to allow for some politically acceptable redistribution, more to meet rising aspirations. More, more, more .... States cannot step off the growth treadmill. That growth in turn requires, to deliver essential exports, expanded raids on resources and biological capital (if not that held by the state, that of other states). These exercises in tum inevitably mean, given present technologies and cost structures, pollution in many dismaying forms and environmental degradation.^ So growth implies environmental degradation. Therefore, with contemporary states degradation is inevitable. Such states are inevitably environmental vandals, n 10 11 A prominent recent attempt to block this sort of argument features economic growth subject to con train ts of environmental sustainability. While such constrained economic growth is a feasible (and old) idea, contemporary states, given their commitments, cannot and cannot afford to deliver it. A recent example concerns Australian production of greenhouse gases, where Australia cannot, officials now say, meet the costs involved in attaining expected reduction targets. Sustainable development itself is critically examined in r The kind of practical necessity operating here will concern us in later chapters. Logically there could be benign "states"; but these would be far removed from contemporary state arrangements. ( �6 There is exceedingly little evidence that social and environmental prospects will ever improve under the contemporary regime of states; instead much evidence to contrary has accumulated. "... Reliance on the state or a global superstate for change will lead to a continuation of many of the patterns of domination that the state has done so much to develop and reinforce in the past" the anarchist strategy of change "from below" ... [and "from above" is] much more promising'. Indeed the claim is made that The anarchist vision ... of a fusion between a universal confederation and organic societal forms of a communal character lies at the very centre of the on/y hopeful prospect for the future world order'. 12 Some of the pressures to continued exponential growth, and their environmental and social consequences, themselves positively feeding back to fuel demands for more growth, are colourfully observed in the following passage: One of the most widely pursued common goals of recent times has been economic growth, which is generally regarded as the most important ambition of states. These pressures to high rate of growth not only endanger the world's resources but do not even procure the material satisfactions they are intended to provide. For the effect of competition is that high rates of growth can be achieved only by high rates of investment designed to secure higher productivity. This secures equivalent production with more equipment but less labour. Thus more and more people are displaced from their jobs who cannot necessarily find alternative employment in service industries or elsewhere. All over the Western world, in shipbuilding, in steel, in motor manufacture, in textiles, in fishing, in agriculture and other industries, employment rapidly declines. So the total number of those unemployed increases in all industrial countries and remains high even in those where a relatively high rate of growth is being achieved. And the very fact of high unemployment, by reducing total demand, lowers the level of investment and growth for the future. Periods of growth become shorter and those of recession become longer. The relatively simple devices for stimulating growth in earlier times - lower interest rates, budgetary deficits, fiscal expansion and public works — are either not attempted through fear of inflation, or if attempted do not achieve their effect. Despite persistent recession inflation remains strong, partly because of excessive increases in income obtained by those still at work, partly because of the large sections of the economy which are in public hands and are unaffected by antiinflationary measures. Modern industrial societies, therefore, in appearance so advanced, are yet characterised by the bizarre spectacle of large sections of the population being without work, while ever higher levels of investment are undertaken to reduce employment still further in the future, so ensuring that the benefits of high growth are enjoyed by fewer and fewer people (Laurd p.147). A main dynamic involved can be summarised: Both the State and those major corporations which set much of its agenda aim to increase productivity (for reasons of profit, profile, firm or party growth and survival, etc.). But productivity increase characteristically sheds labour. Restoration of employment requires growth. Hence one heavy pressure to growth: sustaining employment. That pressure is, furthermore, one of many. Another derives from internal dynamics of corporations and bureaucracies. Like the state and capitalism, they all must, as Marx argued, 12 Clark, also quoting Falk from 'Anarchism of world order* in FVo/noj, p.160). �7 grow or die. There are many reasons for the growth imperative, both broad ideological and business specific.^ For satisfactory survival, satisfaction of its executives and employees, its stock holders, and so on, a modem corporation has to grow. Cpntr^l here are such matters as laws of profit decline otherwise, and more general principles of organisational aging and decline. If any serious ecological conclusion is to be drawn from Vol I, it is from Marx's compelling demonstration that the very law of life of capitalist competition, of the fully developed market economy, is based on the maxim, "grow or die". Translated into ecological terms, this clearly means that a fully developed market economy must unrelentingly exploit nature to a point ... that is literally regressive geologically and biologically. Capitalism, in effect, is not only polluting the world on a historically unprecedented scale; it is simplifying all the ecosystems of the planet, turning soil into sand, the oceans into lifeless sewers, indeed, threatening the very integrity of our sources of atmospheric oxygen. If one were to follow the logic of this tendency to its very end, capitalist— and hierarchical— society are utterly incompatible with a viable biosphere. What limits the ecological validity of Marx's view is obviously not his revelation of capitalism's "law of life" but rather the "progressive" role he imparts to capitalism's "success" in supposedly achieving the technical domination of nature. This Janus-faced aspect of Marx's writings is what throw them into conflict with an authentic ecological sensibility. Gorz, by contrast, sides-steps exacfZy what we must learn in the contradictory position of Marx, namely, that the very technical achievements of capitalism, fat^ from a-y-MmzZafing "ecological necessities as technical restraints", are governed by a "law of life" that technologically lacks any TES p.293) form of "restraint' Prevailing political arrangements 'no longer offer us a hopeful prospect of resolving the vast social and ecological crises which now confront humanity ... these systems, with their deep commitment to such values as industrialism, high technology, centralism, urbanization and the state, have been instrumental in creating the social atomization and ecological imbalance which are at the core of these crises' (Clark pp. 141-2). Indeed these systems are bound to exacerbate the problems. While these statements should by now be motherhood statements, they are not. Hope springs eternal: more naive environmentalists regularly appeal to a state that sometimes makes appropriate responsive noises and puts out appealing propaganda, but meanwhile is thoroughly committed to economic growth of environmentally damaging forms. The normal dynamic of th^ "advanced" state is extremely environmentally hazardous. Centralised states support environmentally and socially damaging methods of production, in order to benefit from the surplus and exploitable technology thereby produced - which are important for purposes of state, in particular for spending to remain in power (job generation, pork barrelling, subsidization of large business), for positional enrichment of the bureaucracy, and for development of the forces of coercion, propaganda and authority which matter both for internal social objectives and in order to remain militarily competitive in the region and spheres of influence. Details of the dynamic at work have become familiar from socio-environmental studies of state operation. For example, technologies that facilitate centralized authoritarian 13 The broad and ancient ideological reasons are investigated elsewhere, e.g. MSS. �8 control are favoured (such as nuclear power, which also supplies material for nuclear weapons). Such technologies serve the interests of state actors and those who benefit particularly therefrom, namely economically dominant social strata. This dynamic, which does not require any arms race, only kinds of inter-state competition, encourages ever-increasing productivity, entailing high consumption of resources, high output of pollution, substantial environmental degeneration and destru( tion, and so on. Active aware environmentalists have, in the end, little choice but to attempt to ;abotage this dynamic. 14 Opposition to anarchism from gi een directions, and especially from green infiltrators, often derives from the assumption that under anarchism all environmental regulation would lapse, that it would be an open-go, fret -for-all for anti-environmental forces—the very ones that are already running rampant over the Earth, and perhaps others besides. It needs to be stressed that this opposition rests on a misconception of what green anarchism ^is all about. With a caring anarchism there may be a complete of the usually conceived situations of states and stateless societies, as regards environment regulation and social support. It should not have escaped notice that often states are the prime enemies of environmental regulation, improved environment practices, and the like. Even when there is very extensive community support for regulation, the state acts to block it, and aids and abets damaging practices! A central reason for this is that the state typically reflects a rather narrow range of vested interests, increasingJhese days those of dominant business, not community interests except very secondarily. Contrary then to received conceptions, the state is frequently not a means to, but an obstacle to, satisfactory regulation. Satisfactory green regulation can occur, can only occur, without the modern state. It will be argued that not only are there no intellectual or theoretical problems in dispensing with the state, but fuller there are no serious losses in disposing of it. There is no case for the state, and no need for it. But it is worse than that: it is predominantly bad in its impacts. Accordingly, it ought not to be in place. The practical upshot is that that we should endeavour to remove it. Among the incidental practical difficulties arising as a result, are that for complex societies there is a need for some structure to replace the state (not a intractable theoretical problem any longer). As well there is a need for a strategy to displace the state. That is where radical environmentalism enters again. A thoroughgoing environmentalism accordingly forces a significant type of anarchism, a social non-capitalist anarchism. The basic reason it forces anarchism is that the state, a prime anarchist enemy, not only fails to supply or retain environmental goods, but is frequently actively involved in their degradation or removal. The state is a major facilitator and powerful source of environmental degradation and destruction. Genuine greenness further substantially constrains the directions anarchism can take, the variety of admissible anarchisms. It serves to eliminate as a serious option total reliance on 14 This argument is adapted from A. Carter, Towards a green political theory*. While Carter's way out is not endorsed, his elaboration of the dynamic is, more or less. LL �market methods, as proposed for instance under anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism. While excessive reHance upon capitalist markets is rejected, primarily because of heavy externalities, more traditional markets are given a rather free role. The problems with market-capitalism is not so much markets, except as distorted in a capitalist setting, but capitalism.^ Capitalism, both in theory and as normally practised, is a major enemy of environmentalism, and a main source of environmental problems. Capitalism also encourages, what conspicuous capitalists conspicuously exhibit, environmentally unacceptable lifestyles. Greenness also sharply constrains meta-politics. For example, it counts heavily against standard game-theoretic approaches of analytic political philosophy, because these entirely discount environmental effects (except as reflected through human actors' self interests). This work concentrates upon the anarchist components of green anarchism (the green part is attempted in a companion text on green ideology). It is primarily a theoretical work; it concentrates upon what is sometimes usefully called "theoretical anarchism". Because the work does focus on anarchism, little will be said about present green politics (and what thin associated theory there is), because that generally involves politics within conventional state settings. Where this differs from past anarchism is not only its environmental depth, but in the level of detail of arguments, criticism, and organisational structure. The latter especially,jwhere IT- 1 a; thin and threadbare historical anarchism is particularly weak. It is not enough to gesture towards some federation of communities. Details of organisations at each level need to be provided, for a more convincing story. Most of the disappointingly slight contemporary academic literature on anarchism will not be addressed or, if it is, criticised in much detail. Life is too short for that sort of indulgence. However much will have been criticised obliquely or in passing; and enough critical detail is supplied for direct critiques to be produced (as exercises by energetic readers). While there is mMc/z scope for theoretical improvement of anarchism, there is little room for reinventing anarchism. There is a long and distinguished Hne of amateur anarchist thought form virtually every significant idea that will be which contains in seminal (if developed herein. Thus, like most of the academic literature^this text is not particularly original. Unlike much of that literature it does not pretend to be. Virtually everything in this book has been said before, if not in anarchist theory then elsewhere; scarcely anything is original. But it has never been put together quite like this before. Moreover, some of it needed and needs saying again, with a little new information and arguments a bit differently ordered. But no means all is repeated. Where something, perhaps important for the dialectic, is said at least as well I can reiterate it, I simply cross-refer. That has the effect of making the work visibly less contained (self-containment is ^bmething of an illusion), but it saves on labour and materials. For other purposes too, repetition, despite its extravagance, may be important. Significant 15 On the deliberately neglected, or papered over, major differences between marketism and capitalism, �10 ideas and books often get neglected, because for instance they were not published at the right times, in the right places, by the right authors; they did not get duly circulated, and so forth. I judge the time at least is more propitious for green anarchism than it has been, perhaps ever before. As well, there are many things that this book, which is pitched in a theoretical, rationalistic way, does not aim or attempt to do. It does not attempt to supply much background, historical or other information, a lot of which is easily found in better equipped libraries. Relevant background can all be tracked, however, through references in work referred to in this book. 16 It does not attempt a full account of substitutes for important current institutions and arrangements such as those connected with property, markets, law, and so on; nor does it offer, what is warranted, a sustained critique of prevailing arrangements, for which opposite substitutes are sought and indicated. Fortunately again, some of the critique, if not positive detail of substitutes, has been well accomplished in other texts. 17 What is attempted is however a scholarly and systematic work (though, as indicated, a far from exhaustive work), on theoretical anarchism. Accordingly the book is littered with notes, some of which merely cite references, but many of which elaborate points in the text, especially details hat lead off in different directions from the thrust of the text. I should like to thank Frances Redrup for processing reams of inelegant scribble, from which this text grew, and to acknowledge the continuing support the Australian National University gave during slow production. I want to thank Debbie Trew for proofing the typescript (no straightforward business) and organizing a bibliography. I should record my gratitude to Bob Goodin for a continuing supply of background books, and to him and to the publishers and editor of Anarc/iAyf 16 17 for encouraging me to work upon anarkism again. A major recent source, for history of Northern Hemispheric anarchism, is, as observed, Marshall, While Marshall concentrates, no doubt correctly upon Northern hemispheric activity, and within that heavily upon Anglo-American work, there is room for a supplementary production taking due account of anarchism elsewhere, Australia for one example. Although an anarchist club was formed in Melbourne only a century ago (and then upon an American model), an extraordinarily sustained period of "original anarchism" (coupled often with "original (or primitive) affluence") flourished in Australia before European settlement two centuries ago, with more than 500 centuries perhaps more than 10000 centuries, of continuous Aboriginal anarchist arrangements. Much of the story of post-settlement Australian anarchism (which included remarkable Queensland activity and a Paraguayan expedition organised by Lane, as well as extensive Victorian agitation) is recounted by James, in a series of local publication, add Burgmann and by Souter. The story of Australian Aboriginal anarchism has yet to be told. The story for the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, both before and after European conquests and political imposition, remains to be satisfactorily told. Thus, for instance, Carter on property, Bumheim on bureaurcracy, othe^on democracy. A �// 1. EXPLICATIONS OF ANARCHISM CHAPTER and of green subforms G 1. Initial explanation: fud and dilute forms, and corollaries. Anarchism is the theory, principles or practice of anarchy. As practised by engaged anarchists, who are naturally adherents, authors or promotors of anarchy, it includes the assertion of anarchy and rejection of nonanarchy, i.e. rejection of archy. Anarchy itself, in its norma/ political form, applies to societies or communities, territories or countries. It is, according to the dictionaries, the following sort of condition or state: lack of coercive government, absence of a political state, want of authoritarian political heads or leaders, institutions or organisations. Politically there are evidently fhr^ j^racrara/ aa^ar/(y, ca^rciaa, and normally comprehending both, the political .yraf^.i The anchoring notion of anarchy has recently been extended beyond political arrangements to apply to other institutional forms such as the Church, Science, and Law, to mean alternative forms lacking authoritarian structure and coercive methods. Thus appear, under transference, such varieties as epistemological anarchism and philosophical anarchism, instead of po/zfzcn/ anarchism upon which this text focuses. However the far-reaching analogies should not lost sight of; they matter. Anarchism is to political authority, as atheism is to religious authority, and rather as scepticism is to scientific authority. Although the conditions specified for anarchy are normally taken as conjoined, it is possible to construe them disjointly, yielding what could be called anarchisms. One diluted form which has obtained a little exposure is a /zzzzz^J anarchism appropriately opposed to the state but prepared to endorse carefully-controlled coercive authorities.^ A differently diluted form is a anarchism which is opposed to all prevailing states, because of some serious but in principle removable defect or other of each and every one of these states, but is not opposed to the very idea of an ideal state, or to a new wonderful order of states; that is it is, not, so to say, a principled anarchism. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether historic anarchists are j?rznczp/^r/ anarchists or merely de facto ones. There are limits to how far definitional dilution should be allowed to proceed: a theory (such as libertarianism) postulating a minimal coercive centralised state presumably exceeds acceptable diluted bounds, as n^key element is retained. Within such bounds, we shall operate both with full and dilute forms, accounting all anarchism (in a bro^d sense, qualifying as need be). Routes to full anarchism may well lead through dilute forms. Indeed these offer main paths towards anarchism proper. -t These three key elements are duly signposted in many, though not all, serious on anarchism. J- �12 It is evident that anarchy, and therewith anarchism, can be better characterised, negatively, through what it rejects, namely to sharpen the characterisation, centralised coercive forms, than in assertive formulation obtained through awkward locutions like 'absence' 'lack' 'want'. The simpler negative formulation (supplying the of anarchy), rejection of archy, makes it immediately evident that much of what vulgarly pass for meaning conditions upon or essential features of anarchism are not. Firstly, a variety of political arrangements and organisation, including of government, are entirely compatible with anarchy. It is enough for these arrangements not to include anarchy-violating features such as authoritarian or coercive elements. For example, a government without such elements, a government nonetheless in the dictionary sense of 'administration of public affairs', satisfies the principle of anarchy, and so is anarchistic. Such an anarchistic government can include normal components of organisation, regulation and control, so long as they conform to the principle. Certainly a territory without government, since therefore lacking an archist government, is anarchistic. But the popular converse fails. An anarchistic system may well, like several societies substantially destroyed by European conquest, have a small smooth-running public administration, free of authoritarian elements. Thus it would have a government, but not an authoritarian government. No doubt it would also be in a predominant modem, but narrow, use of 'government'. The term 'government', which is variably determinable, vacillates in particular between * administration of public affairs (including control, regulation, what it once meant) and its important and now dominant restriction, the enarchistically unacceptable determinate, * authoritative administration of public affairs (i.e. that exercising authority, and characteristically backed by coercion). Much confusion concerning anarchism has resulted through failure to separate the wider and narrower determinates^ It may well be true that, as dictionaries assert, an anarchist would 'oppose all existing systems of government'; but this is not a matter of meaning, it is contingent upon the character of prevailing state systems. Nor therefore are prevailing political forms everywhere so far removed from anarchistic alternatives: they may even overlap them. Make the following kind of thought-experiment concerning the government and operation of some modem freer, less violent, more peaceful society: the coercive and authoritarian elements are blacked out (both operational components and what they typically operate upon). For instance, there is a strike of relevant groups, judges �and accused, police and criminals, prison warders and prisoners, etc. (perhaps because the broad society had reduced the opportunities for crime and accordingly threatened their contra­ operative livelihoods). What may well happen, what we shall imagine happening, is that governmental affairs simply keep running for some time. Things work well enough. Partial examples of just this sort of phenomenon are not uncommon, as when police forces go slow or strike. For example, when traffic police stop work traffic keeps on going, much as before. It may be irrelevantly objected that such anarchistic periods are mere interludes, presupposing surrounding authoritarian structures (somewhat as anarchistic end-states of marxism are premissed on preceding super-productive authoritarian states). Such thought experiments were designed to remove a different intellectual blockage: the common assumption that anarchism is utterly remote from the political practice of complex modem states and impossible to realise at all. As a theory, anarchism tends to advance a stronger theme than the progressive particular claims that anarchistic systems are possible, realisable, and sometimes realised. After all, these arrangements may be realisable—as more than an interlude—only in restricted or anomalous circumstances (e.g. a few people on an isolated tropical island). The stronger theme, linked with the anarchist principle, is that there is no need at all for authoritarian or coercive regulation. So rejection can succeed universally. Universal anarchism encounters many problems which do not trouble less ambitious parfict/Zar anarchisms, such as those to be advanced here. For example, how to rectify especially degenerate or evil societies? An attempt is sometimes made to render all anarchism universal, through the connecting thesis that for anarchism to succeed anywhere it must succeed everywhere (else be destroyed by ruthless, expansionist or greedy states, or similar). Fortunately the fallacious connecting thesis, though popular with critics, is implausible.^ Although anarchism proper does exclude certain kinds of government, coercive and authoritarian forms, it does not automatically include, certainly not as a matter of semantics, specific positive kinds. Anarchism is not necessarily "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than on submission to law and authority", despite what dictionaries assert (incompatibly incidentally with their definitions of 'anarchy'). Such positive accounts of anarchism, as offering a certain theory of government, both try to convert a particular variety, individualistic anarchism, into the more general object, and try to import a certain motivation for, or differently explanation of, or justification of, anarchism into the very essence of the object (this is the general fallacy of verificationism in operation). Anarchism, or at least its assertion, may well be regularly motivated by ideals of free arrangements, not imposed by narrow or incompetent authoritarian forces, but motivation is one thing, meaning �14 another, verification a third. Not only is the assumption that anarchism is incompatible with government, wellregulated government, mistaken. So also therefore are the assumptions that anarchism is incompatible with organisation, with regulation, with a positive noncoercive "law", with order. So mistaken therefore are the widespread assumptions that anarchism entails disorganisation, disorder, confusion, lawlessness, chaos. Yet all these negative associations have been incorporated into degenerate popular meanings of anarchism. It is similar with related assumptions that anarchism implies violence, paramilitary activity, or terrorism. A popular picture of the anarchist, encouraged by authors like Conrad and Dostoevsky, is the excitable fictional character with a bomb in his pocket (not a Tolstoy or a Thoreau).5 These too are assumptions and pictures, with little basis either in semantics or in general anarchist theory or practice, promulgated by an unsympathetic opposition generally comfortable in present poor to appalling political systems or unaware of alternatives. With anarchy, as with many other valuable terms, a concerted confusion or destruction effort has been made, part of an extensive terminological vandalism in human intellectual affairs. Rather than reconciling ourselves to sacrifice of the damaged term anorc/ug/n, let us salvage the term explicitly for the pristine notion, and isolate the conventional associations under the term anarchi-pm, shortened, if a single term is sought, to Most fictional anarchists of system-supportative authors are degenarchists; but they are far from representative of anarchists. There are many anarchists who are not terrorists, few who are; there are many who are not dangerous troublemakers bent upon violently upsetting local settled order; increasingly there are many anarchists within environmental and peace movements, many of them anarchists. Gentler anarchisms tend to be all of more pacific, more social and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchisms. 2. Rival, typically defective, definitions, and beyond. Much of what is taken as typical or even characteristic of anarchism, especially popularly and journalistically, consist of optional extras, not even typical of anarchism. They represent, like what gets written into degenarchism, attempts at easy smearing or dismissal of anarchism, for instance as an ideology unworthy of serious consideration. As regards violence, terrorism, disorder, disorganisation, confusion, these sorts of point ought to be well enough known. But they apply also to other more benign features widely taken to characterize anarchism, such as attempts to tie anarchism variously to individualism, capitalism, voluntarism, primitivism, spontaneity, or socialism. Thus such erroneous characterisations of anarchism as those of the selection that follows:- 5 �15 * One utterly appalling characterisation comes from a Russian DzcZzozzrzzy of PAz/o^op/zy. ^ "Azz^zrc/zz^zzz, a petty-bourgeois socio-political trend that is hostile to all authority and the state, and counterposes the interests of petty private ownership and small peasart economy to the progress of society based on large-scale production" * Another dismal, indeed wild, characterisation comes from an American political scientist, who audaciously asserts that "anarchism ... is anti-political—that is, it does not really offer political solutions" (p.l), rather "the primitive core of anarchism is not so very different from Christianity. That is, it rests on the notion that man has a need, not just a preference, to love" While this is wild, there are convergences and congruences between types of anarchism and early Christianity.? * It is "a political doctrine based on the value of individual freedom"? While this is not wild, it does erroneously convert what is a frequent powerful motive, and reason, for anarchism into part of it, confusing motivation and justification with essence. For it is by no means an invariant feature. A socialist or monastic community, placing no great emphasis upon or even discouraging individuality, can be organised anarchistically. * It is "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than submission to law and authority" (Concz-y^ Eng/zj/z Dzcfzozzazy). But it also asserts that the same %7z#rc/zz.yAy "... are opposed to all forms of government". That inconsistent information should, as already seen, be discounted. Furthermore, there may be no free agreement; an anarchistic situation can, as already also seen, just happen. More likely, a sustained anarchism may emerge under favourable historical opportunities, again without any sort of contract or general agreement; it is then only zf there were free agreement. Certainly, there would no longer be "submission to authority", but there would likely be systems of rules, which people normally followed. * The very short characterisation of rzzzrzrc/zMzzz (and rendition of zzzMrc/zz?^) as "no government" is defective because of the elasticity, slippiness and determinability, of "government"? For example, to increase documentation, according to one dictionary ((/zzzv^r^zz/ Ezz^/z^/z), gove?7Z7?zenf means "... system of polity in a state; territory ruled by a governor ..." in which case it incompatible with anarchism; but it also means "... control; administration of public affairs" in which case it is certainly no? incompatible. Granted there have been attempts to represent anarchism as if it entailed no organisation or administration at all (state-of-nature arguments regular rely on this fallacy of false dichotomy), but it does not, and if it did there would be a gap for a near-identical relative (a/za&yrz^ for instance) to All. One of the rather better brief characterisations is the following: "a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian 6 7 8 9 Ed I. Frolov, 2nd revised ed, Progress, Moscow, 1989. Apter p.3. HI p.70. For such proposals see e.g. Carter,Websters' Dictionary (?), Marshall p.3. �16 government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies'/ (Woodcock, Ency Phil, p.lll). While the first negative conjunct, which n governmental' right, might rate a pass (though anarchism is not always a philosophy, it is sometimes a practice), the second positive conjunct calls the whole account into doubt. Many humans naturally thrive in authoritarian settings. Defective definitions of anarchism abound, many regrettably supplied by high profile anarchists or well-regarded commentators (whereupon they assume a certain air of authority, a bogus air). A few examples will be considered, mostly drawn from a large list of similarly defective definitions included in Clark, who is out to show that any definition which attempts to do justice to anarchism through an essentialistic definition deploying one simple idea is bound to fail, abysmally, to does not 'mean literally "without government'" contrary to Carter, for one. It does however imply systems without governments of prevailing sorts, which is what she immediately proceeds to: 'and the lowest common demominator of anarchist thought is the conviction that existing forms of government are productive of wars, internal violence, repression and misery' (p.14). Right on! Kropotkin, for another, defines 'anarchism' in terms of 'society ... without government'. Like most of the brief definitions to be cited, this is neither necessary #)r sufficient. For 'government' has to be narrowed to its coercive and authoritarian determinate, and other archie arrangements also excluded. Many, Runkle for one, maintain that anarchism 'opposes authority in all its forms'; but elsewhere Runkle holds that its essence is individual liberty'. Others, Goodman for one, suggest anarchism is defined in terms of decentralization, still others, Bakunin for one, suggest characterisation in terms of 'organization from below upwards, by means of federation'. Again this is neither necessary nor sufficient. It is not so easy to And an adequate characterisation of anarchism. (I have found none in the literature, despite some searching. That is reason why a certain amount of work has gone into such basics). There is a tendency to leap from the inadequate to the excessive—a tendency exemplified by Clark, who also cites Woodcock approvingly. Anarchism is first contracted to a rather elaborate doctrine, or political theory, thereby excluding practice. Then requirements are sharply inflated: For a political theory to be called "anarchism" it must contain: 1) a view of an ideal, non-coercive, non-authoritarian society; 2) a criticism of existing society and its institutions, based on this anti-authoritarian ideal; 3) a view of human nature that justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal; and 4) a strategy for change, involving immediate institution of non-coercive, non­ authoritarian, and decentralist alternatives (p.127). As Clark indicates, this "minimum" "definition" is an elaboration of another account, briefer and 10 See Clark p. 118ff. Clark's attack on essentialistic definitions is in the style of Wittgenstein. �17 better, that Woodcock also offers: 'historically, anarchism is a doctrine which passes a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to another" (cf. p.120). There is nothing here about human nature, which anarchism need have no particular views about, perhaps rejecting the notion altogether as part of archist propaganda or similar, n There is nothing about the ideal society, or any commitment to one. Anarchists are not seeking societies; that is an illusory, Enlightenment goal, have transformed to get another excessive condition of adequacy for anarchist societies. It would be quite enough to achieve satisfactory societies. 12 Realistic anarchists may even come to appreciate that there are no ideal societies, perhaps just various less unsatifactory and better justified societies than virtually all of the extraordinarily narrow range of modem societies presently exhibited or on offer. However Clark's discussion of "the ideal"" reveals that he does not really intend an ideal, but only one or other of the plurality of societies meeting certain adequacy conditions. It certainly does not intend a unique one, ideal. 'Some adequate" or similar should substitute" for 'an (the) ideal", and the definition should be duly pluralised. Outside explications of anarchism which answer back to dictionary accounts, there are various high redefinitions (e.g. Clark) and some weird redefinitions. One such weird redefinition is that proferred by Taylor, who—rightly enough contrasting anarchism with the presence of the state where there is a concentration of the means of deploying force—defines a as where 'force is perfectly dispersed, not concentrated at all" (82 p.6). But Taylor does advance from pure anarchy, of which there are no examples, to an illuminating discussion of the exercise of concentrated force in societies. In recognisably anarchistic societies there is but limited concentration of force (based on physical inequalities), which 'is /10c in use. There is no standing specialist group or organisation or centralised system of groups...' No doubt a /MZ/er anarchist f/t^ory has to accomplish much of what excessive characterisations of anarchism,^ list, and more. Any reasonably full theory should * include a critique of authoritarian and coercive features of present and past societies and their institutions; 11 12 13 The important matter of such "nature" is discussed later.. Presently we are very far removed from such societies, except for small communities mainly in rich countries. States have done extremely poorly in this regard. There is not one satisfactory state in all of Africa or the Americas. Even small European states that at least have avoided extensive poverty, homelessness, and violence are in doubt because of * virtually entire destruction of their natural environments * reliance for wealth on impoverished Third World countries * justified dissatisfaction of many of their inhabitants. those of Woodcock and Clark p.120, p.126. r �18 * outline features of noncoercive nonauthoritarian societies as alternatives to, and improvements upon present dominant social arrangements, for some regions at least; * suggest strategies for attempting to change from defective forms to improved alternatives. Clarke also tries to insist, what we shall subsequently reject, that for a 'theory to called "anarchism" it justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal' (p.127). As well as theory, there is practice. (Clarke also goes astray in excluding anarchism as a , "anarchism without doctrine", and so on.) The pracfice of anarchism, generously construed, naturally includes the state of being in anarchist conditions, of living under anarchism (though perhaps unaware of doing so). There is scope for wfr/toM? Many primitive societies thus qualify as anarchistic; they practice, or practiced, anarchism though unaware (somewhat as wild animals practice hygiene, knowing without knowing ;%af). Further, no doubt now stretching 'practice' beyond its assumed anthropic context, many animal communities practice anarchism, very successfully. Many attracted to anarchism, an anarchism without name even, long for analogous pure practice, many practicing environmentalists for instance. They hope that whatever it is will operate, perhaps even materialize, without any heavy-duty theory, without excess or even any intellectualizing, perhaps without even thought or much effort on their part. In contemporary circumstances they would have to be extraordinary lucky; a paternal state with caring elements, such as safe jobs and spoon-fed indoctrinal education for all citizens, does not relinquish its control voluntarily. While definitions can be defective or otherwise unsatisfactory, in m^y ways, one thing they are not is dogmatic (as suggested by Marshall, none too subtlely trying to evade critical details in delimiting his massive study, p.3). Though insisting upon^themes definitions yield upon substitution can be dogmatic, having or offering definitions is not. Significant criticism of definitions is logically different, belonging to different categories. As well as decking anarchism out with defective definitions, with all the scope for argumental malpractice that affords, there is a coupled practice of boxing anarchism in, by narrow and confining constraints, jf iZZ/czf/y ctrcMWMcri&ing (Whereas definitions characteristically yield necessary and sufficient, conditions, such circumscription concerns necessary, or possibly sufficient conditions). Many of the restrictions imposed are, however, quite inessential, and have rather the effect of excluding viable alternatives. Simple examples concern waAmg, which is sometimes taken as having always to be case by case, and elsewhere is seen as necessarily involving all parties, large assemblies, or even complete social participation. None of this is essential, often the restrictions would prove undesirable. Often the circumscription technique proceeds by presenting features of, or said to be of, �19 historic anarchism, then tacticly assuming that all anarchism must conform to those features.*4 That is one reason why definition and characterisation are important; so anarchism is not set in riged past forms, unable to adapt to new circumstances and ideas. Another example concerns the character of the anarchist revolution, onto which many restrictions are loaded, often resulting in gratuitous puzzles, which are removed with the impositions. For example, it is said that 'the revolution had to be a mass affair" (M p.94). But nothing in anarchism, or its general development, requires this. (As a result the dilemma Miller finds .p.99 ff., simply falls over.) A revolution could be carried out by an elite anarchist band, or, in some states, through a single governor or president. Again, it said that the revolution is bound to be authoritarian (which renders an anarchist revolution contradictory), violent, and so on. This we have on authority from Engels: 'a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other by means of rifles [etc.] authoritarian means, if such there be at all', to which Miller adds approvingly that to say in power the party must rely on military means and 'terror of arms' (M p.92). None of this is so. A revolution could lag rapid change through mass conversion; for instance, there is a sign or appearance that is widely recognised, a new social movement which spreads like "wild fire", etc. 3. Anarchism and the state. While organisation and government are entirely compatible with anarchism, that most conspicuous modem institution, the state, is not: it is the paradigmatic archist form. Nor are ancient power formations such as the empire and the kingdom really compatible with anarchism. A prime reason is their authoritarian character and their extensive use of coercion and violence, but reasons als<4 includd^hein centralized organisation (such as power and hierarchical structure). Let us focus upon the state, against which a major and often virulent part of anarchistic political critique is directed; indeed such is the opposition to the state and its features that anarchism is sometimes distinguished in that way, in terms of 'hostility to the state ... [which] should be abolished and replaced by a new form of social organisation' (thus Miller p.5). But again these may be consequential, not characterising features of anarchism, which are derived from characterising features together with a standard theoretical characterisation of Under one such standard (though fairly strong^) characterisation, the state is a and 14 15 This is a much favoured tactic with critics of anarchism. For many examples, some only Quoted in the main text, see Miller. Although strong, in certain respects the characterisation is not strong enough. A state must not only be able to c/ai/n all these sorts of power, but sometimes to exercise them. Cf. Taylor's criticism of Weber's definition of the state (p.5). A �body ... it claims complete authority to define the rights of its subjects .... Second, the state is a body, in the sense that everyone bom into a given society is forced to recognise obligations to the state that govern that society. Third, the state is a body: it claims a monopoly of force in its territorial area, allowing no competitor to exist alongside it (Miller p.5). It also normally claims other monopolies, such as on legal tender. It is virtually immediate, powers. So it is that anarchism is often epitomized as directed at the dissolution of, what is widely seen then, that the state is a comprehensive as major political problem, the state. As to why it is such a problem, anarchist critiques of the state, sketched below, will reveal. With anarchism implemented in a place there is then an end there to any institution that is recognisably a state. The subsequent argument for anarchism does not depend upon a strong characterisation of .yfafe, such as that so far offered. Even fairly weak characterisations will serve. But inadequate characterisations, such as the following, will not: 'a collective object with territorial boundaries and political organisation throughout that territory". For that omits essential features of the state, such as sovereignty, authority, coercive control; it describes a possible anarchist society. 16 Arguments/or the state (which anarchism is normally concerned to fault) are however sensitive to characterisation. Mostly these arguments reach little further than, justify no more than, some sort of "minimal state"", very different from anything the Earth has had on offer (e.g. a nice state guaranteeing basic rights rather than removing rights: but anarchism need hardly oppose such arrangements). So it will matter just how ^<2^ is characterized. But this is easier said than done: is a ^k cluster ( muqti-criterial) notion, explications of which are controversial and typically contested.i? In seeking a satisfactory working characterisation, a useful starting point is the following short definition: 'a collective item with territorial boundaries and political organisation exercising sovereign power".is As anarchism can comfortably accommodate the first parts, political organisation within a region, it is the last part, sovereign power (as spelt out, e.g., in Miller's account) that is the problematic distinguishing factor. In a way, the term ruling sui^ipreme, derived from la&Ctptein which reflects the Greek reigning or says it all, why anarchism is bound to oppose a state so empowered. Improved detailing will exhibit a similar division between acceptable and unacceptable. A state, which comprises a 16 A' 17 18 q/ Virtually all the key political terms that we shall encounter have a disconcerting multiplicity of meanings: so it is with state, sovereignty, democracy (422 senses in Naess p.30), ideology, and so on. Fortunately these terms are dealt with^ elsewhere in this work. For a useful attempt at a multi-criterial characterization,and discussion of controversies over characterisations see Dun^eary "The state * (in Goodin & Pettit). Reese, with 'item * substituted for 'entity * to evade reificative issues. �21 interconnected (their level of cohesion justifying a definite description), has domains consisting of a and of who form an associated society. The territory of a state consists of spatial regions, over which it normally exercises control. Subjects are generally those humans who regularly reside in the territory (citizens form a of subjects, singled out by possession of certain duties and rights). The state is not the only authoritarian body to be repudiated. Lesser authoritarian organisation, such as those proposed under terms of functionalism (military barracks, prisons, reform schools, etc.) are to be similarly repudiated. No doubt on occasion the ability to coerce makes an institution more "effective", much as childrens learning of uninviting material is sometimes rendered more effective by coercive means, e.g. heavy cannings, floggings. But the repugnant means, and their common chase outw^eight the gains, if any, in effectiveness achieved. Now, having thus arrived at regular anarchism, reputiating the state, we confess to the evident, to the refinement of the notion of anarchy away from widespread common usage where it functions primarily as a powerful directive away from disapproved anti-statist life. Given that anarchism is thereby rendered (as in many dictionaries which of course reflect usage) a contradictory notion, encompassing both disorder without the state and order alternative to the state, some refinement and some diversion of disorder is no doubt desirable. The trouble with this easy resolution is that the early uses of 'anarchism' in English operated precisely with the corrupt drunk-and-disorderly side of the contradiction—disorder as contrasted with spendid state order. That was what (in defiance of the original Greek meaning) 'anarchy' and 'anarchism' were introduced to mean (see OED citations from 16-17th C). Thus the early usage, which persists, contradicts the refined and now regular usage. In technical presentations this problem is easily sliced through, by coining a term to mean what anarchy as refined means (anaRyri'2 and anacracy are such terms). Here however we shall simply persist with the refinement of the prevailing term, and in the course of giving it etymological justification over the early corrupt uses, further refine. 19 But the justification for refinement is not only 19 Tempting as it may be to switch, alternatively to new, freeing terminology, that temptation has here been largely resisted. Anarchism is a term, and idea, worth retaining. Not that there is anything amiss with new terminology: quite the contrary, provided that it is well-indroduced and pointful. In the course of drafting this book, a variety of new terminology has been toyed with—including such nice terms as (signifying non-domination)—because, as is regularly emphasized, anarchism is now such a turn­ off for most people. No doubt in more pdular versions (written by someone else), anarchism will disappear from headings, displaced by new terminology with a hint of old such as ^ada^waacra^y, or, less scrupulously, its place usurped by ^car-vacuous terms in high popular favour such as d^/nocracy. In this less popular version, anarchism stays; but, in pa^t compensation, some pleasant absolute terms, and senses, have been revised. They offer acceptable alternatives. A more powerful consideration than negative connotations is perhaps this: The present text, though strictly / �22 etymological. Do we need yet another term for lawlessness, or for disorder? Don't we rather need a term to help break the false dichotomy between: the state or political disorder? As if there are no further alternatives, like stateless order of various kinds? Or (as much ill-informed literature suggests), no political theory without the state, merely untheorizable confusion? 4. A refined explication of anarchism. derives from the ancient Greek Etymologically meaning: without a chief or head, or without a top authority. Of course what the form derives from, though often indicative, does not determine what it now means. (Anarchism was not, after an ancient political theory, but is in fact, under familiar classifications, the most recent and novel of major political ideologies.) However it M worth drawing out the etymological meaning, because it is revealing. What it appears to exclude are political arrangements structured with a top element of any of the following authoritarian sorts: a monarch, a prince, a ruler, a leader, a president, a prime minister, and shifting from individual to group form, a party, a clique, a ruling elite, a central power such as a state, etc. There are, analysis reveals, two interacting foci: one, a top or centre, and two, control or dominance flowing from this top by what are adjudged inadmissible means, authoritarian or coercive means in particular. A chief both stands at the top of a power hierarchy and exercises authoritarian control from there. Under this anarchy entails double foci structure or organisation without inadmissible top-down or centralized means. Let us look at the foci in turn, beginning with the more independent one, the top. Topologically, wif/tonf % fop amounts to wzt/zoMt % cenfre, because by topological transformations (roughly&^nJzKg and stretching as what rubber objects will permit) what is a top transforms to a centre, and vice versa. Diagrams illustrate the transformations: top (of tree, semi lattice) o centre o investigating is so far removed from what normally enters under that denomination that different terminology is warranted, terminology which then has the advantage of shaking off all those negative associations of anarchy. The salient differences from run-of-the-mill anarchism will appear when preferred forms are detailed subsequently. �23 Volcano from top from sides * peak * peak Given such transformations, which will be taken for granted, anarchism also excludes arrangements structured with a controlling centre, such as a ruling central government. It implies decentralization in a precise sense. It does not thereby also remove all structure: it leaves intact a rich variety of structure including network arrangements with no centres (or with multiple "centres"), federation structures or similar. Yet another example is afforded by lateral structuring with central "centres" dispersed via function, as ilustrated;^ service "centres" The skeleton or scaffolding of organisation is structure; it is the frame on which organisation is hung, which organisation fills or fleshes out. The sense of explicating the underlying organic image, implies as much. According, for instance, to the Conci-ye Dzcfiofiuiy, 'structure: manner in which a building or organism or other complete whole is constructed, supporting framework or whole of the essential parts of something *. Structure itself is primarily, though not entirely, a matter of of elements and parts, among which order relations figure prominently, though not exclusively. That is, structure involves order, as a critical component. Remarkably, the same sort of <y%n/c%r&y occur in a range of seemingly diverse theoretical areas, not just social and political theory, to be displaced in each case by a similar sort of problem-dissipating structure. To illustrate, consider an order on a type (or set) of items Q given by one order relation R, 20 Insofar as there is a single centre, it is the bottom, the people. Major condinating issues are referred to people, for instance through referenda. So there a will be a referenda organising office, but it will be independent cooperative. �24 on item c in Q, i.e. R = Re- For example, where Q is a system of where R may itself worlds including your world the ordering R of worlds may depend on your world (and my world could supply a different order). Differently, where Qis a system of values or valued items, R may depend upon your values; and so on. As an orJer, R is at least transitive, and perhaps either (if like <) reflexive or (if like <) symmetric, on its ranged The system <Q, R> is a simple ordered structure, or ay%w%^. (The latter is the term now used in modal logic, where such structures are the bases of models for the logic.) A or top t of such a system is an element such that all items of Q bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to any element of Q. (The notion, that of -yMpreyniow, and likewise woxiwMw, may be similarly defined relative to subsets or types within Q.22) 77^oreTH. There are order structures without tops. Examples are provided by systems (often with much more structure) with no supremum. Here is a simple 6 element example drawn from relevant logical theory. +1 +2 „ = {=2,-l,-0, +0, +l,+2} +0 R - — is as shown by arrows. -0 -1 T = {+0, +1, +2} is a frufh component -2 Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items. Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements to t. trans^ity required of order. 21 There are various cases, depending upon conditions 22 A supremum t of R (in type T) is an (that) element (of T) such that all elements (of T) bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to anything (in T). �Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under so to say. What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy without "anarchy" or chaos, because there is order), structures. afford numerous examples. Order, including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy. 23 As immediate corollary is that inferences from anarchy (without a top or centre) to absence of order to disorder are fatally flawed. What lacks a top or centre may nonetheless enjy satisfactory order. Structures induced in anarchic arrangements can be far from chaotic (and may be modest and stable equivaien&s8i conditions). It is worth alluding to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, monarchs, patriarchs, top authorities as required for satisfactory order, also count against <2^x9/%^ of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R 23 Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way. More on this subsequently. �26 itself is relative to c), and of various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts contrast sets emerged centralism elitism statism absolutism realism objectivism in rough contrast respectively with maximizing rationalism decentralism egalitarianism anarchism pluralism nonrealism nonjectivism satisizing rationalism Naturally, these simple structural considerations are only indicative, not decisive. For we might find, as more and more constraints are imposed on structures, as account is taken of actual conditions, that freedom contracts, that structural arrangements are forced towards centralism or absolutism. While such forcing may now look, in the light of a little logic, implausible, it requires further argument that it need not in general eventuate. The to be developed agam-yf takes these lines: that there is ready design of institutional arrangements for decentralised communities which does not lead back to a central state. The state is organisationally otiose. Organisation is delivered anencephaletically. For an added or infiltrated top or the centre to be troublesome, something anarchism need bother removing or shun where it figures, it has to have an role. Politically that presumably means exercising power in some way. That is, the head (the head that is lacking in %7i#rc%(?.y) is an operative head, not a mere figurehead. Anarchism need not exclude princes, monarchs, emperors, or "governors", such as some countries now maintain. If the people really like having such relics, royalty or "aristocracy", as is often said they do, then they can presumably have them if they are prepared to afford them. Indeed this figurehead role is just what is presumed for the prince under more plausible anarchist construals of Taoism.25 The ideal prince is a Taoist who takes no action, a sage who is rarely or never seen, whose existence may merely be known to the populace or even simply rumoured (that is almost to say, though Lao Tzu could not tactfully assert it, the ideal prince is a nonexistent inoperative sage). 24 For a fuller picture see Sylvan 93/4, chapter 10. 25 See Clark 84 p.165. Also UTD. �27 As indicated, the main features adduced are mirrored in logic, which can serve as a structural guide. It is striking, as well as technically advantageous, that logical and political predelictions converge. Mainstream irrelevant logics have algebraic structures with top elements, Boolean algebras in the case of classical logics. By contrast relevant logics, which now challenge the classical logical paradigm, do not. Their corresponding algebras, De Morgan monoids and such like need include no top element. The top element, T, is directly responsible for positive paradoxes, of the basic form A -* T (anything at all implies the True), of mainstream logics, paradoxes infecting much theory which relevant logic avoids.^ The logical structure shows that sub "centres" need not have such damaging effects; a plurality of local "centres", regional nodes, induces no paradox. The figurehead analogy also operates analogically, in logic. It does not matter if a semi­ lattice structure is extended to include a top element, so long as that addition provides only a conservative extension. (If T is added to top a relevant lattice, it has in stronger logics to be kept out of implication relations, else it will induce a non-conservative relevant extension with theses like A -* T.) But otherwise, as an inoperative top-piece it is admissible. Technical comparisons now reach much further than logic alone, as we leam more and more about decentralised structures, about decentralised cerebral organisation, decentralised Al and topless connectionism, and decentralised intelligent structure. Intelligent organisation without top or central elements may abound both in nature, for instance in insect cerebral organisation and in vertebrate brain structure, and in many future artificial intelligence applications. Logic and computing technology demonstrate, what is widely appreciated outside political theory, that topless is feasible.2? There is scope, and need, for twenty-first century anarchism to be highly techno-logically sophisticated. There is more to anarchism than political structure without an operative top, head or centre, than a lateral structuring. That more, the residue of the rejection of archy, is more difficult to characterize in a way non-prejudicial to types of anarchism. It is bound up with the operation of the active top, with the confroZ for example it exercises, the potter it exerts, or the like: non-prejudicially, it cannot operate As to what are unacceptable means, however there are different specifications. These many include—what can be summarized, under a single rubric, as —force, coercion, authoritarianism (and what implies any of those, such as totalitarianism); and, much more controversial, nonvoluntary, nonindividualistic, socialist and communist, means. As in dictionariess entries for "anarchism", only coercive and authoritarian elements will be ruled unacceptable (for 26 See WR. 27 The subsequently preferred variety of anarchism, while not at all opposed to slates losing their heads, is powerfully opposed to people literally loosing their heads (figuratively again, it may be alright). ��34 A Gramsci, 'The intellectuals * and 'The modem prison * in gcZccfzony /row ?7zc Prz'yon M?fc&ooRy (ed. Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith), International Publishers, New York, 1971. D. Mannison and others (eds.), Environment?/ P/zz/oyopAy, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1980; referred to as EP. D. Miller, Aaarc/zzym, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, 1984; referred to as M. D. Mitrany, 7%c Ennctona/ 77zcory o/PoEr/cy, Martm Robertson, London, 1975. A. Naess and associates, Democracy, /Jeo/ogy aaJ D/?/eciiviiy, Oslo University Press, Norway, 1956. R. and V. Routley, 'The irrefutability of anarchism *, &?cza/AZfcrnaEvcy, R. and V. Routley, 'Social theories, self-management and environmental problems *, in EP; referred to as SM. R. Sylvan, and D. Bennett, 'On Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology *, D/ycayyzoa Papery in EavzrozzmczzZaZ P/zz/oypp/zy, #19, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1990. R.P. Wolff, 7a De/ence o/Aaarc/zzym, Harper & Row, New York, 1970. ADDITIONAL SOURCES P. Nursey-Bray, an Aaaa/arcJ EzEZzagrap/zy a/Aaarc/zzym , Greenwood Press, 1992. END NOTES 2 Cf Clark p.ll8ff. The general methodological issue of multiple determinates of key political terms and their archist confinement is taken up in a later chapter. �*J^A /TrT^^<Z7 (y/^cA e.ncrcicj/ ^ A A' '< -' z? y // /yr *-^. C r^O V. J * /X o J* ,<^A<_ . ) *4 C^c/^ / /Xot^z &J> f A-w^ t^i^L to n > etA A jt? cj C rZ-?/T^T <*C Zt , <^<!"// , cx^d /7^/^'Cx �^9 /?. 3* f,. /A^t / TL^i- c— ^^4—UT^-? ^-7y47 /^" <-/ f' z' ^^L-J 7 �1 CHAPTER 2. ELABORATIONS OF ANARCHISMS There are wany anarchist theories. For an anarchist theory is any laterally structured theory which duly conforms to the anarchy principle, of rejecting political authority and coercion. While received anarchist theories restrict anarchism to certain more specific forms (the standard options of considered below), p/ara/ijtic anarchism does not; plural anarchism not only admits the plurality, but takes advantage of it any may revel in it. Not all of this variety, not all anarchisms in the sheaf of systems, are of equal merit. Some forms are decidedly undesirable — like anarchisms expanding on the violent or chaotic varieties of popular imagination — in much the way that the nasty states of modem history, that anarchism opposes, are undesirable. Such undesirability may devolve from external rather than internal political characters. Thus, for instance, regions committed to global power projection to retain their privileged way of life (most unlikely under anarchistic arrangements) or committed to transnational terrorist practices. While standard anarchisms have been located in the more desirable, or even eutopian, end-range of anarchist systems, they by no means exhaust the satisfactory forms or even the most promising forms (as explained in chapter 5). Indeed in important respects the desirable range is significantly open for further elaboration of newer (and greener) forms. As varieties of anarchy may diverge, widely, so correspondingly do motivations and justifications for various divergent forms. The motivations, for instance, range from entirely theoretical (conceding to the warranted force of political scepticism) to practical (changing the local world); from personal and perhaps selfish (getting the state off one's back, or out of one's business and one's till) to other directed (eliminating a state oppressing its people) to environmental (disestablishing another vandalistic state). Common motivations trace back to the common character of anarchism: repulsion by, or opposition to, oppression, perhaps generalised from the state to all analogous political and bureaucratic structures, or expanding on that again, to all gross power relations. Indeed it is appealingly suggested that what anarchy is really all about is gross power relations, their reduction and removal; state coercive and authoritarian power are but paradigmatic of such power and domination relations. But while such opposition to gross power does characterizer gentler anarchism, heavy power methods are acceptable to tougher anarchisms; gentler anarchisms tend, so it will be argued, to be all of more pacific, more liberal and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchism. There are other expansionary liberal democratic motives for anarchism, further varying this theme: a yearning for removal of constraints, and for more extensive freedom; or a desire for more extensive equality, which would of course diminish those inequalities power delivers. Such motivations too have illicitly worked their way into variant characterisations of anarchism. ? �2 While a popular image of anarchists remains that of hardened terrorists, exercising authority over hostages using state-manufactured guns, many anarchists are joined by opposition to all such naked authority or coercion. Indeed 'behind the anarchist attack on the state and other coercive institutions, there has often stood a fundamental critique of the idea of authority itself (M p.15). An important, though certainly not invariant, mofivafmg and r^<?n for anarchism derives from a more sweeping anti-authoritarianism: the theme that no person or organisation can ever rightfully exercise authority of (political cast) over another. Picturesquely it is the theme that no authority is justified, no one, state or other, has a right to push another around. Too briefly it is sloganised to assert, no bosses, no leaders, or similar. Such general opposition to the principle of authority has even been dubbed "philosophical anarchism". It is an unfortunate choice of terminology given Feyerabend's different anarchistic challenge to much in philosophical theory and practice. * But some further classification and labelling undoubtedly helps. A princZp/^J anarchism takes exception on principled, characteristically ethical, grounds to objectionable authority or to coercion, that is to prime target elements undiluted anarchism directly rejects. But irrespective of type of anarchism intricated, much in anarchist theory, including a fuller characterisation, turns upon the twin notions of anf/ion/y and coercion, what these terms mean and cash out to, and why it is considered important to avoid damaging features of this sort? Both authority and coercion fall into the general category of power relations, a category that has rightly featured large not merely in anarchist theory but in social theory more comprehensively. As Aristotelian definitions of 'authority and coercion , by gunus and differentia, will be offered, an essential preliminary consists in pinning down the genus, power. * Power gm/ reZevan? serfs. Defective definitions of power, authority and coercion abound. Despite the importance of the notions for political theory, not just for anarchism, it is rare to encounter satisfactory formulations. A defective formulation from recent relevant anarchist theory defines power as 'the ability to compel compliance, either through the use of force or the threat of force (Wolff p.4), a conspicuously high redefinition. Rather, a power reZofion is a relation where one of the relata, that having the power, can normally get the other relata to do something (down to entertaining a belief, considering an idea). Power is a can-do; it may not be exercised. But there need be no compulsion or compelling compliance; nor need its exercise always succeed. Further its exercise need not involve force or threat thereof; it may be effected by a range of other means. 1 By Wolff, and following him, Miler and others. Feyerabend's philosophical anarchism, his is sometimes better labelled anarc/h-yiH, a type of nihilism. But it stops short, excluding logical methods (irrationally scorned however) from variation^ .In fact without a sharp—unavailable—distinction between logical and other (empirical or pwidivist) methods, this methodological anarchism is incoherent. �3 on the one side, bribery, seduction, blackmail, and so on, and on the other, knowledge, prowess, charisma, and so on. It is no secret that major problems in human social and political affairs devolve upon power, its excessive or evil use, misuse, regulation and control. But by no means all power, not even all political power, is bad. Distangling the undesirable, negative forms is an essential exercise, often neglected. After observing the failure of radical social theory to provide an adequate investigation of power, Clark embarks on a critique of the "classical model"2 According to the received conception, power is depicted as a relation of domination in which the powerful subject the powerless to control in order to exploit the latter. In both classical Marxism and anarchism this exploitation is conceived as being essentially economic. Thus, for Marx, "political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another (p.231). It is evident that what we see here is an attempt to explain power through, and then reduce power to, certain of its determinate forms: domination, then control, exploitation, oppression, and then organised and economic forms of these. These determinates are all, though important, rather special and rather negative, black forms of power. Power may be short-term, just for a day for instance or once only (a creature requires power only for a short period, because of what it is, because it loses power thereafter, because it has access to short-term drugs, magic, hypnosis, contracts, etc.). Domination is a longer-term relation, a disposition, between recognised parties, with a decided bias in favour of one party the power-holder; exploitation and oppression increase that bias, in specifiable ways, control however removes it. Power may, furthermore, be applied for positive and libertary, purposes, to help powerless to achieve something or other, to survive, prosper, and so on. Briefly, the concerning power is not power itself, but certain of its forms, its negative forms, and its excessive use. This last can be assimilated, by taking excess as a negative form. The negative forms are, of course, though they can be independently specified, the bad, or undesirable forms, forms as was earlier said.3 These include, among other forms, closed authority and coercion. They also include such overlapping forms as oppression, exploitation, domination, and so on. Privilege goes with these latter forms; it is held by the power-holders and their circle. It is held moreover exclusively by this circle; others, at the other end of the power relation, the power-less, are excluded from its possession. That is, the domain and range of a given power relation are exclusive: no one is both an exploiter and exploited (though of course someone, a husband day labourer for example, may be both exploited in his labour and domineering over his wife). 2 3 A critique, p.231 ff. too quickly petering out in an inconclusive, discussion of Foucault on power, where power turns into what is not, something mystical and all-pervasive. In these respects, power is like other notions, of green political significance, for one, for another. �4 There are two separable kinds of undesirable power: excessive and malselective or illdirected. The two kinds are more or less replicated in other significant phenomena that have been, like power, too sweepingly condemned: economic growth and material consumption. The problematic concerning human consumption is not consumption itself, some level of which is essential to human societies and indeed survival. The problems derive basically from excessive consumption and from poorly selected consumption. Conspicuous consumption, insofar as it delivers a negative form, derives from these: it is either excessive and wasteful or malselective or a mix of these. But the kinds are distinctive. For example, a poor family that buys expensive junk food may spend its limited income poorly, but its consumption may well not be excessive. Similarly with power: the limited power an individual or group possesses, whether exercisable for evil or not, may be better or worse directed. In term of power and its gross exercise, much in more gentle anarchisms can be / synthesized, namely all that is otherwise packed into the rubric: unacceptable means. What is unacceptable is gross exercise of power, including types of political power exploited by tougher anarchisms, terrorist power, crude fire power from the barrels of guns, and so on. What correspondingly gentler anarchisms oppose are all institutions and arrangements, not just the state and those tied to it, that can exert gross power. The state mightly concentrates, and centralizes, such power/ Even so the state is merely paradigmatic among undesirable and excessive power structures — a power hungry one at that, since it looks for a surplus product in power, along with a monopolistic position. But militia posts, torture shops, and pirate ships are other more localized structures. Coercive and closed authoritarian arrangements (opposition to which helps define anarchism) are distinctive marks of such grossness. Dilute anarchisms tone down opposition certain types of power (typically authority); they admit exercise of power that gentler anarchism would regard as gross. From the problematicness and undesirability of excessive power, main objectives of ( anarchism for ameliorative change flow: decentralisation, division and separation of powers. Centralised powers are to be separated and decentralised; aggregated powers to be broken down into functional components; and so on. Tougher anarchism proposes more, rival power play, resisting and undermining power through power, to break down its excesses and reveal its limitations, fighting fire with fire. One trouble with this tough and morally dubious strategy, which can be spectacular, is that it easily overreaches, producing for instance inadmissible coercion of others. 4 Not all state power is undesirable. Some of state regulation and redistribution, effected through power is certainly desirable. The argument will be that these elements are completely outweighted by the undesirable components of state power, and that they can be independently effected without the state. �5 Gentler anarchism travels in the vanguard of the long retreat from barbarism in human practices and institutions. In more enlightened parts of the world we have witnessed the progressive removal of physical punishment, such as: maiming, blinding, executing, stoning, torturing, transporting, flogging, corporal punishing, starving, chaining, incarcerating, imprisoning, infecting, ...and extensions, such as: serious threats thereof and assistance or encouragement of these practices elsewhere. Such enlightenment has not penetrated many parts of the world to any extent, and has far to reach yet even in the most civilized regions. TTyugh the gentler anarchist theme of curtailment of power, we can tap into several rich connections. The excessive drive to power and strength, the "will to power", is a conspicuous feature of modernity. Interestingly Nietzsche went so far as to claim that the will to power was basic motive in human affairs. Fortunately such a socio-psychological claim, about prevailing human nature and institutions, has little to substantiate it. But undoubtedly power motivates much, much too much, in modernity; otherwise anarchism would lose much of its more sweeping point. It was not always so; the quest for power at all costs, the flaunting of power, was at least highly problematic (as drama revealed); it did not always gain the adulation it now widely commands. It did not win respect from early anarchism, as manifested in Stoicism and Taoism. It would not have won endorsement from Aristotelibnism; for power, of both institutions and individuals, like so many other attributes, is evidently similarly constrained to a While the rough bounds are evident enough for an instrumental object such as a vehicle, which wastes fuel and becomes dangerous when excessively powered, but cannot perform its tasks if underpowered, the bounds, especially ^e lower, may not be so conspicuous elsewhere (e.g. with military hardware, intelligence reserves, etc.). Organisations and institutions, which should be vehicles to serve social ends, enjoy once again a striking analogy with logical systems. Logical systems, when excessively strong in the fashion of modem mainstream systems, ensnarl users in a tangle of paradoxes and other troubles (for detailed discussion see RLR, p.240 ff.). On the other hand, if they are excessively weak they fail to meet reasonable conditions of adequacy, to afford satisfactory vehicles of inference and reasoning. Two species of gross power feature particularly in the definitional elaboration of anarchism: authority and coercion. While undesirable authority is characteristically tied into excessive power, coercion is different, is often once-off, and is malselective power. �6 * Authority, and warranted repugnance of closed forms. Authority is a type of power relation, a relation with the power or influence conferred or supported by other features of one of the relata, the bearer of authority, namely character, station, recognised control of coercive means, or the like. itself is the abstract of the relation : a has authority over or with respect to b. Authority is a proper subrelation of power. For evidently many power relations — those exerted by bullies, bandits, etc — are not authority relations, since the relation is not supported by suitable station. Again the following definition of authority (upon which Wolff founds his philosophical defence of anarchism) is far too narrow: "the right to command, and correlatively, the right to be obeyed" (p.4). Only some who hold authority may be (conventionally) conceded a right to command, or more broadly, to exercise their power. For evidently their power may be exercised in a variety of other ways than through command structures, such as blockages, delays, vetoes, withholdings, and so on, and on the other side, concessions, gifts, rewards, and so on. There are many types of authority relations, many inadmissibly excluded under narrow definitions, not all of which are objectionable, or objected to by anarchists. For an example of an unobjectionable sort, consider the relation of a student to an authority in some field of knowledge, who can in turn back up expert judgements by appeal to a further range of assessible evidence. Such an authority might be called frampar^if (or open), because those with time and some skill can proceed through the authority to assess claims made. Among op%n authorities are contemporary teachers, by contrast with old fashioned disciplinarians, and advanced parents, who can back up their orders with satisfactory reasons. Contrasted with such authorities are op&q%^ (or cZo<y^%f) authorities, who simply stand on their position or station, such authority is objectionable in part because of its dogmatic character.^ Closely allied to op^M^ authorities who can appeal to a conventional rule or procedure (that is how things are done, have been done) without being able to or prepared to opaque authorities are step beyond some rule book. Rule-book authorities are commonplace in bureaucracies, which often encourage such practice in lower level officials. In opaqM^ authorities the justificatory procedure stops a step further out; there is a set of rules, which has been enacted (for reasons not open to, or bearing, examination) by a further substantially opaque authority. Other authority relations are objectionable because of the way in which or the means by which they are backed. Unobjectionable is the authority figure which is exemplary, where what it exemplifies is in its tum satisfactory. Not so relations backed by coercive means, by violence or threats of violence: Big-stick authority relations. Such relations are condemned on moral 5 The impression is widely promoted that science reliably furnishes examples of transparent authorities, in the shape of experts. That impression is astray. Dominant Science frequently functions as a substantially closed authority, rather as the universal Church did, standing on received theory as gospel (for elaboration see DP, chapter 12). �7 grounds, for example by moral pacifists opposed to violence, who do not object to the carrot methods such as sanctions, boycotts, civil disobedience, etc. A diagram will summarise the position so far attained. o/'gMf/tonfy Confine##.? Methods carrot <- stick possibly benign Pacifist Back-up transparent T opposition A opaque Enlightenment Liberal opposition opposition It will be evident that the objections to nonbenign authoritarian relations—to what in clear cases may be presented as to — can be of significantly different sorts. To more opaque authority relations there are objections of enlightenment cast, that reason is lacking for what an authority requires, proposes or asserts, as it was lacking in authoritarian religious and political practice against which the Enlightenment was primarily targeted. (A significant strand of anarchism, more theoretical anarchism, is a descendant: undisclosed reasons of State are not adequate reasons.) To more coercive authority relations there are objections from non-violence devotees. To there may be a kind of liberal opposition, that the party subject to authority is being denied, in one way or another, for unacceptable reasons, a certain freedom, namely ' autonomy. Naturally, movements have been directed at breaking down authoritarian power relations: masters over slaves, humans over animals, men over women, adults over children, etc. States over citizens. A comprehensive civil liberties movement would merge with anarchist movements. Plainly then, these three convergences are linked to three interconnected forms of opposition to authoritarianism: namely * convergence of anarchism with an Enlightenment opposition to opaque authority, which anarchism takes to include state authority. (A response will contend, as religious groups did against Enlightenment charges, that State authority is justified, e.g. it represents the people's will, or some similar fairy tale. But that is what is at issue.) * convergence of anarchism with moral pacifism in opposition to violence and coercion as unmitigated evils which should always be avoided. Of course only some forms of anarchism are �8 involved. Some anarchists are not averse at all to the exercise of heavy power relations, for instance of violence or terror against others (no matter how this violates their free personal space). But observe that such uses of power are not supported by recognised authority but normally directed agnm-sf such authority; so they might be dubbed relations. * convergence of anarchism with forms of liberalism, deriving from solid commitment of normal forms of anarchism, particularly individual varieties to personal liberty. Libertarian ideals have served as a major motivation in historical anarchism. There is a vision of a free society, a 'vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labour is freely undertaken'.6 ( There are of course other convergences as well, some of them much discussed, such as with marxism. When opposition to authority is broadened to opposition to domination, no doubt there are further convergences, with feminism, with deep environmentalism. A recent convergence, of initial promise, is with ecofeminism, which ought to highly sympathetic to environmentally sensitive anarchism. For both are opposed to domination in all its forms, to downward control lines and power hierarchies. There is an important argument against the state based on its authoritarian character. This argument, to be found is Proudhon and in embryonic form in Rousseau, is developed and given a Kantian tum in Wolff? What Proudhon portrayed as a conflict between the authority of the state and freedom, Wolff represents as 'the conflict between authority and autonomy' (p.18). In this conflict, where the state represents authority, autonomy takes precedence; anarchism is consistent with the supreme virtue of authonomy, but archist doctrines supporting the state are not, because of authoritarian character of the state. Because Wolffs argument has been subject to much criticism which an improved formulation would shed, because too Wolffs formulation leaves something to be desired (it is not sufficiently sharp or tight), the argument will be revamped. A crucial difference is this: whereas Wolff asserts that 'all authority is equally illegitimate', a judgement already rejected, it is now said that all authority is illegitimate, meaning thereby wtoraZ/y illegitimate, not 'having a binding moral force ? 6 7 8 Chomsky, in Guerin p.xii, As to Proudhon see Ritter p.13, pp. 15-16. According to Rousseau such undesirable restrictive features need not pertain for all forms of government; naturally they do not obtain for his favoured arrangements. Wolff tries to repeat this sort of point, less than successfully for unanimous direct democracy. Of course a state may proclaim, even legislate, that its authority is legitimate, and even have other states do the same. But that will not achieve moral, a de jt/re, legitimacy. It is similar when the state endeavours to enforce its authority; /noraf legitimacy is not thereby obtained. Nonetheless these sorts of features go far towards explaining why people acknowledge, rarely questioning, closed authorities like the state. There are other elements which enter into explaining this popular sheepishness, such as: The force of tradition, that is the way things have always been done, the �9 Nor is all closed authority equally objectionable. The unquestionable directives of a benevolent dictator (one whose authoritarian directives and regulations prove inductively to be well directed) can be seen as less objectionable than those of a malevolent dictator. Similarly for a dictatorial group, a junta, or a majority. That the dictator said so, or that the majority said so, does not offer a reason rendering the state less than a closed authority. A core theme, to be embroided and defended, is W1. An autonomous person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. But W2. The state is a closed authority, of a certain of course. Hence WC1. An autonomous person does not recognise the state as legitimate. The core theme depends crucially on the notion of aMfonowy, on characterising features of the autonomous person. But before that task is addressed, observe that autonomy can be eliminated. First, the rafiona/ person, or a little less satisfactorily, the person, can carry the argument instead, using for instance W3. A rational person is autonomous. So results Wl' with 'rational' displacing 'autonomous', W1'. A rational person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. That premiss at once suggests a direct argument devoid of the circuit through persons (or through agents). For what a rational, still more an enlightened, person does not recognise as legitimate presumably is not, and certainly vice versa. In any case, U1. A closed authority is not legitimate. Hence, by W2, UC1. The state is not legitimate. Since this conclusion is equivalent to UC2. The concept of a legitimate state is null, the result sharpens the tentative conclusion Wolff reaches: 'Hence, the concept of a jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous', to which he adds, thereby presuming other links already made explicit, 'and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man' (p.19). As observed, not too much hangs upon the notion of moral legitimacy deployed, thus far following Wolffs lead, throughout. Simple variations replace 'morally legitimate' or 'legitimate' by 'morally warranted', 'morally justified', 'justifiable', 'rightful' (the last, though a trifle old-fashioned, captures what is intended well). force of character of leaders; their occupation of official positions, which have heavy bureaucratic backing. �10 These arguments permit of much other interesting variation. Wolff s original argument, for instance, precedes from authority as The defining mark of the state', with authority defectively explicated as 'the right to rule' (p.18). Evidently then the middle term, authority, can drop out, and the argument can be formulated along the following lines: VI. The state has the right to rule (without question, its citizens, more or less as it pleases). V2. An autonomous person rejects any (sweeping) right to rule. Therefore VC1. An automonous person rejects the state. Further variations may be obtained by amending the middle term, "right to rule without question" (which effectively replaced "exercise of close authority") to reflect other features of the state, for instance that it can simply tell its citizens what to do, that is has a right to coerce its citizens, rights to institute state monopolies, and so on. Under some variations "autonomous person" should be correspondingly replaced. For instance, if VI is specialized from a right to command and control to the right to send citizens to war, then V2 may be adjusted to apply to the person of conscience, of peace, or similar. As Wolff seeks a grander conclusion than VC1, which might be merely taken to reveal that there are but few autonomous actors about, he invokes a further premiss V3. Autonomy is a (even the) primary obligation. From there, it is an analytic shuffle to the more impressive conclusion VC2. The state ought to be rejected. The arguments are as vulnerable as their premisses. What gets especially contested in the first argument is Wl, concerning the autonomous person. For all the surface reasonableness and even open-door aspects of a more liberal state, W2 holds; it swings into effect as soon as the going gets tough. As Dahl puts it, To obey the authority of the state ... means doing what the you do it'? While there may be a little scope for light and reson as regards more flexible minor officials, that scope is officials of the state tell you to do simply and soley ( t/z^y small; the wall of closed authority can be quickly encountered, particularly with judges and law enforcement officers. If W2 did not hold the state would risk sliding into a voluntary organisation, out of which citizens could opt. In the end citizens are expected to act in a variety of ways (fill in form, take out licences, pay taxes, etc.) because the state tells them to, just because, or else face punitive action. The argument to Wl depends heavily on the meaning of gMfono/ny. Here is one way it can be presented (following Dahl): An autonomous person is self determining. Such a person is not under the direction or choices of another item. While the person may do what another tells him 9 See p.92..Dahl's reconstruction of Wolff effectively applies W2, using Wolffs definition of HMf%<?r#y, to obtain VI. This produces a more complex, and defective, argument. G �11 or her, she does not she has been told to do it. Thus the autonomous person does not conform to closed authorities, and does not acknowledge them or assign them recognition (more than recognition that is). While autonomy is one thing, responsibility is quite another; still a critical reason for arriving at autonomy intricates responsibility. ... so long as we recognise our responsibility for our actions, and acknowledge the power to reason within us, we must acknowledge as well the continuing obligation to make ourselves authors of such commands as we may obey (Wolff p.17), i.e. to make ourselves autonomous. A primary moral demand, central to the moral condition, is, according to Kant and Wolff, to 'acknowledge responsibility and achieve autonomy whenever and whenever possible" (p.17). Assuming responsibility in a life is by means the only reason for striving for autonomy: achieving a certain personal freedom (within natural bounds) and operating a life rationally are other crifica/ reasons. A main argument to V3 indicated by Wolff does proceed from responsibility. It is simply that in order to take full responsibility (for one's actions, choices, etc.), which one should, one has to be autonomous. So one should be autonomous. At least as important philosophically as the argument from W1 and W2 is that from Wl' and W2. While the argument to Wl' may proceed through autonomy it may short-circuit it. The philosophical argument for Wl' is well-known, having been repeatedly emphasized from Socrates through to Russell: that a rational person does not accept anything for which there are not independent investigatible reasons and evidence. The pronouncements of a closed authority do not fall into this class. By revamping the arguments especially that from autonomy as directed against authority, many objections to Wolffs arguments are fairly autonomically voided. Firstly (contrary to Dahl p.47), the arguments are not (any longer, if they ever were) arguments against 'authority of any kind". Not merely was Wolff concerned with the authority of the state; further as Dahl points out next page, the type of authority concerned is that of 'doing what someone tells you to do fo ^Zo if, that is a closed form. A rational person can of course acknowledge an open authority who can offer reason and evidence for prono^cements. For similar reasons, experts, guides and guardians, of open character, are not excluded. Accordingly the arguments does not cut "too broad a swath""; while it properly cuts out closed authorities like absolute rulers, states and similar, it does not mow down open authorities. In like fashion, much of Miller's parallell criticism of philosophical anarchism is voided. Things go astray (in Miller's chapter 2) from the very outset, from the slack formulation of "the principle of authority"", which is chauvinistically formulated, 'no man can ever rightfully exercise political authority over another, that is have a right to issue directions which the other has an obligation to obey' (p.15), and which is then intended to apply to the relation of a state �12 and its officials to its citizens. The formulation has both to be expanded to include persons and organisations as subjects of the relation, and sharply contracted to delimit the kinds of authority and rights concerned. For the explanatory (that is) clause offered reaches far beyond (closed) political authority; it would wrongly rule out contractual relations such as those of freely arranged employment, parental relations, and so on. The counterexamples Miller designs to Wolffs arguments also depend upon shifting ground from closed authority like the state to more open arrangements, such as contracts an autonomous person may have entered into freely. Plainly there will be a limited range of such contracts that a rational person will enter into; long-term future bondage or slavery will not be among them, and Miller's examples may border on the rationality dubious. In any case, in one, an agent morally concerned to relieve poverty enters into authoritarian arrangements, imagined unavoidable for successful action, in which it becomes obligatory for the agent to act under authoritative instruction (p.28). Firstly, the authorities are not closed, they have to be pursuing means directed to poverty relief, else an autonomous agent will not enter into such ". * arrangements Secondly, while contractual obligations, and therewith certain directives of open authoritarian cast, may constitute reasons for action, the situation with the state is very different. There is no contract, and no reasons of contract (also lacking are spotless reasons justifying entering into such a contract). Examples like Miller's arrangements and contracts can be inflated into stock flawed arguments, from consent to the state. Unremarably, Dahl attempts to patch up again these well- worn arguments, but in two mutually inconsistent ways. Second, he proposes that To opt for a democratic state' is The most responsible way of exercising our moral autonomy', and reasonable and rational as ways of maximizing our autonomy (p.49). Insofar as there are any arguments for such wishful conclusions, they depend upon familiar fantasy-world assumptions about the blackness of nonstate arrangements presumed to impact utterly unfavourably on autonomy and the contrasting whiteness of democratic states. That those states are at best a pretty dirty gray, Dahl's first more honest considerations suggest. There he asks, What is so great about autonomy? 'Why not sacrifice some moral autonomy?' As 'unlimited autonomy is impossible', why not settle for autonomy within reasonable state limits? (cf p.48). Compare: why not sacrifice some resistance to homocide and settle for reasonable killing of humans for reasons of state? The moral importance of autonomy Wolff has already explained nicely (pp 14- 17). Autonomy is a primary oM/ganon of rational persons, a constraint, not what Dahl converts it utilitarian-fashion into, a supreme value, to be questioned then traded off against other values. Because of its importance for rational practice the obligation should not be weakened; nor is there good reason to do so. There appear no grounds for forfeiting autonomy to closed 10 Compare Wolffs discussion (on p.15) of relations with one's doctor. �13 authorities, such as the state. It is doubtful that there are even grounds for what Wolff allows, forfeiture of some autonomy to one s doctor, hopefully no longer a closed authority, rather than retaining autonomy and freely following the doctor's advice. Autonomy is not like freedom in limitations; it can in principle always be exercised by a rational person. Submission to the state is a gross forfeiture of that autonomy. While an autonomous agent may place itself under guidance of leadership of another for limited purposes, and may indeed enter into certain sorts of contracts, it will not surrender its whole future life or extensive parts of it to a directorate that may well proceed in suboptimal, subliminal or even irrational ways. Yet that latter is what expected acceptance of the state implies. Accordingly an autonomous person cannot recognise the state; nor can a fully rational one, as it is irrational to place oneself indefinitely under a closed authority. It may be objected that it is unfair to treat Dahl, Miller and others in the preceding fashion, which changes the dialectical playing field. They were attacking Wolff and his over-extended arguments, not a refinement of Wolff which singles out the philosophical nasty elements in authority, and accordingly destroys their counter-examples which operated at the rational open end of authority relations. But that was not all that they were doing. They were using Wolff as a vehicle to draw quite conclusions about the unviability of principled anarchism (e.g. Dahl p.50, Miller p.29), and accordingly should have taken account of simple revampings of arguments like those of Wolff. Nor is this the only respect in which their practice is methodologically unsound. A principle—like that of closed authority, that such authority is legitimate—does not stand because someone's attack (e.g. Wolff s) against it is unsuccessful. Yet this is Miller's methodological procedure against philosophical anarchism (p.26, p.29). This is Popperian falsificationism gone rampant and badly astray. For Popper at least required sustained and strenuous testing and adequate variation; not a few select and easy examples. But of course a Popperian approach by archists is unsatisfactory; the onus of argument is the other way around. An archist has to establish that political authority, such as that the claims and exercises, is rightful. That Wolff intended to work with something like closed authority should have emerged both from Wolffs emphasis on the place of 'grounds and sources' in legitimate authority (p.9), and his flirtation with unanimous direct democracy. What Wolff is exercised about is not compliance with a authority or obedience where there are good or independent reasons for it, but blind, or closed obedience: doing what you are told because you are told to do it (p.9). (Yours not to reason why, yours but to do ....) While these points exonerate Wolff from some overzealous criticisms, they immerse him in others, namely his attempt to combine authority with autonomy under unanimous direct democracy. A major problem is that this combination, �14 so far as it is workable^, appeals not to the closed authority of the state, but to open autonomous arrangements which do not conform to requirements of the state (as Dahl remarks on p.48, the "authority" here is not the "authority" of his earlier definition'; and as Miller observes on p.27, *it is ... arguable whether this state of affairs [under unaminous direct democracy] involves the recognition of Autonomy and freedom tell not merely against the exercise of opaque authority, but against use of coercion. This connection affords the basis for a parallel argument to that against closed authority, to the desirability of a sharp decline in deployment of coercive methods. But parallels between coercion and closed authority do not proceed very far. * Coercion, an impermissible activity. Coercion is very different from exercise of authority. All four places, 1 to 4, in a cross­ classificatory matrix are regularly occu Died: actions coercive authoritative 1 non-authoritive 2 non 4 coercive 3 Place 1 is well occupied given the State, and is widely exemplified in not only state-citizen relations, but also in authorized domination relations. Place 2 is illustrated in a range of operations which the state often tries to repress such as banditry, piracy, protection rackets, but also in a variety of interpersonal relations. Place 4, that clear indicator of unqualified anarchism, is well exemplified through voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Place 3, characteristic of many work-place and educational situations, can be easily illustrated through advanced ( education. Coercion, unlike authority, is action. That is why comparisons are with .... of authority; authority may sit, like power, unused, but coercion cannot. Like all action it is a process, a state to state transition, but actively changing or maintaining state. It is a transitive action relation having both a doer, a coercer, and done-tos, coerced, all normally creatures. The transitions include a wide range of more determinate actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling and so on; and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. An essential feature of coercion is that state transitions are effected A/<Z or attempted by coercers through force or genuine threats of force. No such force, no coercion. NY- Defective definitions of coercion are liable particularly to neglect this feature. Thus e.g. Fridman 11 Wolff himself concludes it is not except under highly improbable conditions. Indeed the conditions are more onerous those Wolff allows: required are humans who having consented do not change their minds, etc. _________ /e �/6 L < s _ _ z^<^4^-f ___' / ^ry^- /i, <^___ . �15 p.xviii, according to whom being coerced is 'not being left alone'. Perhaps in one special sense, but a person who chooses to have a constant companion is not being thereby coerced. Pressuring someone to do something without attempts or threats to apply force is not coercion. Similarly persuasion is not coercion; censuring, withholding support, applying peaceable sanctions, are so on, are not. All this proves important in meeting objections to anarchist methods. Coercion is not a success notion; a coercer may well not succeed in obtaining what was sought through coercion. This will prove important in explaining why appeal to the state does not automatically resolve political dilemmas. To coerce is maintain or change states, normally of another creature, by implied force (i.e. force or accepted threat thereof). The state transition or statis includes the full range of relevant actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling aa so on, and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. Coercion, by contrast with * exercise of authority, entails potential use of force, force furthermore which will characteristically tum into violence if resistance is attempted. Therein lies a main reason why coercion is so objectionable; its intrication with force and immediate potential for violence. For violence is generally undesirable.^. It follows therefrom that coercive arrangements are generally undesirable and, devolving therefrom, If social organisation can be achieved without them, usually so much the better, certainly the more ethical. A main onus to show that coercive arrangements, such as the state characteristically incorporates, are inevitable, unavoidable or the like, thereupon falls upon archists. 'Since coercive power is self-defeating' and worse, a general theory of 'non-coercive authority' is presented as a 'pressing problem of this stage of history'.13 Unfortunately, the general theory has obtained but little development. But functionalism, in such forms as demarchy (to be transformed below), has gained some elaboration, by some in the peace movement. 14 Worse, Merrifield arrives at the "pressing problem" on the strength of the need for Rt/M? of solution to the authority problem': thesources, methods, and ends of authority (p.724). This "problem" is presumed by way of the following large (anarchist) assumptions: Authority is a requisite of all social life, since in its absence it is both psychologically and physically impossible to coordinate human behaviours so that the ordinary social processes can continue to operate and flourish (p.729). The main claim is an important part of what is at issue between anarchists and archists and is at best highly dubious. Moreover the reason offered in its support is false and should be rejected (a range of counter models and counter examples have been indicated or will be). Furthermore, Merrifield goes on (on the next page) to adduce information on organisations of a sort which 12 13 14 Sec wp in. Merrifield p.724 alluding to the wording Notably B. Martin A/Z&) -sy-Mezn of political functionalism. �16 serve to cast severe doubt upon his claim and its supporting reason. There are various nongovernmental organisation (NGOs), and some intergovernmental organisation (IGOs), which rely upon voluntary, permissive or non-coercive motivations ... to accomplish their functional purposes. ... They may explain, demonstrate, justify and argue, but they cannot usually coerce. The role of functional NGO's is even more pronounced. Lacking any coercive power, they must rely on the validity and demonstrability (p.725). Some of the organisation rely, or need rely, not at all on closed authority. Like the voluntary support and participation basis, so too the organisational structure is voluntarily maintained. There is no hard authority, and no conspicuous authority problem. Coercion, in this respect authority, is also open to objection on rational grounds. Namely, ways of controlling, governing, or getting rational creatures coercive methods are not to do things. Rationality—not the undesirability and demeanment of force not, or not just, freedom—is the ground of this objection. The analysis of coercion admits of immediate fruitful application to (internal) criticisms of anarchism. In the first place, it has been argued that anarchism does not avoid coercion but incorporates coercive elements—which would render it inconsistent (as normally characterised). Further, because of these coercive elements anarchism is incompatible with liberty, thereby multiplying inconsistency, as liberty constitutes one of its main goals. These alleged problems derive from the reliance of anarchism on public censure, and like methods, to control social behaviour. According to Ritter, for example, who makes much of the second problem^, anarchists have the following goals: an (admirable) commitment to liberty, and a heavy reliance on public censure. But these goals are incompatible. For such a 'social scheme relies so much on coercive public * censure (p.10, also p.l). However, the argument to incompatibility is invalid; it makes an illicit insertion of 'coercive * * 'coercive (as the quote above illustrates; in fact the prejudicial slipping in of and 'coercion * occurs right through Ritter's discussions; see e.g. p.25 top and bottom). The social scheme as described involves only public censure in a free setting; such censure does not imply coercion, as no use of force need be involved or even contemplated. Secondly, connectedly, there is a widely exploited false dichotomy between voluntary and coerced activity, under which it supposed that all activity which is not purely voluntary is coerced. To the contrary, the range of actions is more satisfactorily diagrammed as follows: Voluntary vs coerced activity In a first chapter short-tided 'Liberty and pubiic censure', particularly on a muddled p.2. ,u„ ZL.. �17 hard pressured ! soft pressured ) ! (entirely) free ) influenced encouraged (fully) coerced <Actions -* In most standard arguments for the state only the outer bounds are considered.^ But noncoercive methods can include a wide range of influenced or pressured actions, which are less than entirely free. The interesting argument that Dahl draws from anarchism, directed against the state, turns upon on the undesirability, indeed the intrinsic badness, of coercion. In essence (leaving out support offered for the premiss as) the argument is as follows: Pl. M? one Zs obZZg#R?6? to -report or o&ey a sfafe. P2. A// sfafes ore coercive. P3. Coercion Zs intrin-nca/Zy bnJ. P4. A society wit/iont a state is a yeasi&Ze aitemative to a society with a state. This conclusion derives fiom these premisses ('assumptions' as he calls them) Dahl draws Ave conclusions' (p.41). As these are not the most direct or pointed conclusions, let us sharpen the conclusions: Cl. AZZ states are necessariiy &aJ. ^rom P2 and P3 (equivalently recast as: all coercive items are intrinsically bad items), given that intrinsicaZZy so implies necessariZy so. Dahl prefixes Cl by the conjunct, 'because all states are necessarily coercive'. Not only does Cl not require that support; we do not have it (e.g. in P2). While coercion may be taken as defining of the state, or an essential characteristic of it, as Dahl does, however states are defined it is continently true that all of them are coercive. C2 No one has an o&ZZgahon fo, Zs o&ZZgafed to, to support or obey any state. From Pl and Cl. Again Dahl unnecessarily prefixes his analogue of C2 (as for Cl above). Insofar as political obligation is obligation to the state, C2'. 77iere Zs no poZZtZcaZ obZZgatZon; political obligation lapses. Conclusions Cl and C2 specialize, because democratic states are states, to democratic states (that is effectively Dahl's fourth conclusion, p42). Dahl, like Wolff, senses a democratic escape through unaminity procedures, and reaches towards a fifth conclusion, which we will subvert. P5. Unanimity decision practices (can) escape coercion. 16 See for instance Taylor's presentation of game-theoretic arguments. 2^ �18 P6. Democracy can operate through unanimity procedures. These procedures and democracy are presumed to apply to some society, community or association. C51. prac/zc&y (can) escape -yfafcF. C52. Democracy can operate wif/zoaf any .sfafe. This last conclusion is interesting because Dahl regularly assumes, as against anarchism, that democracy must operate through the state, and that democracy is therefore in compatible with anarchism. As conclusion C52 reveals, these assumptions are astray, on grounds Dahl himself supplies (the inadequacy of these assumptions will be independently investigated subsequently). It is worth noting that, irrespective of the merit of premisses P5 and P6 (e.g. because unanimity wears off, because of the rareness of unanimity), the conclusions do not follow without other lesser presumptions. For C52 the transitivity of opcrafc wifAoMf (doubtfully a universal linkage) is presumed, and perhaps some modal shuffles as well. For derivation of C51 from P5 what is presumed is that what escapes coercion escapes the state, which requires a strengthened P2 (already encountered), that states necessitate coercion (as well as a little of the logic of escapism). Dahl's third conclusion, after detachment of (three) because-clauses, is C3D. A// PMg/tf a? A minimal inference scheme enabling derivation of C3D from previously derived statements is this: P3D. where an item is necessarily bad and there is a feasible (less bad) alternative to that item, the bad item ought to be abolished. Then C3D follow from (strengthened) P3D. These are important arguments, both for principled anarchists and for archists, and Dahl rightly invests detailed study to certain of the premisses, those he imagines he can dispose of, most notably P2 concerning the coerciveness of states. It is not that other premisses and steps are not highly controversial; they are. The very first, Pl, yields at least the stock debate as to whether one is obliged to support or obey a bad law; for a state can be viewed as a structure of laws. Instead of an argument for Pl, Dahl offers a thumbnail history of its status, a genetic '^justification". Other justifications there are, rendered easier if P2 is strengthened (as it may be without upsetting the arguments dependent upon it) by replacing 'bad' by 'evil' or 'immoral'. Then initial support for strengthened Pl is that political obligation, likewise legal obligation, is a type of obligation, justified by considerations of obligation generally, and accordinging triumphed by ethical obligation. The detailed arguments for these themes gets down to fundamentals, to the justification of obligations through values. Briefly, obligations obtain only towards items which normally exhibit a sufficient level of positive value. An item like an evil state that condition. So no obligation obtains towards such a state. �19 To escape such an outcome, archists contend that certain states are not evil, for instance Dahl will claim that 'a democratic state is not an evil state" (p.40). Anarchists will by contrast assemble a great deal of evidence that democratic states, like others, are evil (see next chapter). The immediate issue is, however, whether states are evil in principle, by virtue of their coercive features. Now Dahl does not contest 'so elementary a proposition" as P2, the universal coerciveness of states. 'Like any state, a democratic state would use coercion to enforce democratically enacted laws ..." Accordingly, to make his escape, Dahl is bound to dispute P3, and does; coercion is instrumentally justified as a means 'essential to a good purpose , a democratic state (p.40). * As to supposed (second-rate) justifiability of coercion. A conionplace claim, which Dahl advances, is DI. Even though coercion is intrinsically bad, its use is sometimes (reasonably) justified (p.44). Which times?, on which occasions? will turn out to be a critical issue. As against Dahl, it will be contended that its use is never woraZZy justified. However in moral dilemma situations, where all other feasible alternatives have been exhausted, its use can be given a "secondary"" secondrate justification. Such a secondary justification, in very limited circumstances, gives no succour to the state, which depends upon and makes widespread use of much more coercion. That is, DI itself does not justify the sfaR?'.? use of coercion. The first argument Dahl offers is overtly dilemmatic. There is a 'recalcitrant wrongdoer , ( who simply will not refrain from doing serious harm to others. Despite the best efforts of his associates, neither reason, argument, persuasion, public opinion, nor the final sanction of social octricism dissuades him from doing harm. His associates finally conclude that he will persist in harming others unless he is forcibly restrained or threatened with severe harm (that is, coerced) (p.44). Why should that stop him, threats in particular (it does not deter young alienated men in contemporary states)? With ali due respect^the gentle best efforts cited by no means exhaust nocoercive methods available. But let us grant not merely that there are situations where coercion occurs (plainly it is presently a frequent occurrence), but that there are dilemmatic situations where a person may have no alternative in preventing violence but to resort to coercion, for instance in preventing or limiting assault upon another, in self-defence, and so on. In such circumstances, 'coercion would be employed—either by the wrongdoers or by those who restrained them" (p.44). Granted, it is employed. The issues however are whether it is morally permissible, and who may be justified. Certainly the wrongdoers are not justified, and what they do is impermissible. More controversially, what the restrainers do is also morally impermissible; even so their actions may be justified. Given the fixes they were in, where all alternatives were forbidden, still what �20 they did may be situationally justified, as a satisfactory actions in the dilemmatic circumstances.*7 Such situational justification is not what Dahl and other consequentialists are seeking; they want coercion justified without impermissibility strings attached. There is no reason, or need, to accede to their desires. Such a reasonable, and practiced, approach to moral dilemmas (which Dahl himself subsequently takes in his discussion of whether to always obey laws of a democratic state p.4950) here escapes notice. And Dahl introduces two difficulties he incorrectly presumes fatal to 'alternative position ... [that] violence and coercion are absolutely forbidden" (p.45). Firstly, given that coercion is employed, 'the position in self-contradictory". Wrong. For that coercion occurs, whether perpetrated by wrongdoers or by those trying to prevent wrongdoers, does no? imply that coercion is morally permissible (i.e. p -f Pp). Nor does the impermissibility of incompatibles imply self-contradiction, for the covering deontic functors cannot be deleted (i.e. -Pp & -P-p is no contradiction; of course given, what gets rejected, -Pq -* -q, contradiction would ensure). Also wrong, then, is what Dahl takes to emerge from such self-contradiction, no 'guidance for the most elementary choices", said to be an 'indefensible" position (p.95). For coupled with the story concerning moral dilemmas are suggested procedures for making choices (often far from elementary choices) from within the dilemmas. Secondly, Dahl wrongly supposes that so rendering coercion absolute makes it 'a supreme value that eliminates all other ends" including justice, freedom, etc. It does not. No hierarchy of principles (or values), this or another, is adopted, which is one reason why dilemmas occur. As in ordinary ethical practice, ^he principles stand, they are not simply prima they are not ranked, there are no 'trade-offs". It may have become apparent, what requires only a little between-lines interpretation, that Dahl is playing a rather familiar utilitarian game underneath the surface moral concern. Render 'the objection to coercion as a means ... not absolute but contingent on consequences". So weaken absolutist prohibitions on coercion and violence that generous room can be made for an institution which routinely practices them, and to which we can trade up with consequential advantage. Given that coercion occurs without the state, indeed may be quite widespread in the absence of the state, then there might be gains in installing a coercive imitation 'to restrict [!] and regulate coercion". Moreover, if 'on balance the gains from creating a state are likely to exceed the costs, then from a utilitarian perspective it would be reasonable to opt for a state" (p.45). There are two critical gaps in this utilitarian state-pleading. Firstly, impressive evidence for the conditional antecedent that the gains from the state exceed the costs has never been assembled, but rather evidence points in the opposite direction (as we shall see in the next 17 This controversial story has been told before, that for coercion resembles that already related for violence. The general theory of moral dilemmas (in MD) is applied to the issue of violence, control of pacifism (in WP TV). �21 chapter), so detachment from the antecedent is not warranted. Secondly, the performance even of better states in coercion is utterly unimpressive; these states foo amplify coercive practices, do not regulate basic cases, and so on. The state appears to exacerbate the levels, both in extent and intensity, of coercion, over the low levels genuine moral dilemmas would yield. It is unnecessary to contend, however, as Dahl asserts anarchists contend, "that if states did not exist coercion would soon disappear or decline to a tolerable level' (p.45). That judgement, which is not exactly an 'empirical' one, depends very much on the character of alternative societies. An individualistic society might enjoy high levels of coercion owing to the activities of its public-like protective agencies. By contrast, a well-organised society may be afflicted with comparatively little coercive behaviour, rendering Dahl's uncompleted utilitarian argument extremely difficult to complete, ever. Interlarded with the dulcet utilitarian approach, under which they beneficent, ^states will provide us with all those promised superior values many millions are still awaiting — freedom, justice, equality, and so on — lies a more sinister argument; that to the gangster state. That evil state is not so far removed, some may think, from many states that are presently recognised. Without the strong state, the gangster state looms, so Dahl insinuates. So adopt the state, or worse will eventuate. That sort of decision theory argument (itself unpleasantly coercive and out of the same big stable as utilitarianism) depends on some (derived) principle such as choose a least bad alternative, and accordingly fails unless another independent argument to the state succeeds. For otherwise superior stateless choices remain on offer. Yet nothing more than the po&H&iZi/y that a small gang of wrongdoers may pool resources, andwhat results may evolve into a "gangster state" is floated (similarly for claim 2, p47, that some group wng/tf manage to create a highly oppressive state, which is as true in many a state as in stateless conditions). There is a complex evolutionary path, with many obstacles and hitches, from a small gang, through growing rival gangs and protection rackets, to a single one, and thence to a state. It is moreover a path that is rather easily blocked at early stages in an organised society, as simple counter examples show (one such example, that of the Inuit, Dahl introduces on the very next page). Apart from the inconclusive utilitarian considerations, Dahl offers a further page, under the boldface heading 'On the Need for the State' (a strikingly minimal effort in a book of about 400 pages most of which are premised on the assumption that the state is a needed item). He concedes, what seems to put a large dent in his bold claim, that preliterate societies, like those of the Inuit, have subsisted, over long periods, without the state. But that is past history, the world has advanced, the state is here, there, and everywhere. Granted it is; that does not show it is needed. Many gadgets that are now produced are not needed. Consider Dahl s reasons why a return to societies without states is 'if not impossible, highly undesirable (p.46). First, the world is already too densely populated to provide much space for autonomy (p.46, less than a �22 page after the utilitarian promise of a satisfactory state maximizing 'freedom and justice'; similarly p.51 etc.) But there are many regions where autonomy could undoubtedly be increased by expansionary or imperial states backing off (not merely in East Timor, on the West Bank, etc., but in the lands of the Inuit, the Micronesians, etc.). Further, the denseness of human population, hardly affords a reason. For one thing, the excessive human population is highly concentrated; most parts of the Earth carry, by comparison, sparse populations. For another, autonomy does not depend, so directly, on available space. 'Thirdly, virtually the entire globe is now already occupied by states'. Similar points apply: for instance, such an accomplished fact does not establish a need, or the impossibility of change. While not true 'throughout recorded history', but a very modem phenomenon, it is no doubt recently confingenfZy true that 'small autonomous groups of people have been extraordinarily vulnerable to conquest and absorption by larger states', and that it is presently doubtful that 'states would permit any small, independent group to exist anywhere [much] on earth'. Such present yizcfo political power relations do not demonstrate a need, still less impossibility of alternative, still less undesirability of changes. Consciousness change could come very rapidly, furthermore, with a welcome change in popular attitudes in large democratic states to oppression of minorities elsewhere (in Europe this seems to be happening). These points also serve to destroy Dahl's second reason, that 'a multiplicity of interdependencies cannot be snapped apart without enormous costs that few people would accept.' The break-up of states in Eastern Europe shows that substantial changes can occur very rapidly; the costs involved were much higher than they should have been because of the attitudes of states, not attitudes of their peoples by and large. In sum, then, all Dahl has accumulated is evidence of the repressive grip of the present regime of states, rendering local change pragmatically very difficult. Such evidence does nothing to establish a need for states, nothing at all to establish the undesirability of stateless societies. Accordingly the main assumptions fail with which Dahl claims support his 'conclusion that if woM/J &^ff^r fo fry fo cr^afg a mfz^/acfory jfafe f/ian f/y io ^xAff in a .soci^fy wif%OMf o sfaf^' (p.47). As it happens, the failed assumptions also fail to support such a conclusion—without suppressed material, of the utilitarian cast already criticised. All the assumptions would indicate, werf they granted, is the practical undesirability of trying to set up small stateless associations in a regime of states like mot prevailing today exc^pf that the states are satisfactory. But the assumptions should be scuttled. * Aggfnsf Jowfnaffon Domination is an important type of power relation. It is a comprehensive relation: persistent over a period, not simply once-off or occasional, pervasive, extending over a range of action and behaviour. It offers confro/ in a spread of cases. In such cases, if the dominator exercises control (e.g. adjusts the appropriate controls, pulls requisite levers) then the dominated normally responds. A significant form of control within extended human affairs is that of A �23 command or ability to command. Of course the creature commanded, the servant, the domesticated animal, the subdued or subjugated person, has to be able to understand what is commanded. But domination operates in significant spheres where such conditions for commanding do not obtain: in particular, but not only, in the domination of nature, its parts and elements, such as animals that do not understand commands, biota that do not recognise manipulation, and so on. Domination originated with (what the etymology of the term reflects) lord-subjects and master-servant relations, which remain paradigmatic for this power relation. It was soon and easily extended to cover owner-slave relations, where control was much more extensive, God­ human relations, human-working animal relations, and so on. It has long covered parent­ children and husband-wife relations, as well as certain class relations; and as classes have changed with political restructuring, industralisation and the rise of cities, so have domination relations. Those of higher classes or castes tend to dominate those of lower ranking, similarly for those higher in new hierarchies. Domination of nature and its parts is a relatively recent addition to the varieties of domination, since the acclaimed success of "the war against Nature" (still going on last century) before which technological humans (lacked the considerable level of power they have now acquired over natural systems.^ An aim of softening or removing forms of domination links social and environmental objectiv&with anarchism. These aims are united in green social anarchism. Opposition to all forms of domination, is yet another extension of certain types of anarchism, perhaps incompatible with other types of anarchism (e.g. communal anarchisms which assume that affairs should be organised along strict patriarchal lines, which accordingly not altogether coherently oppose social archy only to retain or even reinforce a tribal or familial archy). There may by now be some confusion concerning the variety of extensions of anarchism encountered. More exactly these "extensions" are subextensions, which isolate the principle of some type or ( key feature of anarchism and generalize it. generalisation of principled subtype with distinguishing principle. 18 Intellectual vandals have been at work on dondnahon also, stretching it from a relation from ensembles of actors, the dominators, to whole structures, systems or institutions (what might be called by partial analogy with the vandalism worked on .sTrHctund domination). Stretched dominators include the capitalist economy, market forces, the economy, the state, and so on. Under the stretching, /to (structural) dondnadon is said to imply, what straightforwardly is right enough, no subordination of the people to market forces, or even, what is impossible to avoid in a sophisticated society, no influences on members through the operation of its economy. A �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document J SHORT CONTENTS OF TOWARDS GREEN ANARKISM: EUCRATIC POLITICAL INVESTIGATION? ? 0. PROLOGUE 1. EXPLICATIONS 2. ELABORATIONS 3. ARGUMENTS I 4. ARGUMENTS II 5. VARIETIES AND OPTIONS TAKEN 6. ECONOMIC ELEMENTS: PROPERTY, CAPITAL, MARKETS, TAX 7. POLITICAL ELEMENTS: ORGANISATION, DEMOCRACY, BUREAUCRACY 8. SOCIAL THEORY ELEMENTS: NATURE, CULTURE 8A LEGAL ELEMENTS 9. ECOREGIONAL STRUCTURES, EUTOPIAN MODELLING 10. ROUTES, TRANSITION 11. FURTHER CRITICISMS FOILED 12. PROBLEM RESOLUTION 13. EPILOGUE. BIBLIOGRAPHY (INCLUDING RESOURCES) by a minor marginaZi-s^J p/iiZo-yop/^r writing in 7. ? Richard Sylvan, Za^ At^nri^f/i c^nfary. PROLOGUE WHY GREEN ANARKISM? Green anarchism is not merely an intellectually attractive intersection of anarchism with genuine environmentalism; it is also a rational imperative. Modem states are not merely without justification; they are a major force driving and facilitating degradation and destruction of global environments, to points of no return for many natural species and environments, and even seriously threatening future human viability. Anarchism would, with full justification, remove these major problem sources. Green anarchism derives from anarchism coloured by a deeper environmentalism. Anarchism itself is said to be essentially a modem ideology, arising after, and in opposition to, the modem state. Though there may be significant anticipations of anarchism in earlier philosophy, and though there are many worthwhile examples of early anarchistic societies, the main intellectual work begins only in the late eighteenth century (with the eruption of the French Revolution). Since then there have been waves of anarchistic output of varying strength, the most recent initiated in Paris again in 1968^(immediately following a series of academic texts pronouncing that anarchism was dead)L In important respects this received picture, ever so lightly sketched, is misleading. Anarchist ideas were already advanced in those similar ancient ideologies, Taoism and Stoicism,** in opposition to ancient empires. Lao Tzu, shadowy founder of Taoism, was not merely a trenchant critic of the Empire, but advocated a society in which the ruler, the Prince, disappeared into a do-nothing exemplary and merely legendary figure. What Taoism asserted is virtually tantamount to Thoreau's small but crucial anarchist amendment to Jefferson, that the best government is the one that does not govern at all. In a similar vein, "Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, advocated a society without government. Laws should be abolished[!], since virtue and morality would only be achieved in liberty'.2 That common ancient tradition, spanning East and West, though often submerged, has never been lost. The Taoist tradition persisted (if often in degenerate form) in China, and heavily influenced west Asian adaptations of Buddhism. Stoicism survived, as (often degenerate) internal critic, for the duration of the western Roman Empire, and was directly incorporated into early Christianity. Although anti­ authoritarian features were subsequently suppressed in the Stoic-Christian tradition, elements survived even in the increasingly authoritarian climate of that religion, and the positive ideas have resurfaced again and again in religious freer-thinkers. 1 For details see Marshall pxi. Amusingly anarchism in Australia has more recently also been * Taoism and Stoicism can almost be seen as variants upon one another, back to the very names. It is tempting to conjecture that they may have both arisen from a proto-Toi-ism. Lehner, H of I, p.71. On Taoism as anarchist, see Clark, ch7, Marchall, ch4, and UT. 2 2 The term * anarchism' was however introduced into English in a highly perjorative sense, signifying disorder, chaos, lawlessness and the likeA It is regularly displayed in this negative connotation, in politically unstable times in England, long before much theoretical work on anarchism began (nonetheless there were tracts, like that of Winstanley). As a result, the term 'anarchy' got away to a very bad start in English. It was used, from the early 16th century onwards, to mean confusion, disorder, lawlessness, licence, and absence or nonrecognition of authority. Similarly for most of its cognates 'anarch', 'anarchal', 'anarchial', 'anarchic', 'anarchical', 'anarchially', 'anarchism', 'anarchist' and 'anarchize', (see OED entries). 'Anarchism' itself had also acquired its re/evanf modem sense of 'the principles and practice of anarchy or anarchists', namely 'the Doctrine Position or Art of those that teach anarchy; also the being itself of people without a Prince or Ruler' by 1656 (in Blount GZo^^gr). As a political theory anarchism is standardly said, however, to have emerged much later (and there are stock, 'inconsistent' presentations: a state without a state, government without government, theory without doctrine, order without order, etc.) It is the interaction between popular longer-standing usage and later serious ideological use that helps account for the astonishing folkloric history of the term aKarc/n-yTK. It also reflects one facet of the pervading amateurism of anarchism, its lack of industrious research. Consider what certain encyclopaedias say, beginning with one that is not so much wrong as sloppy. Historically the word "anarchist", which derives from the Greek an arc/io-y, meaning "no government", appears first to have been used pejoratively to indicate one who denies all law and wishes to promote chaos. It was used in this sense against the Levelers during the English Civil War and during the French Revolution by most parties in criticizing those who stood to the left of them along the political spectrum. The first use of the world as an approbatory description of a positive philosophy appears to have been by Pierre Joseph Proudhon when, in his (W%<3/ Af property?, Paris, 1840), he described himself as an anarchist because he believed that political organization based on authority should be replaced by social and economic organisation based on voluntary contractual agreement (Woodcock p. 111). According to a rival encyclopaedia, however, The word "anarchy" describing a stateless society was used[?J for the first time by Louis Armand de Labortan in his voyage Z' (1703), describing the Indians living in a society without state, laws, prisons, priests, private property, in short "in anarchy" (Lehning p.71). A glance at the OED, such as we took above, along with a comparison of the stories, reveals the falsity of many of these interesting contentions. Much historical detail remains to be sorted out satisfactorily. Though there are many histories of anarchism, until very recently a 3 The pejorative sense was not contrived or imposed following some significant political incident, such as the pivotal Chicago events of 1886, which is what Jp^ies 86 implies. No doubt, however, following the Chicago events, stigmatisation and denigration of anarchism, and its automatically assumed association with violence and disorder, were deliberately orchestrated and propagated in USA. Such an outcome contributed further to development of an already established anti-anarchist mythology. 3 reasonably satisfactory one had yet to be written. Fortunately that has now changed (during the drafting of this text). Conveniently we are now absolved from lamenting the absence of such work and likewise from attempting more historical detail.^ For Marshall's massive text, has now appeared, it can be deferred to (by no means always uncritically) on many historical issues and for mad detail, to which it affords fine access. The concentrate on systematic and theoretical matters. Most of the seminal and interesting work on anarchism has come from outside present text can now universities and standard intellectual circles, and often from political amateurs. Academics have contributed histories, surveys and (usually not so sympathetic) criticisms, but, with a very few exceptions, little original thought. $ For typically they are ideologically stuck with the state, be it a pathetically minimal one. Intellectuals are so inured to the state that they are inclined to such pronouncements as that the idea of abolishing the state entirely must strike us as utopian .6 Yes, as eutopian. 'Most political philosophers in the past few generations have been unable to escape what the psychoanalysts might call a "state fixation". Even those those temper and reason caused them to distrust a nationalist philosophy could not deal with the state except as a rigid entity. They wished it large or small, isolated or cosmopolitan, but in any case a rounded unit which had to be taken as it was and maintained as such in any reconstruction of... society'7 It is easy to speculate on reasons for this, connected with academics being part of the expensive state scene. While anarchism has vanished from the mainstream academic scene, it is again becoming visible, if hardly prominent, in alternative (especially green) scenes and in work of disaffected academics associated with them. A surprising amount of the adventurous anarchist literature now appears, like the earlier utopian literature, in fiction, especially science fiction (and so, under prevailing division of labour, tends to become a subject for literary criticism, not political philosophy). But the ideas and plans appear there in quite insufficient detail. There, moreover, it can easily be dismissed as fantasy, as unrealistic, not a serious and proper contribution to political dialectic. The entire range of political discussion concerns whether there should be marginally more government intervention, or marginally less; marginally more public expenditure on welfare services is marginally less. Nobody [much] challenges the whole system, still less the existence of the state itself. The state's own socialisation processes see to that (Luard p.52). While virtually all political discussion undoubtedly traffics in such marginalia, powerful and warranted challenges there certainly have been: It is plain that on general principles of law and reason ... the Constitution is no contract; that it binds nobody, and never did bind anybody; and that all those who pretend to act by its authority, are really acting without any legitimate authority at all: that, on general principles of law and reason, 4 5 6 7 In contrast thus to James 186 who reiterates the familiar lament. Even the very occasional (here deliberately unspecified) exceptions are exceedingly cautious. Miller p.182. Mitrany p.98. 4 they are mere usurpers, and that everyone ... has the right... to treat them as such.s Given the United States is not contractually legitimated, what other state is? None appears to have superior credentials! None is rationally legitimated, so it will be argued in detail. The State in general and in abstract is not justified. So, whether it can be exploited for environmental and social purposes or not, its use is not justified. Environmentalism is still more modem than anarchism. Though it has ancient roots, and though the movement grew substantially in the 19th century, fusing there with an earlier romantic movement, environmentalism is an archetypically 20th century ideology. The more widely diffused green movement is essentially a contemporary phenomena, no doubt the most distinctive new political force of the late 20th century (the feminism movement is older). Green anarchism draws together elements from environmentalism and anarchism. While it can be seen as continuous with environmentally sensitive later 19th century social anarchism (of Morris, Kroprotkin, and others), environmental problems now appear in a new light and take on a new urgency. For we are now confronted by what is not inaccurately referred to as the envzronmenfa/ crAyZy, combining the cumulative efforts of rapid human population growth, rapid concomitant growth of vast industrial and human pollution threatening and undermining biological life support systems, rapid depletion of habitats species and nonrenewable resources, and very extensive and worsening environmental deterioration. In the present parlous environmental predicament those concerned to take some requisite action, active environmentalists, have two opposently diametrically opposed courses open;9 * Supporting, and working through, strengthened states to try to avert the crisis. Central to 'most environmental justifications of [expanded] state power", according to social individualists, is the argument that people will not voluntarily r&yfram themselves from doing those things of which the environmental crisis is the aggregate effect. They will not voluntarily refrain from hunting whales and other species threatened with extinction, from having "too many children"", from discharging untreated wastes into rivers and lakes, and so on (Taylor pp 1-2, quoted in Grofman p.108). As in collective action theory (advanced typically by individualists), it is concluded (invalidly as will be seen) that state power is required to compel restraint and to undertake compulsory rectification. * Working outside states in more direct efforts to avert elements of the crisis. The alternative, that is, is to abandon the state. Here lies the main chance, and the only genuine long term alternative for a deep, as opposed to merely reformist, environmentalism. For under state regimes, more and more of remaining environments are degraded or destroyed, in the march of 8 9 Spooner (M? Treason) pp 27-8. The omitted phrase asserts that everyone has not only the right but is wtoraZZy to treat them thus. But here Spooner goes further than data seems to warrant, converting supererogation to obligation. (The phrase following the quotation echoes Miller p.38). These choices are differently presented and explained in SM, a main intellectual ancestor of the present work. The approaches complement one another. 5 state growth and economic progress. In fact, there are several reasons for the extra-state anti­ state course. There are serious limits to what states can accomplish, especially in international issues in the interstrices of states, but also as regards individual environmentally-hostile action. Moreover, even when it appears that states can a^t, or contribute, there are sharp limits to what they are prepared to do or attempt. States of course explain their tardiness or reluctance to move in various ways: prior higher commitments (e.g. endless economic ones such as creating jobs, containing inflation, etc.), the need for balance (with a constituency after unparaxeded of any environmental crisis, or wanting, like comments operating with anarchist discount rates, to party now), etc. Concerned environmentalists should take both courses: use the state and exploit state power where opportunities offer (without thereby endorsing the state and its standard practices), but also, more important, they should work outside states and against states. For mam co/ifn&Mfmg coarse o/The anJ ov^ra/Z o/?^rafmg fa worsen if. Given this (no doubt jaundiced) sfa^-mfrz'car^ thesis, surely it is hypocritical also to work through them and use them. Not at all; for states acquire and hold, have expropriated to themselves, considerable social wealth, which arguably should be directed to social concerns, including environmental amelioration. However, while states may properly be used so long as they persist, still ultimately halting the new ubiquitous environmental rot, salvaging or conserving some of what remain of viable environments, will involve, if it can be done, dissolution of states. There are powerful environmental reasons for trying to terminate / the present era of states. States are ineluctably committed to economic growth, of almost any sort; indeed they are main proponents of such growth. This commitment, certainly highly conspicuous, is not merely accidental, and is bound to impact negatively on environments. Australia, for example, needs a growth rate (in GDP) of at least 3% just to provide employment for its school-leavers, more to cater for immigrants, more to allow for some politically acceptable redistribution, more to meet rising aspirations. More, more, more .... States cannot step off the growth treadmill. That growth in turn requires, to deliver essential exports, expanded raids on resources and biological capital (if not that held by the state, that of other states). These exercises in tum inevitably mean, given present technologies and cost structures, pollution in many dismaying forms and environmental degradation.^ So growth implies environmental degradation. Therefore, with contemporary states degradation is inevitable. Such states are inevitably environmental vandals, n 10 11 A prominent recent attempt to block this sort of argument features economic growth subject to con train ts of environmental sustainability. While such constrained economic growth is a feasible (and old) idea, contemporary states, given their commitments, cannot and cannot afford to deliver it. A recent example concerns Australian production of greenhouse gases, where Australia cannot, officials now say, meet the costs involved in attaining expected reduction targets. Sustainable development itself is critically examined in r The kind of practical necessity operating here will concern us in later chapters. Logically there could be benign "states"; but these would be far removed from contemporary state arrangements. ( 6 There is exceedingly little evidence that social and environmental prospects will ever improve under the contemporary regime of states; instead much evidence to contrary has accumulated. "... Reliance on the state or a global superstate for change will lead to a continuation of many of the patterns of domination that the state has done so much to develop and reinforce in the past" the anarchist strategy of change "from below" ... [and "from above" is] much more promising'. Indeed the claim is made that The anarchist vision ... of a fusion between a universal confederation and organic societal forms of a communal character lies at the very centre of the on/y hopeful prospect for the future world order'. 12 Some of the pressures to continued exponential growth, and their environmental and social consequences, themselves positively feeding back to fuel demands for more growth, are colourfully observed in the following passage: One of the most widely pursued common goals of recent times has been economic growth, which is generally regarded as the most important ambition of states. These pressures to high rate of growth not only endanger the world's resources but do not even procure the material satisfactions they are intended to provide. For the effect of competition is that high rates of growth can be achieved only by high rates of investment designed to secure higher productivity. This secures equivalent production with more equipment but less labour. Thus more and more people are displaced from their jobs who cannot necessarily find alternative employment in service industries or elsewhere. All over the Western world, in shipbuilding, in steel, in motor manufacture, in textiles, in fishing, in agriculture and other industries, employment rapidly declines. So the total number of those unemployed increases in all industrial countries and remains high even in those where a relatively high rate of growth is being achieved. And the very fact of high unemployment, by reducing total demand, lowers the level of investment and growth for the future. Periods of growth become shorter and those of recession become longer. The relatively simple devices for stimulating growth in earlier times - lower interest rates, budgetary deficits, fiscal expansion and public works — are either not attempted through fear of inflation, or if attempted do not achieve their effect. Despite persistent recession inflation remains strong, partly because of excessive increases in income obtained by those still at work, partly because of the large sections of the economy which are in public hands and are unaffected by antiinflationary measures. Modern industrial societies, therefore, in appearance so advanced, are yet characterised by the bizarre spectacle of large sections of the population being without work, while ever higher levels of investment are undertaken to reduce employment still further in the future, so ensuring that the benefits of high growth are enjoyed by fewer and fewer people (Laurd p.147). A main dynamic involved can be summarised: Both the State and those major corporations which set much of its agenda aim to increase productivity (for reasons of profit, profile, firm or party growth and survival, etc.). But productivity increase characteristically sheds labour. Restoration of employment requires growth. Hence one heavy pressure to growth: sustaining employment. That pressure is, furthermore, one of many. Another derives from internal dynamics of corporations and bureaucracies. Like the state and capitalism, they all must, as Marx argued, 12 Clark, also quoting Falk from 'Anarchism of world order* in FVo/noj, p.160). 7 grow or die. There are many reasons for the growth imperative, both broad ideological and business specific.^ For satisfactory survival, satisfaction of its executives and employees, its stock holders, and so on, a modem corporation has to grow. Cpntr^l here are such matters as laws of profit decline otherwise, and more general principles of organisational aging and decline. If any serious ecological conclusion is to be drawn from Vol I, it is from Marx's compelling demonstration that the very law of life of capitalist competition, of the fully developed market economy, is based on the maxim, "grow or die". Translated into ecological terms, this clearly means that a fully developed market economy must unrelentingly exploit nature to a point ... that is literally regressive geologically and biologically. Capitalism, in effect, is not only polluting the world on a historically unprecedented scale; it is simplifying all the ecosystems of the planet, turning soil into sand, the oceans into lifeless sewers, indeed, threatening the very integrity of our sources of atmospheric oxygen. If one were to follow the logic of this tendency to its very end, capitalist— and hierarchical— society are utterly incompatible with a viable biosphere. What limits the ecological validity of Marx's view is obviously not his revelation of capitalism's "law of life" but rather the "progressive" role he imparts to capitalism's "success" in supposedly achieving the technical domination of nature. This Janus-faced aspect of Marx's writings is what throw them into conflict with an authentic ecological sensibility. Gorz, by contrast, sides-steps exacfZy what we must learn in the contradictory position of Marx, namely, that the very technical achievements of capitalism, fat^ from a-y-MmzZafing "ecological necessities as technical restraints", are governed by a "law of life" that technologically lacks any TES p.293) form of "restraint' Prevailing political arrangements 'no longer offer us a hopeful prospect of resolving the vast social and ecological crises which now confront humanity ... these systems, with their deep commitment to such values as industrialism, high technology, centralism, urbanization and the state, have been instrumental in creating the social atomization and ecological imbalance which are at the core of these crises' (Clark pp. 141-2). Indeed these systems are bound to exacerbate the problems. While these statements should by now be motherhood statements, they are not. Hope springs eternal: more naive environmentalists regularly appeal to a state that sometimes makes appropriate responsive noises and puts out appealing propaganda, but meanwhile is thoroughly committed to economic growth of environmentally damaging forms. The normal dynamic of th^ "advanced" state is extremely environmentally hazardous. Centralised states support environmentally and socially damaging methods of production, in order to benefit from the surplus and exploitable technology thereby produced - which are important for purposes of state, in particular for spending to remain in power (job generation, pork barrelling, subsidization of large business), for positional enrichment of the bureaucracy, and for development of the forces of coercion, propaganda and authority which matter both for internal social objectives and in order to remain militarily competitive in the region and spheres of influence. Details of the dynamic at work have become familiar from socio-environmental studies of state operation. For example, technologies that facilitate centralized authoritarian 13 The broad and ancient ideological reasons are investigated elsewhere, e.g. MSS. 8 control are favoured (such as nuclear power, which also supplies material for nuclear weapons). Such technologies serve the interests of state actors and those who benefit particularly therefrom, namely economically dominant social strata. This dynamic, which does not require any arms race, only kinds of inter-state competition, encourages ever-increasing productivity, entailing high consumption of resources, high output of pollution, substantial environmental degeneration and destru( tion, and so on. Active aware environmentalists have, in the end, little choice but to attempt to ;abotage this dynamic. 14 Opposition to anarchism from gi een directions, and especially from green infiltrators, often derives from the assumption that under anarchism all environmental regulation would lapse, that it would be an open-go, fret -for-all for anti-environmental forces—the very ones that are already running rampant over the Earth, and perhaps others besides. It needs to be stressed that this opposition rests on a misconception of what green anarchism ^is all about. With a caring anarchism there may be a complete of the usually conceived situations of states and stateless societies, as regards environment regulation and social support. It should not have escaped notice that often states are the prime enemies of environmental regulation, improved environment practices, and the like. Even when there is very extensive community support for regulation, the state acts to block it, and aids and abets damaging practices! A central reason for this is that the state typically reflects a rather narrow range of vested interests, increasingJhese days those of dominant business, not community interests except very secondarily. Contrary then to received conceptions, the state is frequently not a means to, but an obstacle to, satisfactory regulation. Satisfactory green regulation can occur, can only occur, without the modern state. It will be argued that not only are there no intellectual or theoretical problems in dispensing with the state, but fuller there are no serious losses in disposing of it. There is no case for the state, and no need for it. But it is worse than that: it is predominantly bad in its impacts. Accordingly, it ought not to be in place. The practical upshot is that that we should endeavour to remove it. Among the incidental practical difficulties arising as a result, are that for complex societies there is a need for some structure to replace the state (not a intractable theoretical problem any longer). As well there is a need for a strategy to displace the state. That is where radical environmentalism enters again. A thoroughgoing environmentalism accordingly forces a significant type of anarchism, a social non-capitalist anarchism. The basic reason it forces anarchism is that the state, a prime anarchist enemy, not only fails to supply or retain environmental goods, but is frequently actively involved in their degradation or removal. The state is a major facilitator and powerful source of environmental degradation and destruction. Genuine greenness further substantially constrains the directions anarchism can take, the variety of admissible anarchisms. It serves to eliminate as a serious option total reliance on 14 This argument is adapted from A. Carter, Towards a green political theory*. While Carter's way out is not endorsed, his elaboration of the dynamic is, more or less. LL market methods, as proposed for instance under anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism. While excessive reHance upon capitalist markets is rejected, primarily because of heavy externalities, more traditional markets are given a rather free role. The problems with market-capitalism is not so much markets, except as distorted in a capitalist setting, but capitalism.^ Capitalism, both in theory and as normally practised, is a major enemy of environmentalism, and a main source of environmental problems. Capitalism also encourages, what conspicuous capitalists conspicuously exhibit, environmentally unacceptable lifestyles. Greenness also sharply constrains meta-politics. For example, it counts heavily against standard game-theoretic approaches of analytic political philosophy, because these entirely discount environmental effects (except as reflected through human actors' self interests). This work concentrates upon the anarchist components of green anarchism (the green part is attempted in a companion text on green ideology). It is primarily a theoretical work; it concentrates upon what is sometimes usefully called "theoretical anarchism". Because the work does focus on anarchism, little will be said about present green politics (and what thin associated theory there is), because that generally involves politics within conventional state settings. Where this differs from past anarchism is not only its environmental depth, but in the level of detail of arguments, criticism, and organisational structure. The latter especially,jwhere IT- 1 a; thin and threadbare historical anarchism is particularly weak. It is not enough to gesture towards some federation of communities. Details of organisations at each level need to be provided, for a more convincing story. Most of the disappointingly slight contemporary academic literature on anarchism will not be addressed or, if it is, criticised in much detail. Life is too short for that sort of indulgence. However much will have been criticised obliquely or in passing; and enough critical detail is supplied for direct critiques to be produced (as exercises by energetic readers). While there is mMc/z scope for theoretical improvement of anarchism, there is little room for reinventing anarchism. There is a long and distinguished Hne of amateur anarchist thought form virtually every significant idea that will be which contains in seminal (if developed herein. Thus, like most of the academic literature^this text is not particularly original. Unlike much of that literature it does not pretend to be. Virtually everything in this book has been said before, if not in anarchist theory then elsewhere; scarcely anything is original. But it has never been put together quite like this before. Moreover, some of it needed and needs saying again, with a little new information and arguments a bit differently ordered. But no means all is repeated. Where something, perhaps important for the dialectic, is said at least as well I can reiterate it, I simply cross-refer. That has the effect of making the work visibly less contained (self-containment is ^bmething of an illusion), but it saves on labour and materials. For other purposes too, repetition, despite its extravagance, may be important. Significant 15 On the deliberately neglected, or papered over, major differences between marketism and capitalism, 10 ideas and books often get neglected, because for instance they were not published at the right times, in the right places, by the right authors; they did not get duly circulated, and so forth. I judge the time at least is more propitious for green anarchism than it has been, perhaps ever before. As well, there are many things that this book, which is pitched in a theoretical, rationalistic way, does not aim or attempt to do. It does not attempt to supply much background, historical or other information, a lot of which is easily found in better equipped libraries. Relevant background can all be tracked, however, through references in work referred to in this book. 16 It does not attempt a full account of substitutes for important current institutions and arrangements such as those connected with property, markets, law, and so on; nor does it offer, what is warranted, a sustained critique of prevailing arrangements, for which opposite substitutes are sought and indicated. Fortunately again, some of the critique, if not positive detail of substitutes, has been well accomplished in other texts. 17 What is attempted is however a scholarly and systematic work (though, as indicated, a far from exhaustive work), on theoretical anarchism. Accordingly the book is littered with notes, some of which merely cite references, but many of which elaborate points in the text, especially details hat lead off in different directions from the thrust of the text. I should like to thank Frances Redrup for processing reams of inelegant scribble, from which this text grew, and to acknowledge the continuing support the Australian National University gave during slow production. I want to thank Debbie Trew for proofing the typescript (no straightforward business) and organizing a bibliography. I should record my gratitude to Bob Goodin for a continuing supply of background books, and to him and to the publishers and editor of Anarc/iAyf 16 17 for encouraging me to work upon anarkism again. A major recent source, for history of Northern Hemispheric anarchism, is, as observed, Marshall, While Marshall concentrates, no doubt correctly upon Northern hemispheric activity, and within that heavily upon Anglo-American work, there is room for a supplementary production taking due account of anarchism elsewhere, Australia for one example. Although an anarchist club was formed in Melbourne only a century ago (and then upon an American model), an extraordinarily sustained period of "original anarchism" (coupled often with "original (or primitive) affluence") flourished in Australia before European settlement two centuries ago, with more than 500 centuries perhaps more than 10000 centuries, of continuous Aboriginal anarchist arrangements. Much of the story of post-settlement Australian anarchism (which included remarkable Queensland activity and a Paraguayan expedition organised by Lane, as well as extensive Victorian agitation) is recounted by James, in a series of local publication, add Burgmann and by Souter. The story of Australian Aboriginal anarchism has yet to be told. The story for the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, both before and after European conquests and political imposition, remains to be satisfactorily told. Thus, for instance, Carter on property, Bumheim on bureaurcracy, othe^on democracy. A // 1. EXPLICATIONS OF ANARCHISM CHAPTER and of green subforms G 1. Initial explanation: fud and dilute forms, and corollaries. Anarchism is the theory, principles or practice of anarchy. As practised by engaged anarchists, who are naturally adherents, authors or promotors of anarchy, it includes the assertion of anarchy and rejection of nonanarchy, i.e. rejection of archy. Anarchy itself, in its norma/ political form, applies to societies or communities, territories or countries. It is, according to the dictionaries, the following sort of condition or state: lack of coercive government, absence of a political state, want of authoritarian political heads or leaders, institutions or organisations. Politically there are evidently fhr^ j^racrara/ aa^ar/(y, ca^rciaa, and normally comprehending both, the political .yraf^.i The anchoring notion of anarchy has recently been extended beyond political arrangements to apply to other institutional forms such as the Church, Science, and Law, to mean alternative forms lacking authoritarian structure and coercive methods. Thus appear, under transference, such varieties as epistemological anarchism and philosophical anarchism, instead of po/zfzcn/ anarchism upon which this text focuses. However the far-reaching analogies should not lost sight of; they matter. Anarchism is to political authority, as atheism is to religious authority, and rather as scepticism is to scientific authority. Although the conditions specified for anarchy are normally taken as conjoined, it is possible to construe them disjointly, yielding what could be called anarchisms. One diluted form which has obtained a little exposure is a /zzzzz^J anarchism appropriately opposed to the state but prepared to endorse carefully-controlled coercive authorities.^ A differently diluted form is a anarchism which is opposed to all prevailing states, because of some serious but in principle removable defect or other of each and every one of these states, but is not opposed to the very idea of an ideal state, or to a new wonderful order of states; that is it is, not, so to say, a principled anarchism. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether historic anarchists are j?rznczp/^r/ anarchists or merely de facto ones. There are limits to how far definitional dilution should be allowed to proceed: a theory (such as libertarianism) postulating a minimal coercive centralised state presumably exceeds acceptable diluted bounds, as n^key element is retained. Within such bounds, we shall operate both with full and dilute forms, accounting all anarchism (in a bro^d sense, qualifying as need be). Routes to full anarchism may well lead through dilute forms. Indeed these offer main paths towards anarchism proper. -t These three key elements are duly signposted in many, though not all, serious on anarchism. J- 12 It is evident that anarchy, and therewith anarchism, can be better characterised, negatively, through what it rejects, namely to sharpen the characterisation, centralised coercive forms, than in assertive formulation obtained through awkward locutions like 'absence' 'lack' 'want'. The simpler negative formulation (supplying the of anarchy), rejection of archy, makes it immediately evident that much of what vulgarly pass for meaning conditions upon or essential features of anarchism are not. Firstly, a variety of political arrangements and organisation, including of government, are entirely compatible with anarchy. It is enough for these arrangements not to include anarchy-violating features such as authoritarian or coercive elements. For example, a government without such elements, a government nonetheless in the dictionary sense of 'administration of public affairs', satisfies the principle of anarchy, and so is anarchistic. Such an anarchistic government can include normal components of organisation, regulation and control, so long as they conform to the principle. Certainly a territory without government, since therefore lacking an archist government, is anarchistic. But the popular converse fails. An anarchistic system may well, like several societies substantially destroyed by European conquest, have a small smooth-running public administration, free of authoritarian elements. Thus it would have a government, but not an authoritarian government. No doubt it would also be in a predominant modem, but narrow, use of 'government'. The term 'government', which is variably determinable, vacillates in particular between * administration of public affairs (including control, regulation, what it once meant) and its important and now dominant restriction, the enarchistically unacceptable determinate, * authoritative administration of public affairs (i.e. that exercising authority, and characteristically backed by coercion). Much confusion concerning anarchism has resulted through failure to separate the wider and narrower determinates^ It may well be true that, as dictionaries assert, an anarchist would 'oppose all existing systems of government'; but this is not a matter of meaning, it is contingent upon the character of prevailing state systems. Nor therefore are prevailing political forms everywhere so far removed from anarchistic alternatives: they may even overlap them. Make the following kind of thought-experiment concerning the government and operation of some modem freer, less violent, more peaceful society: the coercive and authoritarian elements are blacked out (both operational components and what they typically operate upon). For instance, there is a strike of relevant groups, judges and accused, police and criminals, prison warders and prisoners, etc. (perhaps because the broad society had reduced the opportunities for crime and accordingly threatened their contra­ operative livelihoods). What may well happen, what we shall imagine happening, is that governmental affairs simply keep running for some time. Things work well enough. Partial examples of just this sort of phenomenon are not uncommon, as when police forces go slow or strike. For example, when traffic police stop work traffic keeps on going, much as before. It may be irrelevantly objected that such anarchistic periods are mere interludes, presupposing surrounding authoritarian structures (somewhat as anarchistic end-states of marxism are premissed on preceding super-productive authoritarian states). Such thought experiments were designed to remove a different intellectual blockage: the common assumption that anarchism is utterly remote from the political practice of complex modem states and impossible to realise at all. As a theory, anarchism tends to advance a stronger theme than the progressive particular claims that anarchistic systems are possible, realisable, and sometimes realised. After all, these arrangements may be realisable—as more than an interlude—only in restricted or anomalous circumstances (e.g. a few people on an isolated tropical island). The stronger theme, linked with the anarchist principle, is that there is no need at all for authoritarian or coercive regulation. So rejection can succeed universally. Universal anarchism encounters many problems which do not trouble less ambitious parfict/Zar anarchisms, such as those to be advanced here. For example, how to rectify especially degenerate or evil societies? An attempt is sometimes made to render all anarchism universal, through the connecting thesis that for anarchism to succeed anywhere it must succeed everywhere (else be destroyed by ruthless, expansionist or greedy states, or similar). Fortunately the fallacious connecting thesis, though popular with critics, is implausible.^ Although anarchism proper does exclude certain kinds of government, coercive and authoritarian forms, it does not automatically include, certainly not as a matter of semantics, specific positive kinds. Anarchism is not necessarily "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than on submission to law and authority", despite what dictionaries assert (incompatibly incidentally with their definitions of 'anarchy'). Such positive accounts of anarchism, as offering a certain theory of government, both try to convert a particular variety, individualistic anarchism, into the more general object, and try to import a certain motivation for, or differently explanation of, or justification of, anarchism into the very essence of the object (this is the general fallacy of verificationism in operation). Anarchism, or at least its assertion, may well be regularly motivated by ideals of free arrangements, not imposed by narrow or incompetent authoritarian forces, but motivation is one thing, meaning 14 another, verification a third. Not only is the assumption that anarchism is incompatible with government, wellregulated government, mistaken. So also therefore are the assumptions that anarchism is incompatible with organisation, with regulation, with a positive noncoercive "law", with order. So mistaken therefore are the widespread assumptions that anarchism entails disorganisation, disorder, confusion, lawlessness, chaos. Yet all these negative associations have been incorporated into degenerate popular meanings of anarchism. It is similar with related assumptions that anarchism implies violence, paramilitary activity, or terrorism. A popular picture of the anarchist, encouraged by authors like Conrad and Dostoevsky, is the excitable fictional character with a bomb in his pocket (not a Tolstoy or a Thoreau).5 These too are assumptions and pictures, with little basis either in semantics or in general anarchist theory or practice, promulgated by an unsympathetic opposition generally comfortable in present poor to appalling political systems or unaware of alternatives. With anarchy, as with many other valuable terms, a concerted confusion or destruction effort has been made, part of an extensive terminological vandalism in human intellectual affairs. Rather than reconciling ourselves to sacrifice of the damaged term anorc/ug/n, let us salvage the term explicitly for the pristine notion, and isolate the conventional associations under the term anarchi-pm, shortened, if a single term is sought, to Most fictional anarchists of system-supportative authors are degenarchists; but they are far from representative of anarchists. There are many anarchists who are not terrorists, few who are; there are many who are not dangerous troublemakers bent upon violently upsetting local settled order; increasingly there are many anarchists within environmental and peace movements, many of them anarchists. Gentler anarchisms tend to be all of more pacific, more social and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchisms. 2. Rival, typically defective, definitions, and beyond. Much of what is taken as typical or even characteristic of anarchism, especially popularly and journalistically, consist of optional extras, not even typical of anarchism. They represent, like what gets written into degenarchism, attempts at easy smearing or dismissal of anarchism, for instance as an ideology unworthy of serious consideration. As regards violence, terrorism, disorder, disorganisation, confusion, these sorts of point ought to be well enough known. But they apply also to other more benign features widely taken to characterize anarchism, such as attempts to tie anarchism variously to individualism, capitalism, voluntarism, primitivism, spontaneity, or socialism. Thus such erroneous characterisations of anarchism as those of the selection that follows:- 5 15 * One utterly appalling characterisation comes from a Russian DzcZzozzrzzy of PAz/o^op/zy. ^ "Azz^zrc/zz^zzz, a petty-bourgeois socio-political trend that is hostile to all authority and the state, and counterposes the interests of petty private ownership and small peasart economy to the progress of society based on large-scale production" * Another dismal, indeed wild, characterisation comes from an American political scientist, who audaciously asserts that "anarchism ... is anti-political—that is, it does not really offer political solutions" (p.l), rather "the primitive core of anarchism is not so very different from Christianity. That is, it rests on the notion that man has a need, not just a preference, to love" While this is wild, there are convergences and congruences between types of anarchism and early Christianity.? * It is "a political doctrine based on the value of individual freedom"? While this is not wild, it does erroneously convert what is a frequent powerful motive, and reason, for anarchism into part of it, confusing motivation and justification with essence. For it is by no means an invariant feature. A socialist or monastic community, placing no great emphasis upon or even discouraging individuality, can be organised anarchistically. * It is "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than submission to law and authority" (Concz-y^ Eng/zj/z Dzcfzozzazy). But it also asserts that the same %7z#rc/zz.yAy "... are opposed to all forms of government". That inconsistent information should, as already seen, be discounted. Furthermore, there may be no free agreement; an anarchistic situation can, as already also seen, just happen. More likely, a sustained anarchism may emerge under favourable historical opportunities, again without any sort of contract or general agreement; it is then only zf there were free agreement. Certainly, there would no longer be "submission to authority", but there would likely be systems of rules, which people normally followed. * The very short characterisation of rzzzrzrc/zMzzz (and rendition of zzzMrc/zz?^) as "no government" is defective because of the elasticity, slippiness and determinability, of "government"? For example, to increase documentation, according to one dictionary ((/zzzv^r^zz/ Ezz^/z^/z), gove?7Z7?zenf means "... system of polity in a state; territory ruled by a governor ..." in which case it incompatible with anarchism; but it also means "... control; administration of public affairs" in which case it is certainly no? incompatible. Granted there have been attempts to represent anarchism as if it entailed no organisation or administration at all (state-of-nature arguments regular rely on this fallacy of false dichotomy), but it does not, and if it did there would be a gap for a near-identical relative (a/za&yrz^ for instance) to All. One of the rather better brief characterisations is the following: "a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian 6 7 8 9 Ed I. Frolov, 2nd revised ed, Progress, Moscow, 1989. Apter p.3. HI p.70. For such proposals see e.g. Carter,Websters' Dictionary (?), Marshall p.3. 16 government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies'/ (Woodcock, Ency Phil, p.lll). While the first negative conjunct, which n governmental' right, might rate a pass (though anarchism is not always a philosophy, it is sometimes a practice), the second positive conjunct calls the whole account into doubt. Many humans naturally thrive in authoritarian settings. Defective definitions of anarchism abound, many regrettably supplied by high profile anarchists or well-regarded commentators (whereupon they assume a certain air of authority, a bogus air). A few examples will be considered, mostly drawn from a large list of similarly defective definitions included in Clark, who is out to show that any definition which attempts to do justice to anarchism through an essentialistic definition deploying one simple idea is bound to fail, abysmally, to does not 'mean literally "without government'" contrary to Carter, for one. It does however imply systems without governments of prevailing sorts, which is what she immediately proceeds to: 'and the lowest common demominator of anarchist thought is the conviction that existing forms of government are productive of wars, internal violence, repression and misery' (p.14). Right on! Kropotkin, for another, defines 'anarchism' in terms of 'society ... without government'. Like most of the brief definitions to be cited, this is neither necessary #)r sufficient. For 'government' has to be narrowed to its coercive and authoritarian determinate, and other archie arrangements also excluded. Many, Runkle for one, maintain that anarchism 'opposes authority in all its forms'; but elsewhere Runkle holds that its essence is individual liberty'. Others, Goodman for one, suggest anarchism is defined in terms of decentralization, still others, Bakunin for one, suggest characterisation in terms of 'organization from below upwards, by means of federation'. Again this is neither necessary nor sufficient. It is not so easy to And an adequate characterisation of anarchism. (I have found none in the literature, despite some searching. That is reason why a certain amount of work has gone into such basics). There is a tendency to leap from the inadequate to the excessive—a tendency exemplified by Clark, who also cites Woodcock approvingly. Anarchism is first contracted to a rather elaborate doctrine, or political theory, thereby excluding practice. Then requirements are sharply inflated: For a political theory to be called "anarchism" it must contain: 1) a view of an ideal, non-coercive, non-authoritarian society; 2) a criticism of existing society and its institutions, based on this anti-authoritarian ideal; 3) a view of human nature that justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal; and 4) a strategy for change, involving immediate institution of non-coercive, non­ authoritarian, and decentralist alternatives (p.127). As Clark indicates, this "minimum" "definition" is an elaboration of another account, briefer and 10 See Clark p. 118ff. Clark's attack on essentialistic definitions is in the style of Wittgenstein. 17 better, that Woodcock also offers: 'historically, anarchism is a doctrine which passes a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to another" (cf. p.120). There is nothing here about human nature, which anarchism need have no particular views about, perhaps rejecting the notion altogether as part of archist propaganda or similar, n There is nothing about the ideal society, or any commitment to one. Anarchists are not seeking societies; that is an illusory, Enlightenment goal, have transformed to get another excessive condition of adequacy for anarchist societies. It would be quite enough to achieve satisfactory societies. 12 Realistic anarchists may even come to appreciate that there are no ideal societies, perhaps just various less unsatifactory and better justified societies than virtually all of the extraordinarily narrow range of modem societies presently exhibited or on offer. However Clark's discussion of "the ideal"" reveals that he does not really intend an ideal, but only one or other of the plurality of societies meeting certain adequacy conditions. It certainly does not intend a unique one, ideal. 'Some adequate" or similar should substitute" for 'an (the) ideal", and the definition should be duly pluralised. Outside explications of anarchism which answer back to dictionary accounts, there are various high redefinitions (e.g. Clark) and some weird redefinitions. One such weird redefinition is that proferred by Taylor, who—rightly enough contrasting anarchism with the presence of the state where there is a concentration of the means of deploying force—defines a as where 'force is perfectly dispersed, not concentrated at all" (82 p.6). But Taylor does advance from pure anarchy, of which there are no examples, to an illuminating discussion of the exercise of concentrated force in societies. In recognisably anarchistic societies there is but limited concentration of force (based on physical inequalities), which 'is /10c in use. There is no standing specialist group or organisation or centralised system of groups...' No doubt a /MZ/er anarchist f/t^ory has to accomplish much of what excessive characterisations of anarchism,^ list, and more. Any reasonably full theory should * include a critique of authoritarian and coercive features of present and past societies and their institutions; 11 12 13 The important matter of such "nature" is discussed later.. Presently we are very far removed from such societies, except for small communities mainly in rich countries. States have done extremely poorly in this regard. There is not one satisfactory state in all of Africa or the Americas. Even small European states that at least have avoided extensive poverty, homelessness, and violence are in doubt because of * virtually entire destruction of their natural environments * reliance for wealth on impoverished Third World countries * justified dissatisfaction of many of their inhabitants. those of Woodcock and Clark p.120, p.126. r 18 * outline features of noncoercive nonauthoritarian societies as alternatives to, and improvements upon present dominant social arrangements, for some regions at least; * suggest strategies for attempting to change from defective forms to improved alternatives. Clarke also tries to insist, what we shall subsequently reject, that for a 'theory to called "anarchism" it justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal' (p.127). As well as theory, there is practice. (Clarke also goes astray in excluding anarchism as a , "anarchism without doctrine", and so on.) The pracfice of anarchism, generously construed, naturally includes the state of being in anarchist conditions, of living under anarchism (though perhaps unaware of doing so). There is scope for wfr/toM? Many primitive societies thus qualify as anarchistic; they practice, or practiced, anarchism though unaware (somewhat as wild animals practice hygiene, knowing without knowing ;%af). Further, no doubt now stretching 'practice' beyond its assumed anthropic context, many animal communities practice anarchism, very successfully. Many attracted to anarchism, an anarchism without name even, long for analogous pure practice, many practicing environmentalists for instance. They hope that whatever it is will operate, perhaps even materialize, without any heavy-duty theory, without excess or even any intellectualizing, perhaps without even thought or much effort on their part. In contemporary circumstances they would have to be extraordinary lucky; a paternal state with caring elements, such as safe jobs and spoon-fed indoctrinal education for all citizens, does not relinquish its control voluntarily. While definitions can be defective or otherwise unsatisfactory, in m^y ways, one thing they are not is dogmatic (as suggested by Marshall, none too subtlely trying to evade critical details in delimiting his massive study, p.3). Though insisting upon^themes definitions yield upon substitution can be dogmatic, having or offering definitions is not. Significant criticism of definitions is logically different, belonging to different categories. As well as decking anarchism out with defective definitions, with all the scope for argumental malpractice that affords, there is a coupled practice of boxing anarchism in, by narrow and confining constraints, jf iZZ/czf/y ctrcMWMcri&ing (Whereas definitions characteristically yield necessary and sufficient, conditions, such circumscription concerns necessary, or possibly sufficient conditions). Many of the restrictions imposed are, however, quite inessential, and have rather the effect of excluding viable alternatives. Simple examples concern waAmg, which is sometimes taken as having always to be case by case, and elsewhere is seen as necessarily involving all parties, large assemblies, or even complete social participation. None of this is essential, often the restrictions would prove undesirable. Often the circumscription technique proceeds by presenting features of, or said to be of, 19 historic anarchism, then tacticly assuming that all anarchism must conform to those features.*4 That is one reason why definition and characterisation are important; so anarchism is not set in riged past forms, unable to adapt to new circumstances and ideas. Another example concerns the character of the anarchist revolution, onto which many restrictions are loaded, often resulting in gratuitous puzzles, which are removed with the impositions. For example, it is said that 'the revolution had to be a mass affair" (M p.94). But nothing in anarchism, or its general development, requires this. (As a result the dilemma Miller finds .p.99 ff., simply falls over.) A revolution could be carried out by an elite anarchist band, or, in some states, through a single governor or president. Again, it said that the revolution is bound to be authoritarian (which renders an anarchist revolution contradictory), violent, and so on. This we have on authority from Engels: 'a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other by means of rifles [etc.] authoritarian means, if such there be at all', to which Miller adds approvingly that to say in power the party must rely on military means and 'terror of arms' (M p.92). None of this is so. A revolution could lag rapid change through mass conversion; for instance, there is a sign or appearance that is widely recognised, a new social movement which spreads like "wild fire", etc. 3. Anarchism and the state. While organisation and government are entirely compatible with anarchism, that most conspicuous modem institution, the state, is not: it is the paradigmatic archist form. Nor are ancient power formations such as the empire and the kingdom really compatible with anarchism. A prime reason is their authoritarian character and their extensive use of coercion and violence, but reasons als<4 includd^hein centralized organisation (such as power and hierarchical structure). Let us focus upon the state, against which a major and often virulent part of anarchistic political critique is directed; indeed such is the opposition to the state and its features that anarchism is sometimes distinguished in that way, in terms of 'hostility to the state ... [which] should be abolished and replaced by a new form of social organisation' (thus Miller p.5). But again these may be consequential, not characterising features of anarchism, which are derived from characterising features together with a standard theoretical characterisation of Under one such standard (though fairly strong^) characterisation, the state is a and 14 15 This is a much favoured tactic with critics of anarchism. For many examples, some only Quoted in the main text, see Miller. Although strong, in certain respects the characterisation is not strong enough. A state must not only be able to c/ai/n all these sorts of power, but sometimes to exercise them. Cf. Taylor's criticism of Weber's definition of the state (p.5). A body ... it claims complete authority to define the rights of its subjects .... Second, the state is a body, in the sense that everyone bom into a given society is forced to recognise obligations to the state that govern that society. Third, the state is a body: it claims a monopoly of force in its territorial area, allowing no competitor to exist alongside it (Miller p.5). It also normally claims other monopolies, such as on legal tender. It is virtually immediate, powers. So it is that anarchism is often epitomized as directed at the dissolution of, what is widely seen then, that the state is a comprehensive as major political problem, the state. As to why it is such a problem, anarchist critiques of the state, sketched below, will reveal. With anarchism implemented in a place there is then an end there to any institution that is recognisably a state. The subsequent argument for anarchism does not depend upon a strong characterisation of .yfafe, such as that so far offered. Even fairly weak characterisations will serve. But inadequate characterisations, such as the following, will not: 'a collective object with territorial boundaries and political organisation throughout that territory". For that omits essential features of the state, such as sovereignty, authority, coercive control; it describes a possible anarchist society. 16 Arguments/or the state (which anarchism is normally concerned to fault) are however sensitive to characterisation. Mostly these arguments reach little further than, justify no more than, some sort of "minimal state"", very different from anything the Earth has had on offer (e.g. a nice state guaranteeing basic rights rather than removing rights: but anarchism need hardly oppose such arrangements). So it will matter just how ^<2^ is characterized. But this is easier said than done: is a ^k cluster ( muqti-criterial) notion, explications of which are controversial and typically contested.i? In seeking a satisfactory working characterisation, a useful starting point is the following short definition: 'a collective item with territorial boundaries and political organisation exercising sovereign power".is As anarchism can comfortably accommodate the first parts, political organisation within a region, it is the last part, sovereign power (as spelt out, e.g., in Miller's account) that is the problematic distinguishing factor. In a way, the term ruling sui^ipreme, derived from la&Ctptein which reflects the Greek reigning or says it all, why anarchism is bound to oppose a state so empowered. Improved detailing will exhibit a similar division between acceptable and unacceptable. A state, which comprises a 16 A' 17 18 q/ Virtually all the key political terms that we shall encounter have a disconcerting multiplicity of meanings: so it is with state, sovereignty, democracy (422 senses in Naess p.30), ideology, and so on. Fortunately these terms are dealt with^ elsewhere in this work. For a useful attempt at a multi-criterial characterization,and discussion of controversies over characterisations see Dun^eary "The state * (in Goodin & Pettit). Reese, with 'item * substituted for 'entity * to evade reificative issues. 21 interconnected (their level of cohesion justifying a definite description), has domains consisting of a and of who form an associated society. The territory of a state consists of spatial regions, over which it normally exercises control. Subjects are generally those humans who regularly reside in the territory (citizens form a of subjects, singled out by possession of certain duties and rights). The state is not the only authoritarian body to be repudiated. Lesser authoritarian organisation, such as those proposed under terms of functionalism (military barracks, prisons, reform schools, etc.) are to be similarly repudiated. No doubt on occasion the ability to coerce makes an institution more "effective", much as childrens learning of uninviting material is sometimes rendered more effective by coercive means, e.g. heavy cannings, floggings. But the repugnant means, and their common chase outw^eight the gains, if any, in effectiveness achieved. Now, having thus arrived at regular anarchism, reputiating the state, we confess to the evident, to the refinement of the notion of anarchy away from widespread common usage where it functions primarily as a powerful directive away from disapproved anti-statist life. Given that anarchism is thereby rendered (as in many dictionaries which of course reflect usage) a contradictory notion, encompassing both disorder without the state and order alternative to the state, some refinement and some diversion of disorder is no doubt desirable. The trouble with this easy resolution is that the early uses of 'anarchism' in English operated precisely with the corrupt drunk-and-disorderly side of the contradiction—disorder as contrasted with spendid state order. That was what (in defiance of the original Greek meaning) 'anarchy' and 'anarchism' were introduced to mean (see OED citations from 16-17th C). Thus the early usage, which persists, contradicts the refined and now regular usage. In technical presentations this problem is easily sliced through, by coining a term to mean what anarchy as refined means (anaRyri'2 and anacracy are such terms). Here however we shall simply persist with the refinement of the prevailing term, and in the course of giving it etymological justification over the early corrupt uses, further refine. 19 But the justification for refinement is not only 19 Tempting as it may be to switch, alternatively to new, freeing terminology, that temptation has here been largely resisted. Anarchism is a term, and idea, worth retaining. Not that there is anything amiss with new terminology: quite the contrary, provided that it is well-indroduced and pointful. In the course of drafting this book, a variety of new terminology has been toyed with—including such nice terms as (signifying non-domination)—because, as is regularly emphasized, anarchism is now such a turn­ off for most people. No doubt in more pdular versions (written by someone else), anarchism will disappear from headings, displaced by new terminology with a hint of old such as ^ada^waacra^y, or, less scrupulously, its place usurped by ^car-vacuous terms in high popular favour such as d^/nocracy. In this less popular version, anarchism stays; but, in pa^t compensation, some pleasant absolute terms, and senses, have been revised. They offer acceptable alternatives. A more powerful consideration than negative connotations is perhaps this: The present text, though strictly / 22 etymological. Do we need yet another term for lawlessness, or for disorder? Don't we rather need a term to help break the false dichotomy between: the state or political disorder? As if there are no further alternatives, like stateless order of various kinds? Or (as much ill-informed literature suggests), no political theory without the state, merely untheorizable confusion? 4. A refined explication of anarchism. derives from the ancient Greek Etymologically meaning: without a chief or head, or without a top authority. Of course what the form derives from, though often indicative, does not determine what it now means. (Anarchism was not, after an ancient political theory, but is in fact, under familiar classifications, the most recent and novel of major political ideologies.) However it M worth drawing out the etymological meaning, because it is revealing. What it appears to exclude are political arrangements structured with a top element of any of the following authoritarian sorts: a monarch, a prince, a ruler, a leader, a president, a prime minister, and shifting from individual to group form, a party, a clique, a ruling elite, a central power such as a state, etc. There are, analysis reveals, two interacting foci: one, a top or centre, and two, control or dominance flowing from this top by what are adjudged inadmissible means, authoritarian or coercive means in particular. A chief both stands at the top of a power hierarchy and exercises authoritarian control from there. Under this anarchy entails double foci structure or organisation without inadmissible top-down or centralized means. Let us look at the foci in turn, beginning with the more independent one, the top. Topologically, wif/tonf % fop amounts to wzt/zoMt % cenfre, because by topological transformations (roughly&^nJzKg and stretching as what rubber objects will permit) what is a top transforms to a centre, and vice versa. Diagrams illustrate the transformations: top (of tree, semi lattice) o centre o investigating is so far removed from what normally enters under that denomination that different terminology is warranted, terminology which then has the advantage of shaking off all those negative associations of anarchy. The salient differences from run-of-the-mill anarchism will appear when preferred forms are detailed subsequently. 23 Volcano from top from sides * peak * peak Given such transformations, which will be taken for granted, anarchism also excludes arrangements structured with a controlling centre, such as a ruling central government. It implies decentralization in a precise sense. It does not thereby also remove all structure: it leaves intact a rich variety of structure including network arrangements with no centres (or with multiple "centres"), federation structures or similar. Yet another example is afforded by lateral structuring with central "centres" dispersed via function, as ilustrated;^ service "centres" The skeleton or scaffolding of organisation is structure; it is the frame on which organisation is hung, which organisation fills or fleshes out. The sense of explicating the underlying organic image, implies as much. According, for instance, to the Conci-ye Dzcfiofiuiy, 'structure: manner in which a building or organism or other complete whole is constructed, supporting framework or whole of the essential parts of something *. Structure itself is primarily, though not entirely, a matter of of elements and parts, among which order relations figure prominently, though not exclusively. That is, structure involves order, as a critical component. Remarkably, the same sort of <y%n/c%r&y occur in a range of seemingly diverse theoretical areas, not just social and political theory, to be displaced in each case by a similar sort of problem-dissipating structure. To illustrate, consider an order on a type (or set) of items Q given by one order relation R, 20 Insofar as there is a single centre, it is the bottom, the people. Major condinating issues are referred to people, for instance through referenda. So there a will be a referenda organising office, but it will be independent cooperative. 24 on item c in Q, i.e. R = Re- For example, where Q is a system of where R may itself worlds including your world the ordering R of worlds may depend on your world (and my world could supply a different order). Differently, where Qis a system of values or valued items, R may depend upon your values; and so on. As an orJer, R is at least transitive, and perhaps either (if like <) reflexive or (if like <) symmetric, on its ranged The system <Q, R> is a simple ordered structure, or ay%w%^. (The latter is the term now used in modal logic, where such structures are the bases of models for the logic.) A or top t of such a system is an element such that all items of Q bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to any element of Q. (The notion, that of -yMpreyniow, and likewise woxiwMw, may be similarly defined relative to subsets or types within Q.22) 77^oreTH. There are order structures without tops. Examples are provided by systems (often with much more structure) with no supremum. Here is a simple 6 element example drawn from relevant logical theory. +1 +2 „ = {=2,-l,-0, +0, +l,+2} +0 R - — is as shown by arrows. -0 -1 T = {+0, +1, +2} is a frufh component -2 Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items. Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements to t. trans^ity required of order. 21 There are various cases, depending upon conditions 22 A supremum t of R (in type T) is an (that) element (of T) such that all elements (of T) bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to anything (in T). Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under so to say. What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy without "anarchy" or chaos, because there is order), structures. afford numerous examples. Order, including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy. 23 As immediate corollary is that inferences from anarchy (without a top or centre) to absence of order to disorder are fatally flawed. What lacks a top or centre may nonetheless enjy satisfactory order. Structures induced in anarchic arrangements can be far from chaotic (and may be modest and stable equivaien&s8i conditions). It is worth alluding to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, monarchs, patriarchs, top authorities as required for satisfactory order, also count against <2^x9/%^ of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R 23 Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way. More on this subsequently. 26 itself is relative to c), and of various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts contrast sets emerged centralism elitism statism absolutism realism objectivism in rough contrast respectively with maximizing rationalism decentralism egalitarianism anarchism pluralism nonrealism nonjectivism satisizing rationalism Naturally, these simple structural considerations are only indicative, not decisive. For we might find, as more and more constraints are imposed on structures, as account is taken of actual conditions, that freedom contracts, that structural arrangements are forced towards centralism or absolutism. While such forcing may now look, in the light of a little logic, implausible, it requires further argument that it need not in general eventuate. The to be developed agam-yf takes these lines: that there is ready design of institutional arrangements for decentralised communities which does not lead back to a central state. The state is organisationally otiose. Organisation is delivered anencephaletically. For an added or infiltrated top or the centre to be troublesome, something anarchism need bother removing or shun where it figures, it has to have an role. Politically that presumably means exercising power in some way. That is, the head (the head that is lacking in %7i#rc%(?.y) is an operative head, not a mere figurehead. Anarchism need not exclude princes, monarchs, emperors, or "governors", such as some countries now maintain. If the people really like having such relics, royalty or "aristocracy", as is often said they do, then they can presumably have them if they are prepared to afford them. Indeed this figurehead role is just what is presumed for the prince under more plausible anarchist construals of Taoism.25 The ideal prince is a Taoist who takes no action, a sage who is rarely or never seen, whose existence may merely be known to the populace or even simply rumoured (that is almost to say, though Lao Tzu could not tactfully assert it, the ideal prince is a nonexistent inoperative sage). 24 For a fuller picture see Sylvan 93/4, chapter 10. 25 See Clark 84 p.165. Also UTD. 27 As indicated, the main features adduced are mirrored in logic, which can serve as a structural guide. It is striking, as well as technically advantageous, that logical and political predelictions converge. Mainstream irrelevant logics have algebraic structures with top elements, Boolean algebras in the case of classical logics. By contrast relevant logics, which now challenge the classical logical paradigm, do not. Their corresponding algebras, De Morgan monoids and such like need include no top element. The top element, T, is directly responsible for positive paradoxes, of the basic form A -* T (anything at all implies the True), of mainstream logics, paradoxes infecting much theory which relevant logic avoids.^ The logical structure shows that sub "centres" need not have such damaging effects; a plurality of local "centres", regional nodes, induces no paradox. The figurehead analogy also operates analogically, in logic. It does not matter if a semi­ lattice structure is extended to include a top element, so long as that addition provides only a conservative extension. (If T is added to top a relevant lattice, it has in stronger logics to be kept out of implication relations, else it will induce a non-conservative relevant extension with theses like A -* T.) But otherwise, as an inoperative top-piece it is admissible. Technical comparisons now reach much further than logic alone, as we leam more and more about decentralised structures, about decentralised cerebral organisation, decentralised Al and topless connectionism, and decentralised intelligent structure. Intelligent organisation without top or central elements may abound both in nature, for instance in insect cerebral organisation and in vertebrate brain structure, and in many future artificial intelligence applications. Logic and computing technology demonstrate, what is widely appreciated outside political theory, that topless is feasible.2? There is scope, and need, for twenty-first century anarchism to be highly techno-logically sophisticated. There is more to anarchism than political structure without an operative top, head or centre, than a lateral structuring. That more, the residue of the rejection of archy, is more difficult to characterize in a way non-prejudicial to types of anarchism. It is bound up with the operation of the active top, with the confroZ for example it exercises, the potter it exerts, or the like: non-prejudicially, it cannot operate As to what are unacceptable means, however there are different specifications. These many include—what can be summarized, under a single rubric, as —force, coercion, authoritarianism (and what implies any of those, such as totalitarianism); and, much more controversial, nonvoluntary, nonindividualistic, socialist and communist, means. As in dictionariess entries for "anarchism", only coercive and authoritarian elements will be ruled unacceptable (for 26 See WR. 27 The subsequently preferred variety of anarchism, while not at all opposed to slates losing their heads, is powerfully opposed to people literally loosing their heads (figuratively again, it may be alright). 34 A Gramsci, 'The intellectuals * and 'The modem prison * in gcZccfzony /row ?7zc Prz'yon M?fc&ooRy (ed. Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith), International Publishers, New York, 1971. D. Mannison and others (eds.), Environment?/ P/zz/oyopAy, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1980; referred to as EP. D. Miller, Aaarc/zzym, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, 1984; referred to as M. D. Mitrany, 7%c Ennctona/ 77zcory o/PoEr/cy, Martm Robertson, London, 1975. A. Naess and associates, Democracy, /Jeo/ogy aaJ D/?/eciiviiy, Oslo University Press, Norway, 1956. R. and V. Routley, 'The irrefutability of anarchism *, &?cza/AZfcrnaEvcy, R. and V. Routley, 'Social theories, self-management and environmental problems *, in EP; referred to as SM. R. Sylvan, and D. Bennett, 'On Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology *, D/ycayyzoa Papery in EavzrozzmczzZaZ P/zz/oypp/zy, #19, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1990. R.P. Wolff, 7a De/ence o/Aaarc/zzym, Harper & Row, New York, 1970. ADDITIONAL SOURCES P. Nursey-Bray, an Aaaa/arcJ EzEZzagrap/zy a/Aaarc/zzym , Greenwood Press, 1992. END NOTES 2 Cf Clark p.ll8ff. The general methodological issue of multiple determinates of key political terms and their archist confinement is taken up in a later chapter. *J^A /TrT^^<Z7 (y/^cA e.ncrcicj/ ^ A A' '< -' z? y // /yr *-^. C r^O V. J * /X o J* ,<^A<_ . ) *4 C^c/^ / /Xot^z &J> f A-w^ t^i^L to n > etA A jt? cj C rZ-?/T^T <*C Zt , <^<!"// , cx^d /7^/^'Cx ^9 /?. 3* f,. /A^t / TL^i- c— ^^4—UT^-? ^-7y47 /^" <-/ f' z' ^^L-J 7 1 CHAPTER 2. ELABORATIONS OF ANARCHISMS There are wany anarchist theories. For an anarchist theory is any laterally structured theory which duly conforms to the anarchy principle, of rejecting political authority and coercion. While received anarchist theories restrict anarchism to certain more specific forms (the standard options of considered below), p/ara/ijtic anarchism does not; plural anarchism not only admits the plurality, but takes advantage of it any may revel in it. Not all of this variety, not all anarchisms in the sheaf of systems, are of equal merit. Some forms are decidedly undesirable — like anarchisms expanding on the violent or chaotic varieties of popular imagination — in much the way that the nasty states of modem history, that anarchism opposes, are undesirable. Such undesirability may devolve from external rather than internal political characters. Thus, for instance, regions committed to global power projection to retain their privileged way of life (most unlikely under anarchistic arrangements) or committed to transnational terrorist practices. While standard anarchisms have been located in the more desirable, or even eutopian, end-range of anarchist systems, they by no means exhaust the satisfactory forms or even the most promising forms (as explained in chapter 5). Indeed in important respects the desirable range is significantly open for further elaboration of newer (and greener) forms. As varieties of anarchy may diverge, widely, so correspondingly do motivations and justifications for various divergent forms. The motivations, for instance, range from entirely theoretical (conceding to the warranted force of political scepticism) to practical (changing the local world); from personal and perhaps selfish (getting the state off one's back, or out of one's business and one's till) to other directed (eliminating a state oppressing its people) to environmental (disestablishing another vandalistic state). Common motivations trace back to the common character of anarchism: repulsion by, or opposition to, oppression, perhaps generalised from the state to all analogous political and bureaucratic structures, or expanding on that again, to all gross power relations. Indeed it is appealingly suggested that what anarchy is really all about is gross power relations, their reduction and removal; state coercive and authoritarian power are but paradigmatic of such power and domination relations. But while such opposition to gross power does characterizer gentler anarchism, heavy power methods are acceptable to tougher anarchisms; gentler anarchisms tend, so it will be argued, to be all of more pacific, more liberal and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchism. There are other expansionary liberal democratic motives for anarchism, further varying this theme: a yearning for removal of constraints, and for more extensive freedom; or a desire for more extensive equality, which would of course diminish those inequalities power delivers. Such motivations too have illicitly worked their way into variant characterisations of anarchism. ? 2 While a popular image of anarchists remains that of hardened terrorists, exercising authority over hostages using state-manufactured guns, many anarchists are joined by opposition to all such naked authority or coercion. Indeed 'behind the anarchist attack on the state and other coercive institutions, there has often stood a fundamental critique of the idea of authority itself (M p.15). An important, though certainly not invariant, mofivafmg and r^<?n for anarchism derives from a more sweeping anti-authoritarianism: the theme that no person or organisation can ever rightfully exercise authority of (political cast) over another. Picturesquely it is the theme that no authority is justified, no one, state or other, has a right to push another around. Too briefly it is sloganised to assert, no bosses, no leaders, or similar. Such general opposition to the principle of authority has even been dubbed "philosophical anarchism". It is an unfortunate choice of terminology given Feyerabend's different anarchistic challenge to much in philosophical theory and practice. * But some further classification and labelling undoubtedly helps. A princZp/^J anarchism takes exception on principled, characteristically ethical, grounds to objectionable authority or to coercion, that is to prime target elements undiluted anarchism directly rejects. But irrespective of type of anarchism intricated, much in anarchist theory, including a fuller characterisation, turns upon the twin notions of anf/ion/y and coercion, what these terms mean and cash out to, and why it is considered important to avoid damaging features of this sort? Both authority and coercion fall into the general category of power relations, a category that has rightly featured large not merely in anarchist theory but in social theory more comprehensively. As Aristotelian definitions of 'authority and coercion , by gunus and differentia, will be offered, an essential preliminary consists in pinning down the genus, power. * Power gm/ reZevan? serfs. Defective definitions of power, authority and coercion abound. Despite the importance of the notions for political theory, not just for anarchism, it is rare to encounter satisfactory formulations. A defective formulation from recent relevant anarchist theory defines power as 'the ability to compel compliance, either through the use of force or the threat of force (Wolff p.4), a conspicuously high redefinition. Rather, a power reZofion is a relation where one of the relata, that having the power, can normally get the other relata to do something (down to entertaining a belief, considering an idea). Power is a can-do; it may not be exercised. But there need be no compulsion or compelling compliance; nor need its exercise always succeed. Further its exercise need not involve force or threat thereof; it may be effected by a range of other means. 1 By Wolff, and following him, Miler and others. Feyerabend's philosophical anarchism, his is sometimes better labelled anarc/h-yiH, a type of nihilism. But it stops short, excluding logical methods (irrationally scorned however) from variation^ .In fact without a sharp—unavailable—distinction between logical and other (empirical or pwidivist) methods, this methodological anarchism is incoherent. 3 on the one side, bribery, seduction, blackmail, and so on, and on the other, knowledge, prowess, charisma, and so on. It is no secret that major problems in human social and political affairs devolve upon power, its excessive or evil use, misuse, regulation and control. But by no means all power, not even all political power, is bad. Distangling the undesirable, negative forms is an essential exercise, often neglected. After observing the failure of radical social theory to provide an adequate investigation of power, Clark embarks on a critique of the "classical model"2 According to the received conception, power is depicted as a relation of domination in which the powerful subject the powerless to control in order to exploit the latter. In both classical Marxism and anarchism this exploitation is conceived as being essentially economic. Thus, for Marx, "political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another (p.231). It is evident that what we see here is an attempt to explain power through, and then reduce power to, certain of its determinate forms: domination, then control, exploitation, oppression, and then organised and economic forms of these. These determinates are all, though important, rather special and rather negative, black forms of power. Power may be short-term, just for a day for instance or once only (a creature requires power only for a short period, because of what it is, because it loses power thereafter, because it has access to short-term drugs, magic, hypnosis, contracts, etc.). Domination is a longer-term relation, a disposition, between recognised parties, with a decided bias in favour of one party the power-holder; exploitation and oppression increase that bias, in specifiable ways, control however removes it. Power may, furthermore, be applied for positive and libertary, purposes, to help powerless to achieve something or other, to survive, prosper, and so on. Briefly, the concerning power is not power itself, but certain of its forms, its negative forms, and its excessive use. This last can be assimilated, by taking excess as a negative form. The negative forms are, of course, though they can be independently specified, the bad, or undesirable forms, forms as was earlier said.3 These include, among other forms, closed authority and coercion. They also include such overlapping forms as oppression, exploitation, domination, and so on. Privilege goes with these latter forms; it is held by the power-holders and their circle. It is held moreover exclusively by this circle; others, at the other end of the power relation, the power-less, are excluded from its possession. That is, the domain and range of a given power relation are exclusive: no one is both an exploiter and exploited (though of course someone, a husband day labourer for example, may be both exploited in his labour and domineering over his wife). 2 3 A critique, p.231 ff. too quickly petering out in an inconclusive, discussion of Foucault on power, where power turns into what is not, something mystical and all-pervasive. In these respects, power is like other notions, of green political significance, for one, for another. 4 There are two separable kinds of undesirable power: excessive and malselective or illdirected. The two kinds are more or less replicated in other significant phenomena that have been, like power, too sweepingly condemned: economic growth and material consumption. The problematic concerning human consumption is not consumption itself, some level of which is essential to human societies and indeed survival. The problems derive basically from excessive consumption and from poorly selected consumption. Conspicuous consumption, insofar as it delivers a negative form, derives from these: it is either excessive and wasteful or malselective or a mix of these. But the kinds are distinctive. For example, a poor family that buys expensive junk food may spend its limited income poorly, but its consumption may well not be excessive. Similarly with power: the limited power an individual or group possesses, whether exercisable for evil or not, may be better or worse directed. In term of power and its gross exercise, much in more gentle anarchisms can be / synthesized, namely all that is otherwise packed into the rubric: unacceptable means. What is unacceptable is gross exercise of power, including types of political power exploited by tougher anarchisms, terrorist power, crude fire power from the barrels of guns, and so on. What correspondingly gentler anarchisms oppose are all institutions and arrangements, not just the state and those tied to it, that can exert gross power. The state mightly concentrates, and centralizes, such power/ Even so the state is merely paradigmatic among undesirable and excessive power structures — a power hungry one at that, since it looks for a surplus product in power, along with a monopolistic position. But militia posts, torture shops, and pirate ships are other more localized structures. Coercive and closed authoritarian arrangements (opposition to which helps define anarchism) are distinctive marks of such grossness. Dilute anarchisms tone down opposition certain types of power (typically authority); they admit exercise of power that gentler anarchism would regard as gross. From the problematicness and undesirability of excessive power, main objectives of ( anarchism for ameliorative change flow: decentralisation, division and separation of powers. Centralised powers are to be separated and decentralised; aggregated powers to be broken down into functional components; and so on. Tougher anarchism proposes more, rival power play, resisting and undermining power through power, to break down its excesses and reveal its limitations, fighting fire with fire. One trouble with this tough and morally dubious strategy, which can be spectacular, is that it easily overreaches, producing for instance inadmissible coercion of others. 4 Not all state power is undesirable. Some of state regulation and redistribution, effected through power is certainly desirable. The argument will be that these elements are completely outweighted by the undesirable components of state power, and that they can be independently effected without the state. 5 Gentler anarchism travels in the vanguard of the long retreat from barbarism in human practices and institutions. In more enlightened parts of the world we have witnessed the progressive removal of physical punishment, such as: maiming, blinding, executing, stoning, torturing, transporting, flogging, corporal punishing, starving, chaining, incarcerating, imprisoning, infecting, ...and extensions, such as: serious threats thereof and assistance or encouragement of these practices elsewhere. Such enlightenment has not penetrated many parts of the world to any extent, and has far to reach yet even in the most civilized regions. TTyugh the gentler anarchist theme of curtailment of power, we can tap into several rich connections. The excessive drive to power and strength, the "will to power", is a conspicuous feature of modernity. Interestingly Nietzsche went so far as to claim that the will to power was basic motive in human affairs. Fortunately such a socio-psychological claim, about prevailing human nature and institutions, has little to substantiate it. But undoubtedly power motivates much, much too much, in modernity; otherwise anarchism would lose much of its more sweeping point. It was not always so; the quest for power at all costs, the flaunting of power, was at least highly problematic (as drama revealed); it did not always gain the adulation it now widely commands. It did not win respect from early anarchism, as manifested in Stoicism and Taoism. It would not have won endorsement from Aristotelibnism; for power, of both institutions and individuals, like so many other attributes, is evidently similarly constrained to a While the rough bounds are evident enough for an instrumental object such as a vehicle, which wastes fuel and becomes dangerous when excessively powered, but cannot perform its tasks if underpowered, the bounds, especially ^e lower, may not be so conspicuous elsewhere (e.g. with military hardware, intelligence reserves, etc.). Organisations and institutions, which should be vehicles to serve social ends, enjoy once again a striking analogy with logical systems. Logical systems, when excessively strong in the fashion of modem mainstream systems, ensnarl users in a tangle of paradoxes and other troubles (for detailed discussion see RLR, p.240 ff.). On the other hand, if they are excessively weak they fail to meet reasonable conditions of adequacy, to afford satisfactory vehicles of inference and reasoning. Two species of gross power feature particularly in the definitional elaboration of anarchism: authority and coercion. While undesirable authority is characteristically tied into excessive power, coercion is different, is often once-off, and is malselective power. 6 * Authority, and warranted repugnance of closed forms. Authority is a type of power relation, a relation with the power or influence conferred or supported by other features of one of the relata, the bearer of authority, namely character, station, recognised control of coercive means, or the like. itself is the abstract of the relation : a has authority over or with respect to b. Authority is a proper subrelation of power. For evidently many power relations — those exerted by bullies, bandits, etc — are not authority relations, since the relation is not supported by suitable station. Again the following definition of authority (upon which Wolff founds his philosophical defence of anarchism) is far too narrow: "the right to command, and correlatively, the right to be obeyed" (p.4). Only some who hold authority may be (conventionally) conceded a right to command, or more broadly, to exercise their power. For evidently their power may be exercised in a variety of other ways than through command structures, such as blockages, delays, vetoes, withholdings, and so on, and on the other side, concessions, gifts, rewards, and so on. There are many types of authority relations, many inadmissibly excluded under narrow definitions, not all of which are objectionable, or objected to by anarchists. For an example of an unobjectionable sort, consider the relation of a student to an authority in some field of knowledge, who can in turn back up expert judgements by appeal to a further range of assessible evidence. Such an authority might be called frampar^if (or open), because those with time and some skill can proceed through the authority to assess claims made. Among op%n authorities are contemporary teachers, by contrast with old fashioned disciplinarians, and advanced parents, who can back up their orders with satisfactory reasons. Contrasted with such authorities are op&q%^ (or cZo<y^%f) authorities, who simply stand on their position or station, such authority is objectionable in part because of its dogmatic character.^ Closely allied to op^M^ authorities who can appeal to a conventional rule or procedure (that is how things are done, have been done) without being able to or prepared to opaque authorities are step beyond some rule book. Rule-book authorities are commonplace in bureaucracies, which often encourage such practice in lower level officials. In opaqM^ authorities the justificatory procedure stops a step further out; there is a set of rules, which has been enacted (for reasons not open to, or bearing, examination) by a further substantially opaque authority. Other authority relations are objectionable because of the way in which or the means by which they are backed. Unobjectionable is the authority figure which is exemplary, where what it exemplifies is in its tum satisfactory. Not so relations backed by coercive means, by violence or threats of violence: Big-stick authority relations. Such relations are condemned on moral 5 The impression is widely promoted that science reliably furnishes examples of transparent authorities, in the shape of experts. That impression is astray. Dominant Science frequently functions as a substantially closed authority, rather as the universal Church did, standing on received theory as gospel (for elaboration see DP, chapter 12). 7 grounds, for example by moral pacifists opposed to violence, who do not object to the carrot methods such as sanctions, boycotts, civil disobedience, etc. A diagram will summarise the position so far attained. o/'gMf/tonfy Confine##.? Methods carrot <- stick possibly benign Pacifist Back-up transparent T opposition A opaque Enlightenment Liberal opposition opposition It will be evident that the objections to nonbenign authoritarian relations—to what in clear cases may be presented as to — can be of significantly different sorts. To more opaque authority relations there are objections of enlightenment cast, that reason is lacking for what an authority requires, proposes or asserts, as it was lacking in authoritarian religious and political practice against which the Enlightenment was primarily targeted. (A significant strand of anarchism, more theoretical anarchism, is a descendant: undisclosed reasons of State are not adequate reasons.) To more coercive authority relations there are objections from non-violence devotees. To there may be a kind of liberal opposition, that the party subject to authority is being denied, in one way or another, for unacceptable reasons, a certain freedom, namely ' autonomy. Naturally, movements have been directed at breaking down authoritarian power relations: masters over slaves, humans over animals, men over women, adults over children, etc. States over citizens. A comprehensive civil liberties movement would merge with anarchist movements. Plainly then, these three convergences are linked to three interconnected forms of opposition to authoritarianism: namely * convergence of anarchism with an Enlightenment opposition to opaque authority, which anarchism takes to include state authority. (A response will contend, as religious groups did against Enlightenment charges, that State authority is justified, e.g. it represents the people's will, or some similar fairy tale. But that is what is at issue.) * convergence of anarchism with moral pacifism in opposition to violence and coercion as unmitigated evils which should always be avoided. Of course only some forms of anarchism are 8 involved. Some anarchists are not averse at all to the exercise of heavy power relations, for instance of violence or terror against others (no matter how this violates their free personal space). But observe that such uses of power are not supported by recognised authority but normally directed agnm-sf such authority; so they might be dubbed relations. * convergence of anarchism with forms of liberalism, deriving from solid commitment of normal forms of anarchism, particularly individual varieties to personal liberty. Libertarian ideals have served as a major motivation in historical anarchism. There is a vision of a free society, a 'vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labour is freely undertaken'.6 ( There are of course other convergences as well, some of them much discussed, such as with marxism. When opposition to authority is broadened to opposition to domination, no doubt there are further convergences, with feminism, with deep environmentalism. A recent convergence, of initial promise, is with ecofeminism, which ought to highly sympathetic to environmentally sensitive anarchism. For both are opposed to domination in all its forms, to downward control lines and power hierarchies. There is an important argument against the state based on its authoritarian character. This argument, to be found is Proudhon and in embryonic form in Rousseau, is developed and given a Kantian tum in Wolff? What Proudhon portrayed as a conflict between the authority of the state and freedom, Wolff represents as 'the conflict between authority and autonomy' (p.18). In this conflict, where the state represents authority, autonomy takes precedence; anarchism is consistent with the supreme virtue of authonomy, but archist doctrines supporting the state are not, because of authoritarian character of the state. Because Wolffs argument has been subject to much criticism which an improved formulation would shed, because too Wolffs formulation leaves something to be desired (it is not sufficiently sharp or tight), the argument will be revamped. A crucial difference is this: whereas Wolff asserts that 'all authority is equally illegitimate', a judgement already rejected, it is now said that all authority is illegitimate, meaning thereby wtoraZ/y illegitimate, not 'having a binding moral force ? 6 7 8 Chomsky, in Guerin p.xii, As to Proudhon see Ritter p.13, pp. 15-16. According to Rousseau such undesirable restrictive features need not pertain for all forms of government; naturally they do not obtain for his favoured arrangements. Wolff tries to repeat this sort of point, less than successfully for unanimous direct democracy. Of course a state may proclaim, even legislate, that its authority is legitimate, and even have other states do the same. But that will not achieve moral, a de jt/re, legitimacy. It is similar when the state endeavours to enforce its authority; /noraf legitimacy is not thereby obtained. Nonetheless these sorts of features go far towards explaining why people acknowledge, rarely questioning, closed authorities like the state. There are other elements which enter into explaining this popular sheepishness, such as: The force of tradition, that is the way things have always been done, the 9 Nor is all closed authority equally objectionable. The unquestionable directives of a benevolent dictator (one whose authoritarian directives and regulations prove inductively to be well directed) can be seen as less objectionable than those of a malevolent dictator. Similarly for a dictatorial group, a junta, or a majority. That the dictator said so, or that the majority said so, does not offer a reason rendering the state less than a closed authority. A core theme, to be embroided and defended, is W1. An autonomous person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. But W2. The state is a closed authority, of a certain of course. Hence WC1. An autonomous person does not recognise the state as legitimate. The core theme depends crucially on the notion of aMfonowy, on characterising features of the autonomous person. But before that task is addressed, observe that autonomy can be eliminated. First, the rafiona/ person, or a little less satisfactorily, the person, can carry the argument instead, using for instance W3. A rational person is autonomous. So results Wl' with 'rational' displacing 'autonomous', W1'. A rational person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. That premiss at once suggests a direct argument devoid of the circuit through persons (or through agents). For what a rational, still more an enlightened, person does not recognise as legitimate presumably is not, and certainly vice versa. In any case, U1. A closed authority is not legitimate. Hence, by W2, UC1. The state is not legitimate. Since this conclusion is equivalent to UC2. The concept of a legitimate state is null, the result sharpens the tentative conclusion Wolff reaches: 'Hence, the concept of a jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous', to which he adds, thereby presuming other links already made explicit, 'and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man' (p.19). As observed, not too much hangs upon the notion of moral legitimacy deployed, thus far following Wolffs lead, throughout. Simple variations replace 'morally legitimate' or 'legitimate' by 'morally warranted', 'morally justified', 'justifiable', 'rightful' (the last, though a trifle old-fashioned, captures what is intended well). force of character of leaders; their occupation of official positions, which have heavy bureaucratic backing. 10 These arguments permit of much other interesting variation. Wolff s original argument, for instance, precedes from authority as The defining mark of the state', with authority defectively explicated as 'the right to rule' (p.18). Evidently then the middle term, authority, can drop out, and the argument can be formulated along the following lines: VI. The state has the right to rule (without question, its citizens, more or less as it pleases). V2. An autonomous person rejects any (sweeping) right to rule. Therefore VC1. An automonous person rejects the state. Further variations may be obtained by amending the middle term, "right to rule without question" (which effectively replaced "exercise of close authority") to reflect other features of the state, for instance that it can simply tell its citizens what to do, that is has a right to coerce its citizens, rights to institute state monopolies, and so on. Under some variations "autonomous person" should be correspondingly replaced. For instance, if VI is specialized from a right to command and control to the right to send citizens to war, then V2 may be adjusted to apply to the person of conscience, of peace, or similar. As Wolff seeks a grander conclusion than VC1, which might be merely taken to reveal that there are but few autonomous actors about, he invokes a further premiss V3. Autonomy is a (even the) primary obligation. From there, it is an analytic shuffle to the more impressive conclusion VC2. The state ought to be rejected. The arguments are as vulnerable as their premisses. What gets especially contested in the first argument is Wl, concerning the autonomous person. For all the surface reasonableness and even open-door aspects of a more liberal state, W2 holds; it swings into effect as soon as the going gets tough. As Dahl puts it, To obey the authority of the state ... means doing what the you do it'? While there may be a little scope for light and reson as regards more flexible minor officials, that scope is officials of the state tell you to do simply and soley ( t/z^y small; the wall of closed authority can be quickly encountered, particularly with judges and law enforcement officers. If W2 did not hold the state would risk sliding into a voluntary organisation, out of which citizens could opt. In the end citizens are expected to act in a variety of ways (fill in form, take out licences, pay taxes, etc.) because the state tells them to, just because, or else face punitive action. The argument to Wl depends heavily on the meaning of gMfono/ny. Here is one way it can be presented (following Dahl): An autonomous person is self determining. Such a person is not under the direction or choices of another item. While the person may do what another tells him 9 See p.92..Dahl's reconstruction of Wolff effectively applies W2, using Wolffs definition of HMf%<?r#y, to obtain VI. This produces a more complex, and defective, argument. G 11 or her, she does not she has been told to do it. Thus the autonomous person does not conform to closed authorities, and does not acknowledge them or assign them recognition (more than recognition that is). While autonomy is one thing, responsibility is quite another; still a critical reason for arriving at autonomy intricates responsibility. ... so long as we recognise our responsibility for our actions, and acknowledge the power to reason within us, we must acknowledge as well the continuing obligation to make ourselves authors of such commands as we may obey (Wolff p.17), i.e. to make ourselves autonomous. A primary moral demand, central to the moral condition, is, according to Kant and Wolff, to 'acknowledge responsibility and achieve autonomy whenever and whenever possible" (p.17). Assuming responsibility in a life is by means the only reason for striving for autonomy: achieving a certain personal freedom (within natural bounds) and operating a life rationally are other crifica/ reasons. A main argument to V3 indicated by Wolff does proceed from responsibility. It is simply that in order to take full responsibility (for one's actions, choices, etc.), which one should, one has to be autonomous. So one should be autonomous. At least as important philosophically as the argument from W1 and W2 is that from Wl' and W2. While the argument to Wl' may proceed through autonomy it may short-circuit it. The philosophical argument for Wl' is well-known, having been repeatedly emphasized from Socrates through to Russell: that a rational person does not accept anything for which there are not independent investigatible reasons and evidence. The pronouncements of a closed authority do not fall into this class. By revamping the arguments especially that from autonomy as directed against authority, many objections to Wolffs arguments are fairly autonomically voided. Firstly (contrary to Dahl p.47), the arguments are not (any longer, if they ever were) arguments against 'authority of any kind". Not merely was Wolff concerned with the authority of the state; further as Dahl points out next page, the type of authority concerned is that of 'doing what someone tells you to do fo ^Zo if, that is a closed form. A rational person can of course acknowledge an open authority who can offer reason and evidence for prono^cements. For similar reasons, experts, guides and guardians, of open character, are not excluded. Accordingly the arguments does not cut "too broad a swath""; while it properly cuts out closed authorities like absolute rulers, states and similar, it does not mow down open authorities. In like fashion, much of Miller's parallell criticism of philosophical anarchism is voided. Things go astray (in Miller's chapter 2) from the very outset, from the slack formulation of "the principle of authority"", which is chauvinistically formulated, 'no man can ever rightfully exercise political authority over another, that is have a right to issue directions which the other has an obligation to obey' (p.15), and which is then intended to apply to the relation of a state 12 and its officials to its citizens. The formulation has both to be expanded to include persons and organisations as subjects of the relation, and sharply contracted to delimit the kinds of authority and rights concerned. For the explanatory (that is) clause offered reaches far beyond (closed) political authority; it would wrongly rule out contractual relations such as those of freely arranged employment, parental relations, and so on. The counterexamples Miller designs to Wolffs arguments also depend upon shifting ground from closed authority like the state to more open arrangements, such as contracts an autonomous person may have entered into freely. Plainly there will be a limited range of such contracts that a rational person will enter into; long-term future bondage or slavery will not be among them, and Miller's examples may border on the rationality dubious. In any case, in one, an agent morally concerned to relieve poverty enters into authoritarian arrangements, imagined unavoidable for successful action, in which it becomes obligatory for the agent to act under authoritative instruction (p.28). Firstly, the authorities are not closed, they have to be pursuing means directed to poverty relief, else an autonomous agent will not enter into such ". * arrangements Secondly, while contractual obligations, and therewith certain directives of open authoritarian cast, may constitute reasons for action, the situation with the state is very different. There is no contract, and no reasons of contract (also lacking are spotless reasons justifying entering into such a contract). Examples like Miller's arrangements and contracts can be inflated into stock flawed arguments, from consent to the state. Unremarably, Dahl attempts to patch up again these well- worn arguments, but in two mutually inconsistent ways. Second, he proposes that To opt for a democratic state' is The most responsible way of exercising our moral autonomy', and reasonable and rational as ways of maximizing our autonomy (p.49). Insofar as there are any arguments for such wishful conclusions, they depend upon familiar fantasy-world assumptions about the blackness of nonstate arrangements presumed to impact utterly unfavourably on autonomy and the contrasting whiteness of democratic states. That those states are at best a pretty dirty gray, Dahl's first more honest considerations suggest. There he asks, What is so great about autonomy? 'Why not sacrifice some moral autonomy?' As 'unlimited autonomy is impossible', why not settle for autonomy within reasonable state limits? (cf p.48). Compare: why not sacrifice some resistance to homocide and settle for reasonable killing of humans for reasons of state? The moral importance of autonomy Wolff has already explained nicely (pp 14- 17). Autonomy is a primary oM/ganon of rational persons, a constraint, not what Dahl converts it utilitarian-fashion into, a supreme value, to be questioned then traded off against other values. Because of its importance for rational practice the obligation should not be weakened; nor is there good reason to do so. There appear no grounds for forfeiting autonomy to closed 10 Compare Wolffs discussion (on p.15) of relations with one's doctor. 13 authorities, such as the state. It is doubtful that there are even grounds for what Wolff allows, forfeiture of some autonomy to one s doctor, hopefully no longer a closed authority, rather than retaining autonomy and freely following the doctor's advice. Autonomy is not like freedom in limitations; it can in principle always be exercised by a rational person. Submission to the state is a gross forfeiture of that autonomy. While an autonomous agent may place itself under guidance of leadership of another for limited purposes, and may indeed enter into certain sorts of contracts, it will not surrender its whole future life or extensive parts of it to a directorate that may well proceed in suboptimal, subliminal or even irrational ways. Yet that latter is what expected acceptance of the state implies. Accordingly an autonomous person cannot recognise the state; nor can a fully rational one, as it is irrational to place oneself indefinitely under a closed authority. It may be objected that it is unfair to treat Dahl, Miller and others in the preceding fashion, which changes the dialectical playing field. They were attacking Wolff and his over-extended arguments, not a refinement of Wolff which singles out the philosophical nasty elements in authority, and accordingly destroys their counter-examples which operated at the rational open end of authority relations. But that was not all that they were doing. They were using Wolff as a vehicle to draw quite conclusions about the unviability of principled anarchism (e.g. Dahl p.50, Miller p.29), and accordingly should have taken account of simple revampings of arguments like those of Wolff. Nor is this the only respect in which their practice is methodologically unsound. A principle—like that of closed authority, that such authority is legitimate—does not stand because someone's attack (e.g. Wolff s) against it is unsuccessful. Yet this is Miller's methodological procedure against philosophical anarchism (p.26, p.29). This is Popperian falsificationism gone rampant and badly astray. For Popper at least required sustained and strenuous testing and adequate variation; not a few select and easy examples. But of course a Popperian approach by archists is unsatisfactory; the onus of argument is the other way around. An archist has to establish that political authority, such as that the claims and exercises, is rightful. That Wolff intended to work with something like closed authority should have emerged both from Wolffs emphasis on the place of 'grounds and sources' in legitimate authority (p.9), and his flirtation with unanimous direct democracy. What Wolff is exercised about is not compliance with a authority or obedience where there are good or independent reasons for it, but blind, or closed obedience: doing what you are told because you are told to do it (p.9). (Yours not to reason why, yours but to do ....) While these points exonerate Wolff from some overzealous criticisms, they immerse him in others, namely his attempt to combine authority with autonomy under unanimous direct democracy. A major problem is that this combination, 14 so far as it is workable^, appeals not to the closed authority of the state, but to open autonomous arrangements which do not conform to requirements of the state (as Dahl remarks on p.48, the "authority" here is not the "authority" of his earlier definition'; and as Miller observes on p.27, *it is ... arguable whether this state of affairs [under unaminous direct democracy] involves the recognition of Autonomy and freedom tell not merely against the exercise of opaque authority, but against use of coercion. This connection affords the basis for a parallel argument to that against closed authority, to the desirability of a sharp decline in deployment of coercive methods. But parallels between coercion and closed authority do not proceed very far. * Coercion, an impermissible activity. Coercion is very different from exercise of authority. All four places, 1 to 4, in a cross­ classificatory matrix are regularly occu Died: actions coercive authoritative 1 non-authoritive 2 non 4 coercive 3 Place 1 is well occupied given the State, and is widely exemplified in not only state-citizen relations, but also in authorized domination relations. Place 2 is illustrated in a range of operations which the state often tries to repress such as banditry, piracy, protection rackets, but also in a variety of interpersonal relations. Place 4, that clear indicator of unqualified anarchism, is well exemplified through voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Place 3, characteristic of many work-place and educational situations, can be easily illustrated through advanced ( education. Coercion, unlike authority, is action. That is why comparisons are with .... of authority; authority may sit, like power, unused, but coercion cannot. Like all action it is a process, a state to state transition, but actively changing or maintaining state. It is a transitive action relation having both a doer, a coercer, and done-tos, coerced, all normally creatures. The transitions include a wide range of more determinate actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling and so on; and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. An essential feature of coercion is that state transitions are effected A/<Z or attempted by coercers through force or genuine threats of force. No such force, no coercion. NY- Defective definitions of coercion are liable particularly to neglect this feature. Thus e.g. Fridman 11 Wolff himself concludes it is not except under highly improbable conditions. Indeed the conditions are more onerous those Wolff allows: required are humans who having consented do not change their minds, etc. _________ /e /6 L < s _ _ z^<^4^-f ___' / ^ry^- /i, <^___ . 15 p.xviii, according to whom being coerced is 'not being left alone'. Perhaps in one special sense, but a person who chooses to have a constant companion is not being thereby coerced. Pressuring someone to do something without attempts or threats to apply force is not coercion. Similarly persuasion is not coercion; censuring, withholding support, applying peaceable sanctions, are so on, are not. All this proves important in meeting objections to anarchist methods. Coercion is not a success notion; a coercer may well not succeed in obtaining what was sought through coercion. This will prove important in explaining why appeal to the state does not automatically resolve political dilemmas. To coerce is maintain or change states, normally of another creature, by implied force (i.e. force or accepted threat thereof). The state transition or statis includes the full range of relevant actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling aa so on, and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. Coercion, by contrast with * exercise of authority, entails potential use of force, force furthermore which will characteristically tum into violence if resistance is attempted. Therein lies a main reason why coercion is so objectionable; its intrication with force and immediate potential for violence. For violence is generally undesirable.^. It follows therefrom that coercive arrangements are generally undesirable and, devolving therefrom, If social organisation can be achieved without them, usually so much the better, certainly the more ethical. A main onus to show that coercive arrangements, such as the state characteristically incorporates, are inevitable, unavoidable or the like, thereupon falls upon archists. 'Since coercive power is self-defeating' and worse, a general theory of 'non-coercive authority' is presented as a 'pressing problem of this stage of history'.13 Unfortunately, the general theory has obtained but little development. But functionalism, in such forms as demarchy (to be transformed below), has gained some elaboration, by some in the peace movement. 14 Worse, Merrifield arrives at the "pressing problem" on the strength of the need for Rt/M? of solution to the authority problem': thesources, methods, and ends of authority (p.724). This "problem" is presumed by way of the following large (anarchist) assumptions: Authority is a requisite of all social life, since in its absence it is both psychologically and physically impossible to coordinate human behaviours so that the ordinary social processes can continue to operate and flourish (p.729). The main claim is an important part of what is at issue between anarchists and archists and is at best highly dubious. Moreover the reason offered in its support is false and should be rejected (a range of counter models and counter examples have been indicated or will be). Furthermore, Merrifield goes on (on the next page) to adduce information on organisations of a sort which 12 13 14 Sec wp in. Merrifield p.724 alluding to the wording Notably B. Martin A/Z&) -sy-Mezn of political functionalism. 16 serve to cast severe doubt upon his claim and its supporting reason. There are various nongovernmental organisation (NGOs), and some intergovernmental organisation (IGOs), which rely upon voluntary, permissive or non-coercive motivations ... to accomplish their functional purposes. ... They may explain, demonstrate, justify and argue, but they cannot usually coerce. The role of functional NGO's is even more pronounced. Lacking any coercive power, they must rely on the validity and demonstrability (p.725). Some of the organisation rely, or need rely, not at all on closed authority. Like the voluntary support and participation basis, so too the organisational structure is voluntarily maintained. There is no hard authority, and no conspicuous authority problem. Coercion, in this respect authority, is also open to objection on rational grounds. Namely, ways of controlling, governing, or getting rational creatures coercive methods are not to do things. Rationality—not the undesirability and demeanment of force not, or not just, freedom—is the ground of this objection. The analysis of coercion admits of immediate fruitful application to (internal) criticisms of anarchism. In the first place, it has been argued that anarchism does not avoid coercion but incorporates coercive elements—which would render it inconsistent (as normally characterised). Further, because of these coercive elements anarchism is incompatible with liberty, thereby multiplying inconsistency, as liberty constitutes one of its main goals. These alleged problems derive from the reliance of anarchism on public censure, and like methods, to control social behaviour. According to Ritter, for example, who makes much of the second problem^, anarchists have the following goals: an (admirable) commitment to liberty, and a heavy reliance on public censure. But these goals are incompatible. For such a 'social scheme relies so much on coercive public * censure (p.10, also p.l). However, the argument to incompatibility is invalid; it makes an illicit insertion of 'coercive * * 'coercive (as the quote above illustrates; in fact the prejudicial slipping in of and 'coercion * occurs right through Ritter's discussions; see e.g. p.25 top and bottom). The social scheme as described involves only public censure in a free setting; such censure does not imply coercion, as no use of force need be involved or even contemplated. Secondly, connectedly, there is a widely exploited false dichotomy between voluntary and coerced activity, under which it supposed that all activity which is not purely voluntary is coerced. To the contrary, the range of actions is more satisfactorily diagrammed as follows: Voluntary vs coerced activity In a first chapter short-tided 'Liberty and pubiic censure', particularly on a muddled p.2. ,u„ ZL.. 17 hard pressured ! soft pressured ) ! (entirely) free ) influenced encouraged (fully) coerced <Actions -* In most standard arguments for the state only the outer bounds are considered.^ But noncoercive methods can include a wide range of influenced or pressured actions, which are less than entirely free. The interesting argument that Dahl draws from anarchism, directed against the state, turns upon on the undesirability, indeed the intrinsic badness, of coercion. In essence (leaving out support offered for the premiss as) the argument is as follows: Pl. M? one Zs obZZg#R?6? to -report or o&ey a sfafe. P2. A// sfafes ore coercive. P3. Coercion Zs intrin-nca/Zy bnJ. P4. A society wit/iont a state is a yeasi&Ze aitemative to a society with a state. This conclusion derives fiom these premisses ('assumptions' as he calls them) Dahl draws Ave conclusions' (p.41). As these are not the most direct or pointed conclusions, let us sharpen the conclusions: Cl. AZZ states are necessariiy &aJ. ^rom P2 and P3 (equivalently recast as: all coercive items are intrinsically bad items), given that intrinsicaZZy so implies necessariZy so. Dahl prefixes Cl by the conjunct, 'because all states are necessarily coercive'. Not only does Cl not require that support; we do not have it (e.g. in P2). While coercion may be taken as defining of the state, or an essential characteristic of it, as Dahl does, however states are defined it is continently true that all of them are coercive. C2 No one has an o&ZZgahon fo, Zs o&ZZgafed to, to support or obey any state. From Pl and Cl. Again Dahl unnecessarily prefixes his analogue of C2 (as for Cl above). Insofar as political obligation is obligation to the state, C2'. 77iere Zs no poZZtZcaZ obZZgatZon; political obligation lapses. Conclusions Cl and C2 specialize, because democratic states are states, to democratic states (that is effectively Dahl's fourth conclusion, p42). Dahl, like Wolff, senses a democratic escape through unaminity procedures, and reaches towards a fifth conclusion, which we will subvert. P5. Unanimity decision practices (can) escape coercion. 16 See for instance Taylor's presentation of game-theoretic arguments. 2^ 18 P6. Democracy can operate through unanimity procedures. These procedures and democracy are presumed to apply to some society, community or association. C51. prac/zc&y (can) escape -yfafcF. C52. Democracy can operate wif/zoaf any .sfafe. This last conclusion is interesting because Dahl regularly assumes, as against anarchism, that democracy must operate through the state, and that democracy is therefore in compatible with anarchism. As conclusion C52 reveals, these assumptions are astray, on grounds Dahl himself supplies (the inadequacy of these assumptions will be independently investigated subsequently). It is worth noting that, irrespective of the merit of premisses P5 and P6 (e.g. because unanimity wears off, because of the rareness of unanimity), the conclusions do not follow without other lesser presumptions. For C52 the transitivity of opcrafc wifAoMf (doubtfully a universal linkage) is presumed, and perhaps some modal shuffles as well. For derivation of C51 from P5 what is presumed is that what escapes coercion escapes the state, which requires a strengthened P2 (already encountered), that states necessitate coercion (as well as a little of the logic of escapism). Dahl's third conclusion, after detachment of (three) because-clauses, is C3D. A// PMg/tf a? A minimal inference scheme enabling derivation of C3D from previously derived statements is this: P3D. where an item is necessarily bad and there is a feasible (less bad) alternative to that item, the bad item ought to be abolished. Then C3D follow from (strengthened) P3D. These are important arguments, both for principled anarchists and for archists, and Dahl rightly invests detailed study to certain of the premisses, those he imagines he can dispose of, most notably P2 concerning the coerciveness of states. It is not that other premisses and steps are not highly controversial; they are. The very first, Pl, yields at least the stock debate as to whether one is obliged to support or obey a bad law; for a state can be viewed as a structure of laws. Instead of an argument for Pl, Dahl offers a thumbnail history of its status, a genetic '^justification". Other justifications there are, rendered easier if P2 is strengthened (as it may be without upsetting the arguments dependent upon it) by replacing 'bad' by 'evil' or 'immoral'. Then initial support for strengthened Pl is that political obligation, likewise legal obligation, is a type of obligation, justified by considerations of obligation generally, and accordinging triumphed by ethical obligation. The detailed arguments for these themes gets down to fundamentals, to the justification of obligations through values. Briefly, obligations obtain only towards items which normally exhibit a sufficient level of positive value. An item like an evil state that condition. So no obligation obtains towards such a state. 19 To escape such an outcome, archists contend that certain states are not evil, for instance Dahl will claim that 'a democratic state is not an evil state" (p.40). Anarchists will by contrast assemble a great deal of evidence that democratic states, like others, are evil (see next chapter). The immediate issue is, however, whether states are evil in principle, by virtue of their coercive features. Now Dahl does not contest 'so elementary a proposition" as P2, the universal coerciveness of states. 'Like any state, a democratic state would use coercion to enforce democratically enacted laws ..." Accordingly, to make his escape, Dahl is bound to dispute P3, and does; coercion is instrumentally justified as a means 'essential to a good purpose , a democratic state (p.40). * As to supposed (second-rate) justifiability of coercion. A conionplace claim, which Dahl advances, is DI. Even though coercion is intrinsically bad, its use is sometimes (reasonably) justified (p.44). Which times?, on which occasions? will turn out to be a critical issue. As against Dahl, it will be contended that its use is never woraZZy justified. However in moral dilemma situations, where all other feasible alternatives have been exhausted, its use can be given a "secondary"" secondrate justification. Such a secondary justification, in very limited circumstances, gives no succour to the state, which depends upon and makes widespread use of much more coercion. That is, DI itself does not justify the sfaR?'.? use of coercion. The first argument Dahl offers is overtly dilemmatic. There is a 'recalcitrant wrongdoer , ( who simply will not refrain from doing serious harm to others. Despite the best efforts of his associates, neither reason, argument, persuasion, public opinion, nor the final sanction of social octricism dissuades him from doing harm. His associates finally conclude that he will persist in harming others unless he is forcibly restrained or threatened with severe harm (that is, coerced) (p.44). Why should that stop him, threats in particular (it does not deter young alienated men in contemporary states)? With ali due respect^the gentle best efforts cited by no means exhaust nocoercive methods available. But let us grant not merely that there are situations where coercion occurs (plainly it is presently a frequent occurrence), but that there are dilemmatic situations where a person may have no alternative in preventing violence but to resort to coercion, for instance in preventing or limiting assault upon another, in self-defence, and so on. In such circumstances, 'coercion would be employed—either by the wrongdoers or by those who restrained them" (p.44). Granted, it is employed. The issues however are whether it is morally permissible, and who may be justified. Certainly the wrongdoers are not justified, and what they do is impermissible. More controversially, what the restrainers do is also morally impermissible; even so their actions may be justified. Given the fixes they were in, where all alternatives were forbidden, still what 20 they did may be situationally justified, as a satisfactory actions in the dilemmatic circumstances.*7 Such situational justification is not what Dahl and other consequentialists are seeking; they want coercion justified without impermissibility strings attached. There is no reason, or need, to accede to their desires. Such a reasonable, and practiced, approach to moral dilemmas (which Dahl himself subsequently takes in his discussion of whether to always obey laws of a democratic state p.4950) here escapes notice. And Dahl introduces two difficulties he incorrectly presumes fatal to 'alternative position ... [that] violence and coercion are absolutely forbidden" (p.45). Firstly, given that coercion is employed, 'the position in self-contradictory". Wrong. For that coercion occurs, whether perpetrated by wrongdoers or by those trying to prevent wrongdoers, does no? imply that coercion is morally permissible (i.e. p -f Pp). Nor does the impermissibility of incompatibles imply self-contradiction, for the covering deontic functors cannot be deleted (i.e. -Pp & -P-p is no contradiction; of course given, what gets rejected, -Pq -* -q, contradiction would ensure). Also wrong, then, is what Dahl takes to emerge from such self-contradiction, no 'guidance for the most elementary choices", said to be an 'indefensible" position (p.95). For coupled with the story concerning moral dilemmas are suggested procedures for making choices (often far from elementary choices) from within the dilemmas. Secondly, Dahl wrongly supposes that so rendering coercion absolute makes it 'a supreme value that eliminates all other ends" including justice, freedom, etc. It does not. No hierarchy of principles (or values), this or another, is adopted, which is one reason why dilemmas occur. As in ordinary ethical practice, ^he principles stand, they are not simply prima they are not ranked, there are no 'trade-offs". It may have become apparent, what requires only a little between-lines interpretation, that Dahl is playing a rather familiar utilitarian game underneath the surface moral concern. Render 'the objection to coercion as a means ... not absolute but contingent on consequences". So weaken absolutist prohibitions on coercion and violence that generous room can be made for an institution which routinely practices them, and to which we can trade up with consequential advantage. Given that coercion occurs without the state, indeed may be quite widespread in the absence of the state, then there might be gains in installing a coercive imitation 'to restrict [!] and regulate coercion". Moreover, if 'on balance the gains from creating a state are likely to exceed the costs, then from a utilitarian perspective it would be reasonable to opt for a state" (p.45). There are two critical gaps in this utilitarian state-pleading. Firstly, impressive evidence for the conditional antecedent that the gains from the state exceed the costs has never been assembled, but rather evidence points in the opposite direction (as we shall see in the next 17 This controversial story has been told before, that for coercion resembles that already related for violence. The general theory of moral dilemmas (in MD) is applied to the issue of violence, control of pacifism (in WP TV). 21 chapter), so detachment from the antecedent is not warranted. Secondly, the performance even of better states in coercion is utterly unimpressive; these states foo amplify coercive practices, do not regulate basic cases, and so on. The state appears to exacerbate the levels, both in extent and intensity, of coercion, over the low levels genuine moral dilemmas would yield. It is unnecessary to contend, however, as Dahl asserts anarchists contend, "that if states did not exist coercion would soon disappear or decline to a tolerable level' (p.45). That judgement, which is not exactly an 'empirical' one, depends very much on the character of alternative societies. An individualistic society might enjoy high levels of coercion owing to the activities of its public-like protective agencies. By contrast, a well-organised society may be afflicted with comparatively little coercive behaviour, rendering Dahl's uncompleted utilitarian argument extremely difficult to complete, ever. Interlarded with the dulcet utilitarian approach, under which they beneficent, ^states will provide us with all those promised superior values many millions are still awaiting — freedom, justice, equality, and so on — lies a more sinister argument; that to the gangster state. That evil state is not so far removed, some may think, from many states that are presently recognised. Without the strong state, the gangster state looms, so Dahl insinuates. So adopt the state, or worse will eventuate. That sort of decision theory argument (itself unpleasantly coercive and out of the same big stable as utilitarianism) depends on some (derived) principle such as choose a least bad alternative, and accordingly fails unless another independent argument to the state succeeds. For otherwise superior stateless choices remain on offer. Yet nothing more than the po&H&iZi/y that a small gang of wrongdoers may pool resources, andwhat results may evolve into a "gangster state" is floated (similarly for claim 2, p47, that some group wng/tf manage to create a highly oppressive state, which is as true in many a state as in stateless conditions). There is a complex evolutionary path, with many obstacles and hitches, from a small gang, through growing rival gangs and protection rackets, to a single one, and thence to a state. It is moreover a path that is rather easily blocked at early stages in an organised society, as simple counter examples show (one such example, that of the Inuit, Dahl introduces on the very next page). Apart from the inconclusive utilitarian considerations, Dahl offers a further page, under the boldface heading 'On the Need for the State' (a strikingly minimal effort in a book of about 400 pages most of which are premised on the assumption that the state is a needed item). He concedes, what seems to put a large dent in his bold claim, that preliterate societies, like those of the Inuit, have subsisted, over long periods, without the state. But that is past history, the world has advanced, the state is here, there, and everywhere. Granted it is; that does not show it is needed. Many gadgets that are now produced are not needed. Consider Dahl s reasons why a return to societies without states is 'if not impossible, highly undesirable (p.46). First, the world is already too densely populated to provide much space for autonomy (p.46, less than a 22 page after the utilitarian promise of a satisfactory state maximizing 'freedom and justice'; similarly p.51 etc.) But there are many regions where autonomy could undoubtedly be increased by expansionary or imperial states backing off (not merely in East Timor, on the West Bank, etc., but in the lands of the Inuit, the Micronesians, etc.). Further, the denseness of human population, hardly affords a reason. For one thing, the excessive human population is highly concentrated; most parts of the Earth carry, by comparison, sparse populations. For another, autonomy does not depend, so directly, on available space. 'Thirdly, virtually the entire globe is now already occupied by states'. Similar points apply: for instance, such an accomplished fact does not establish a need, or the impossibility of change. While not true 'throughout recorded history', but a very modem phenomenon, it is no doubt recently confingenfZy true that 'small autonomous groups of people have been extraordinarily vulnerable to conquest and absorption by larger states', and that it is presently doubtful that 'states would permit any small, independent group to exist anywhere [much] on earth'. Such present yizcfo political power relations do not demonstrate a need, still less impossibility of alternative, still less undesirability of changes. Consciousness change could come very rapidly, furthermore, with a welcome change in popular attitudes in large democratic states to oppression of minorities elsewhere (in Europe this seems to be happening). These points also serve to destroy Dahl's second reason, that 'a multiplicity of interdependencies cannot be snapped apart without enormous costs that few people would accept.' The break-up of states in Eastern Europe shows that substantial changes can occur very rapidly; the costs involved were much higher than they should have been because of the attitudes of states, not attitudes of their peoples by and large. In sum, then, all Dahl has accumulated is evidence of the repressive grip of the present regime of states, rendering local change pragmatically very difficult. Such evidence does nothing to establish a need for states, nothing at all to establish the undesirability of stateless societies. Accordingly the main assumptions fail with which Dahl claims support his 'conclusion that if woM/J &^ff^r fo fry fo cr^afg a mfz^/acfory jfafe f/ian f/y io ^xAff in a .soci^fy wif%OMf o sfaf^' (p.47). As it happens, the failed assumptions also fail to support such a conclusion—without suppressed material, of the utilitarian cast already criticised. All the assumptions would indicate, werf they granted, is the practical undesirability of trying to set up small stateless associations in a regime of states like mot prevailing today exc^pf that the states are satisfactory. But the assumptions should be scuttled. * Aggfnsf Jowfnaffon Domination is an important type of power relation. It is a comprehensive relation: persistent over a period, not simply once-off or occasional, pervasive, extending over a range of action and behaviour. It offers confro/ in a spread of cases. In such cases, if the dominator exercises control (e.g. adjusts the appropriate controls, pulls requisite levers) then the dominated normally responds. A significant form of control within extended human affairs is that of A 23 command or ability to command. Of course the creature commanded, the servant, the domesticated animal, the subdued or subjugated person, has to be able to understand what is commanded. But domination operates in significant spheres where such conditions for commanding do not obtain: in particular, but not only, in the domination of nature, its parts and elements, such as animals that do not understand commands, biota that do not recognise manipulation, and so on. Domination originated with (what the etymology of the term reflects) lord-subjects and master-servant relations, which remain paradigmatic for this power relation. It was soon and easily extended to cover owner-slave relations, where control was much more extensive, God­ human relations, human-working animal relations, and so on. It has long covered parent­ children and husband-wife relations, as well as certain class relations; and as classes have changed with political restructuring, industralisation and the rise of cities, so have domination relations. Those of higher classes or castes tend to dominate those of lower ranking, similarly for those higher in new hierarchies. Domination of nature and its parts is a relatively recent addition to the varieties of domination, since the acclaimed success of "the war against Nature" (still going on last century) before which technological humans (lacked the considerable level of power they have now acquired over natural systems.^ An aim of softening or removing forms of domination links social and environmental objectiv&with anarchism. These aims are united in green social anarchism. Opposition to all forms of domination, is yet another extension of certain types of anarchism, perhaps incompatible with other types of anarchism (e.g. communal anarchisms which assume that affairs should be organised along strict patriarchal lines, which accordingly not altogether coherently oppose social archy only to retain or even reinforce a tribal or familial archy). There may by now be some confusion concerning the variety of extensions of anarchism encountered. More exactly these "extensions" are subextensions, which isolate the principle of some type or ( key feature of anarchism and generalize it. generalisation of principled subtype with distinguishing principle. 18 Intellectual vandals have been at work on dondnahon also, stretching it from a relation from ensembles of actors, the dominators, to whole structures, systems or institutions (what might be called by partial analogy with the vandalism worked on .sTrHctund domination). Stretched dominators include the capitalist economy, market forces, the economy, the state, and so on. Under the stretching, /to (structural) dondnadon is said to imply, what straightforwardly is right enough, no subordination of the people to market forces, or even, what is impossible to avoid in a sophisticated society, no influences on members through the operation of its economy. A  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 1005: Draft chapters of Towards green anakism: eucratic political investigations Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft, with handwritten emendations and annotations, and handwritten notes. Description An account of the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 1005 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [61] leaves. 143.55 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:818a421">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:818a421</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lake George - Floor - Pile 8 Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 8 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/ead82de895e579a8e06b9cd889bf5470.pdf 33e8c3b195bf1de721f623ec3ef5dab1 PDF Text Text <L^ 80993 �o/ Methods reZ#Z:ons carrot <- -> stick Back-up possibly Transparent BENIGN PaciEst opposition T ^2---------------------------- --- 4, opaque Enlightenment opposition Liberal \ opposition ��PREFACE. A roc/ </'<:/' This text is written in deep anger, anger not just at what humans have done to so much of the face of the Earth, but still more at what they continue to do. ar Much of the Earth is now a mess.,) Mess is due to humans, some humans. Worse, much of the Earth's environment continues to be destroyed or seriously degraded. Again the main direct or indirect cause is human activity. Humans continue to foul, degrade, or destroy not only their own habitats but the environments of most other forms of life as well. That did not need to happen. It does not have to go on happening. There were paths not taken. There were significant options not even properly considered. In some cases, there still are such options, not being seriously considered, not being taken. 1 ( That should be changed. But present socio-political arrangements, throughout entire complex or states that covers the Earth, depend upon, are premiss^ upon, features that lead to precisely such destruction^ and degradation^. For many states such resully are both ^4 occurring in their own territories, and spilling over into those of others. Present socio­ political arrangements accordingly have to be changed, changed radically. But here we encounter an evident obstacle. It is unlikely that those in power, or with privilege, will go qui^ly, will let their class subside from its materially advantages position, or wither away environmentally. An appropriate revolution may be needed in certain key places to affect due changes. But that is a very controversial idea. There is no need to recite yet again the litany of environmental disasters that have ^co­ occurred or the even more calamitous stack thafare already activated. Almost every day there A is something new or still news. Another oil spill, wiping out the lives ojf present habitats of birds and fish. Through deforestation,^landslides here, flooding there. More whales taken by the Japanese, Ozone holes grow. And so it goes on, with much more in store. But now nearly every sizeable introductory textbook in biology or geography includes a large and largely depressing section on environmental "problems" (at least too some of the devastation and depredation is at last seen as constituting a "problem"). So do many other books; an excellent easy high ted introduction is Ear?Asropg. And more and more popular periodicals and newspapers^/e on environmental disasters and problems or run feature articles.' With new threats to the collective human future the environment has become highly fashionable. , Now, with some appreciation of the inconvenience to business and businessmen of a nuclear winter, runaway greenhouse, or like catastrophe even cautious conservatives are beginning 1 The intellectual who does most to bring this out, the arbitrariness even of present institutional arrangements, is no doubt I^acault. /<M J? �^7/ ^7W/ , 7 ^*/ , ., 7^ ^,/ , „ y^j. ^7 /. -^M_ y.-y </? ^7' '"^ , r.A-/^-. ^. ^1 /<A—, , l-"^- '—^-/^7 ��2 to recognise that there may be ^ome problems, that }a major nuclear exchange will have among its plausible efforts, the greatest biological and physical disruptions of this planet in the last 65 million years'. But the apparent fact is that the very course we are 3a, any further catastrophe, without a nuclear exchange, will cause the greatest biological Z) 6 Ar. disruption of the planet in the last 65 million years. It is enough to and compare data for species loss. It is now a relatively easy matter to .... the considerable array of environmental problems and outrages that we so far know something about. It is another, much more difficult, matter to do something worthwhile about them. While many environmental problems may now be sufficiently clear, and stark, how to react to them, what to do, what practice and theory to pursue are seldom so clear. [Nor is there any very grave difficulty about some of what needs to be done in order to avert or reduce some of the worst problems, and some of the major disasters in store. What is lacking is sufficient motivation, or opportunity among main power brokers (political will, .<............... ..... ................................................ .................... .................................................................... ——— ----------------------- - — political blockages,<etc)] Th& text aims to develop the assemble requisite theory and indicate resultant practices Ensuing political theory^ which will lead to relevant change. But) There is much theoretical work to be accomplished, both critical and constructive. Critical work criticizing present and prevailing assumptions and practices, and the acclaimed justification and alleged reasonableness of these practices. Constructive activity outlining ernative idea-< idea-e^clicism, alternative practices and way of reaching alternative structures, alternative ' . The present exercise aims to be a part of that endeavors. It is a them from where we—— are. .. ______________ —— -------------- A/ philosophical, theoretical book^ It concentrates on the theory, especially the theory, of / .. ...................................................................................................... I..... ....... . ^4—environmentalisin.\ While it offers a purework for environmental action, it says little directly Ar no c . on such action. Those are one practical details zmd recipes for saving a forest froim . _ eismAiSSUfi / hen? destructive logging interests, for example, ways to proceed abouTihal are forever become increasingly appreciated. What is still lacking is the wider p^lifactory structure which explains and justifies opposition and resistance. The run of environmental ethics text do little of what is required. They contain insufficient criticism, little analysis of depth, no vision or elaboration of alternatives. They are so sweetly, eminently reasonable^ fiddling while environmental Rome bums. Too many seek "blame" and all that sort of crap. Or, where they would shake " with ........ - development r r near ihA present predatory arrangements, it is only in one respect, and that not getting to bottom of the troubles, reat^ meat eating. For, while some problems work be ^t-&ough^(^ ----- other generals thereby), it is evident that the rape of most of the Earth could construe vegetarian way. ace in a , . �Environmental ethics texts have no anger, no outrage at what is Being being done to the Earth. Put crudely, they lack guts. Indeed some suggest that things are proceeding rather well, as it not so well, as well as could be expected. (If the latter it coop very little for managing humans competent as managers/organisers). Al! is vary/ivr from well. There is cause not merely for concern, but for deep anger. (Such anger may be un-American.) The dominant way, re^our^ism, if not successfully opposed, will ultimately destroy the ecosphere and then humans among other species Intellectuals, philosophers especially, lately economists even more,2 deal to answer for, socially and environmentally. They encouraged permit of present damaging practices; they proceeded to provide the intellectual and attitudinal underpinnings that helped motivate and continue^ to justify the practices. Nor, with the evidence of environmental crisis so manifest, have things changed much. Most intellectuals continue as if nothing had happened apart from the beneficial advancement of science and technology. Most economists continue to produce or partificate upon various growth (or maximal equilibrium) pmf^tonals. Most philosophers - most are AngloAmerican in background - continue in their hopeless efforts to prop up or impede upon what is fundamentally anfhdi d awedy^basicaiiyv Humean empiricism (thus recently in the on-going display of Humean fashions, evolutionary epistemology, belief as reduced to desire, causal reductions, etc). Most have said, or done, very little about the^..^./ environmental situations; those who have, like Naess, are often ridiculed by the comfortable professionals. 4 This book tries to retell, in a more organised and coherent way what deep-green theory, an environmental theory that has emerged in a sporadic and scattered way over the last couple of decades, is all about. But not everything is told; only the predominantly ethical pa^ts. Later parts of this series on deep-green theory will cover political and economics theory and social theory more generally. Untila century ago philosophy and economics were not separate disciplines. The significant economists were almost invariably philosophers (neeerds may be the one main^,...). �X\^7c-vr/ ?^7<!k^< /7,^ -7^ . r^/ 7^r^7 c)/-^^ //^A^-. ; / C/ A A' �Deep-green theory aims eventually to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. While it stands on its own, it is alternative because it stands in radical ideological opposition to dominant ways, nowadays predominantly industrial. It offers a philosophy both in the contemporary narrower sense, and in the older sense of an intellectually informed and critical way of life. That philosophy is centred on an ethical theory (upon which this issue concentrates), which is in form centred upon a value theory. But the ethic' issues, in a fashion broadly associated since Aristotle, in a politics and political economy. But the output of the value theory in fact reaches much further, into practical decision making in a range of environmentally impacting areas such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. The value theory is also intertwined with philosophical issues which are often considered more fundamental, those of astophyism and epistemology. Indeed there is no part of philosophy that remains untouched. Therein lies part of the claim to comprehensiveness. The particular form of deep-green theory elaborated is by no means independent of (acclaimed) advances recently made elsewhere in philosophy (those in object-theory and relevant and paraconsistent logics especially). But though the theory given is influenced and „--------- -—-sometimes in fact shaped through these developments, deep-green theory moBe^gen^ahy can A avoid them„ (The type of theory given could easily enough be recast m a more classical Platonistic form - undoubtedly a much less plausible form^ Nor will these background advances intrude, it is hoped, in the given elaboration of deep-green theory; the background will remain, fairly directly in the background, and not come to dominate proceedings or proceedings depend upon special new controversial features of it. Where more technical agreements are required, they will be relegated to appendices. LA^to d^ep theory-— Deep-green theory is the environmental branch of a much larger affair, deep theory. There is a point, in fact a real expository need, to place deep-green theory in the larger setting of deep theory. For deep theory influences several of the choices made in deciding upon the way deep-green theory goes, the shape it takes. Although the influence will become evident, particularly with the intertwining of truth and value t&at it is worth giving an example. Too much of the Anglo-American discussion of intrinsic value and of obligations to future generations is taken up with - hung up upon - ontological questions, about universal items in the first case, and as how there can be obligations regarding future items which do not (yet) e �exist in "suitable" determinate form in the second. Deep object-theory slices straight through these issues, removing the problem-generating ontological assumptions. is a grander theory lying in the background, which significantly influences the philosophical approach taken in deep-green theory, as well as being influenced by it. There is no reason why that grand backdrop should remain hidden; there is no hidden agenda. The background theory, of which deep-green theory is a part, is called simply For it represents the confluence of several deep positions with deep-green theory: deep pluralism, depth relevant theory, deep item-theory, and so on. As a theoretical endeavor, deep theory aims to pull together, into a unified coherent theory these various deep positions. It thus draws together and integrates as well, several other interrelated efforts (on dialethism, process theory, anakyrie, etc.) With deep theory I aim to supply eventually a fairly comprehensive philosophical package. I used to imagine that with moderate comprehensiveness as regards present philosophical problems would come a certain completeness; but I've come to thinkjhat a total philosophy is an illusion, like at it Deep theory is no doubt a presumptuous title (there are worse about, e.g. Total philosophy", 'ecosophy'^, ^o( it is altogether satisfactory, given the problems and obscurities, .to be encountered, lacking in the notion of depth. My main excuse is that I did not exactly good to refuse. It emerged from a terminological confluence of several e&eas in which I'd thought, or environmental philosophy^with a revised deep ecology), deep relevant theory, deep pluralism (which deepened radical pluralism), and deep item-theory (which deepens object-theory). To give a picture of deep theory, it suffices for present purposes to indicate some main features of deep positions, some of their integrating interrelations, and some of their revolutionary potential. Deep theory overturns or subverts very much of what has been assumed or presupposed in Western philosophy, and particularly in Enlightenmented contemporary philosophy. For example, it overturns the following widespread assumptions:* the Ontological Assumption, that truth, and also/ meaning, are functions of reference, and thereby presuppose existence. On the contrary according to (deep) item theory, we can perfectlv well talk and think trulv aboutS items that do not exist, and' also about items that are impossible. ^Therewith repudiated also then is an occasionally favoured full-back from enttcalism, namely possibilism, which assumes �* the Possibilist Reduction, of everything that counts in discourse to possible individuals# there are no other genuine subjects, all else can be analysed (or thrown) away. Bound up with possibilism are * the assumptions of modalism, of the correctness of classical logic, and of the absolute Under more throughgoing transconsistency (or paraconsistency) these connected assumptions are one and all repudiated. The transconsistent connection assumes an important role in the straightforward treatment of moral and other dilemmas, in showing for example how an agent may coherently operate requirement of consistency. under inconsistent obligations or with incompatible needs. Important special cases of modalism are such theories as that * entailment is strict implication (or its metalinguistic analogical) and that conditionality amounts to a modal function of material implication^. The rejection of such themes and their jeourses is part of what motivates deep relevant logic. While the parts of deep theory are integrated and are intended to be materially reinforcing, nothing prevents their fairly independent elaborations. The holism conceded does not exclude separation or analysis. In particular, deep-green theory is amenable to ependent development and analysis. //yyy- 1 Material implication is the implication defined in terms of truth-functions thus: A materially implies B iff not last A and not B, or equivalently, iff either not A or B. Strict implication is the necessitation of material obligatory i.e. A strictly implies B iff necessarily A materially implies B, or equivalently, iff it is not possible that not A and not B. ,. A, �/ re/ �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <L^ 80993 o/ Methods reZ#Z:ons carrot <- -> stick Back-up possibly Transparent BENIGN PaciEst opposition T ^2---------------------------- --- 4, opaque Enlightenment opposition Liberal \ opposition PREFACE. A roc/ </'<:/' This text is written in deep anger, anger not just at what humans have done to so much of the face of the Earth, but still more at what they continue to do. ar Much of the Earth is now a mess.,) Mess is due to humans, some humans. Worse, much of the Earth's environment continues to be destroyed or seriously degraded. Again the main direct or indirect cause is human activity. Humans continue to foul, degrade, or destroy not only their own habitats but the environments of most other forms of life as well. That did not need to happen. It does not have to go on happening. There were paths not taken. There were significant options not even properly considered. In some cases, there still are such options, not being seriously considered, not being taken. 1 ( That should be changed. But present socio-political arrangements, throughout entire complex or states that covers the Earth, depend upon, are premiss^ upon, features that lead to precisely such destruction^ and degradation^. For many states such resully are both ^4 occurring in their own territories, and spilling over into those of others. Present socio­ political arrangements accordingly have to be changed, changed radically. But here we encounter an evident obstacle. It is unlikely that those in power, or with privilege, will go qui^ly, will let their class subside from its materially advantages position, or wither away environmentally. An appropriate revolution may be needed in certain key places to affect due changes. But that is a very controversial idea. There is no need to recite yet again the litany of environmental disasters that have ^co­ occurred or the even more calamitous stack thafare already activated. Almost every day there A is something new or still news. Another oil spill, wiping out the lives ojf present habitats of birds and fish. Through deforestation,^landslides here, flooding there. More whales taken by the Japanese, Ozone holes grow. And so it goes on, with much more in store. But now nearly every sizeable introductory textbook in biology or geography includes a large and largely depressing section on environmental "problems" (at least too some of the devastation and depredation is at last seen as constituting a "problem"). So do many other books; an excellent easy high ted introduction is Ear?Asropg. And more and more popular periodicals and newspapers^/e on environmental disasters and problems or run feature articles.' With new threats to the collective human future the environment has become highly fashionable. , Now, with some appreciation of the inconvenience to business and businessmen of a nuclear winter, runaway greenhouse, or like catastrophe even cautious conservatives are beginning 1 The intellectual who does most to bring this out, the arbitrariness even of present institutional arrangements, is no doubt I^acault. /<M J? ^7/ ^7W/ , 7 ^*/ , ., 7^ ^,/ , „ y^j. ^7 /. -^M_ y.-y </? ^7' '"^ , r.A-/^-. ^. ^1 /<A—, , l-"^- '—^-/^7 2 to recognise that there may be ^ome problems, that }a major nuclear exchange will have among its plausible efforts, the greatest biological and physical disruptions of this planet in the last 65 million years'. But the apparent fact is that the very course we are 3a, any further catastrophe, without a nuclear exchange, will cause the greatest biological Z) 6 Ar. disruption of the planet in the last 65 million years. It is enough to and compare data for species loss. It is now a relatively easy matter to .... the considerable array of environmental problems and outrages that we so far know something about. It is another, much more difficult, matter to do something worthwhile about them. While many environmental problems may now be sufficiently clear, and stark, how to react to them, what to do, what practice and theory to pursue are seldom so clear. [Nor is there any very grave difficulty about some of what needs to be done in order to avert or reduce some of the worst problems, and some of the major disasters in store. What is lacking is sufficient motivation, or opportunity among main power brokers (political will, .<............... ..... ................................................ .................... .................................................................... ——— ----------------------- - — political blockages,<etc)] Th& text aims to develop the assemble requisite theory and indicate resultant practices Ensuing political theory^ which will lead to relevant change. But) There is much theoretical work to be accomplished, both critical and constructive. Critical work criticizing present and prevailing assumptions and practices, and the acclaimed justification and alleged reasonableness of these practices. Constructive activity outlining ernative idea-< idea-e^clicism, alternative practices and way of reaching alternative structures, alternative ' . The present exercise aims to be a part of that endeavors. It is a them from where we—— are. .. ______________ —— -------------- A/ philosophical, theoretical book^ It concentrates on the theory, especially the theory, of / .. ...................................................................................................... I..... ....... . ^4—environmentalisin.\ While it offers a purework for environmental action, it says little directly Ar no c . on such action. Those are one practical details zmd recipes for saving a forest froim . _ eismAiSSUfi / hen? destructive logging interests, for example, ways to proceed abouTihal are forever become increasingly appreciated. What is still lacking is the wider p^lifactory structure which explains and justifies opposition and resistance. The run of environmental ethics text do little of what is required. They contain insufficient criticism, little analysis of depth, no vision or elaboration of alternatives. They are so sweetly, eminently reasonable^ fiddling while environmental Rome bums. Too many seek "blame" and all that sort of crap. Or, where they would shake " with ........ - development r r near ihA present predatory arrangements, it is only in one respect, and that not getting to bottom of the troubles, reat^ meat eating. For, while some problems work be ^t-&ough^(^ ----- other generals thereby), it is evident that the rape of most of the Earth could construe vegetarian way. ace in a , . Environmental ethics texts have no anger, no outrage at what is Being being done to the Earth. Put crudely, they lack guts. Indeed some suggest that things are proceeding rather well, as it not so well, as well as could be expected. (If the latter it coop very little for managing humans competent as managers/organisers). Al! is vary/ivr from well. There is cause not merely for concern, but for deep anger. (Such anger may be un-American.) The dominant way, re^our^ism, if not successfully opposed, will ultimately destroy the ecosphere and then humans among other species Intellectuals, philosophers especially, lately economists even more,2 deal to answer for, socially and environmentally. They encouraged permit of present damaging practices; they proceeded to provide the intellectual and attitudinal underpinnings that helped motivate and continue^ to justify the practices. Nor, with the evidence of environmental crisis so manifest, have things changed much. Most intellectuals continue as if nothing had happened apart from the beneficial advancement of science and technology. Most economists continue to produce or partificate upon various growth (or maximal equilibrium) pmf^tonals. Most philosophers - most are AngloAmerican in background - continue in their hopeless efforts to prop up or impede upon what is fundamentally anfhdi d awedy^basicaiiyv Humean empiricism (thus recently in the on-going display of Humean fashions, evolutionary epistemology, belief as reduced to desire, causal reductions, etc). Most have said, or done, very little about the^..^./ environmental situations; those who have, like Naess, are often ridiculed by the comfortable professionals. 4 This book tries to retell, in a more organised and coherent way what deep-green theory, an environmental theory that has emerged in a sporadic and scattered way over the last couple of decades, is all about. But not everything is told; only the predominantly ethical pa^ts. Later parts of this series on deep-green theory will cover political and economics theory and social theory more generally. Untila century ago philosophy and economics were not separate disciplines. The significant economists were almost invariably philosophers (neeerds may be the one main^,...). X\^7c-vr/ ?^7<!k^< /7,^ -7^ . r^/ 7^r^7 c)/-^^ //^A^-. ; / C/ A A' Deep-green theory aims eventually to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. While it stands on its own, it is alternative because it stands in radical ideological opposition to dominant ways, nowadays predominantly industrial. It offers a philosophy both in the contemporary narrower sense, and in the older sense of an intellectually informed and critical way of life. That philosophy is centred on an ethical theory (upon which this issue concentrates), which is in form centred upon a value theory. But the ethic' issues, in a fashion broadly associated since Aristotle, in a politics and political economy. But the output of the value theory in fact reaches much further, into practical decision making in a range of environmentally impacting areas such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. The value theory is also intertwined with philosophical issues which are often considered more fundamental, those of astophyism and epistemology. Indeed there is no part of philosophy that remains untouched. Therein lies part of the claim to comprehensiveness. The particular form of deep-green theory elaborated is by no means independent of (acclaimed) advances recently made elsewhere in philosophy (those in object-theory and relevant and paraconsistent logics especially). But though the theory given is influenced and „--------- -—-sometimes in fact shaped through these developments, deep-green theory moBe^gen^ahy can A avoid them„ (The type of theory given could easily enough be recast m a more classical Platonistic form - undoubtedly a much less plausible form^ Nor will these background advances intrude, it is hoped, in the given elaboration of deep-green theory; the background will remain, fairly directly in the background, and not come to dominate proceedings or proceedings depend upon special new controversial features of it. Where more technical agreements are required, they will be relegated to appendices. LA^to d^ep theory-— Deep-green theory is the environmental branch of a much larger affair, deep theory. There is a point, in fact a real expository need, to place deep-green theory in the larger setting of deep theory. For deep theory influences several of the choices made in deciding upon the way deep-green theory goes, the shape it takes. Although the influence will become evident, particularly with the intertwining of truth and value t&at it is worth giving an example. Too much of the Anglo-American discussion of intrinsic value and of obligations to future generations is taken up with - hung up upon - ontological questions, about universal items in the first case, and as how there can be obligations regarding future items which do not (yet) e exist in "suitable" determinate form in the second. Deep object-theory slices straight through these issues, removing the problem-generating ontological assumptions. is a grander theory lying in the background, which significantly influences the philosophical approach taken in deep-green theory, as well as being influenced by it. There is no reason why that grand backdrop should remain hidden; there is no hidden agenda. The background theory, of which deep-green theory is a part, is called simply For it represents the confluence of several deep positions with deep-green theory: deep pluralism, depth relevant theory, deep item-theory, and so on. As a theoretical endeavor, deep theory aims to pull together, into a unified coherent theory these various deep positions. It thus draws together and integrates as well, several other interrelated efforts (on dialethism, process theory, anakyrie, etc.) With deep theory I aim to supply eventually a fairly comprehensive philosophical package. I used to imagine that with moderate comprehensiveness as regards present philosophical problems would come a certain completeness; but I've come to thinkjhat a total philosophy is an illusion, like at it Deep theory is no doubt a presumptuous title (there are worse about, e.g. Total philosophy", 'ecosophy'^, ^o( it is altogether satisfactory, given the problems and obscurities, .to be encountered, lacking in the notion of depth. My main excuse is that I did not exactly good to refuse. It emerged from a terminological confluence of several e&eas in which I'd thought, or environmental philosophy^with a revised deep ecology), deep relevant theory, deep pluralism (which deepened radical pluralism), and deep item-theory (which deepens object-theory). To give a picture of deep theory, it suffices for present purposes to indicate some main features of deep positions, some of their integrating interrelations, and some of their revolutionary potential. Deep theory overturns or subverts very much of what has been assumed or presupposed in Western philosophy, and particularly in Enlightenmented contemporary philosophy. For example, it overturns the following widespread assumptions:* the Ontological Assumption, that truth, and also/ meaning, are functions of reference, and thereby presuppose existence. On the contrary according to (deep) item theory, we can perfectlv well talk and think trulv aboutS items that do not exist, and' also about items that are impossible. ^Therewith repudiated also then is an occasionally favoured full-back from enttcalism, namely possibilism, which assumes * the Possibilist Reduction, of everything that counts in discourse to possible individuals# there are no other genuine subjects, all else can be analysed (or thrown) away. Bound up with possibilism are * the assumptions of modalism, of the correctness of classical logic, and of the absolute Under more throughgoing transconsistency (or paraconsistency) these connected assumptions are one and all repudiated. The transconsistent connection assumes an important role in the straightforward treatment of moral and other dilemmas, in showing for example how an agent may coherently operate requirement of consistency. under inconsistent obligations or with incompatible needs. Important special cases of modalism are such theories as that * entailment is strict implication (or its metalinguistic analogical) and that conditionality amounts to a modal function of material implication^. The rejection of such themes and their jeourses is part of what motivates deep relevant logic. While the parts of deep theory are integrated and are intended to be materially reinforcing, nothing prevents their fairly independent elaborations. The holism conceded does not exclude separation or analysis. In particular, deep-green theory is amenable to ependent development and analysis. //yyy- 1 Material implication is the implication defined in terms of truth-functions thus: A materially implies B iff not last A and not B, or equivalently, iff either not A or B. Strict implication is the necessitation of material obligatory i.e. A strictly implies B iff necessarily A materially implies B, or equivalently, iff it is not possible that not A and not B. ,. A, / re/  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 993: Revision of Green anarkism, notes, possibilities Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten and typescript drafts, with handwritten emendations, and handwritten notes. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [14] leaves. 28.28 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:a82519e">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:a82519e</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lake George - Floor - Pile 7 Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/47290a949d35cf80426b62ad11ea2f02.pdf 4bf0c098455f06e841302b4c0e11fc65 PDF Text Text ABSTRACT OF PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal and certainly commonly anti-environmental is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar “Reshaping Australian Institutions” project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change. A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side, increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower impact organisation, which halts Anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of an encephaletic organisation. Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in present best-practice democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these problems are sketched and defended. R. Sylvan RMB 683 Bungendore Australia 2621 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ABSTRACT OF PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal and certainly commonly anti-environmental is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar “Reshaping Australian Institutions” project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change. A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side, increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower impact organisation, which halts Anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of an encephaletic organisation. Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in present best-practice democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these problems are sketched and defended. R. Sylvan RMB 683 Bungendore Australia 2621  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 984: Abstract of Problems and solutions in deep ecopolitical theory Subject The topic of the resource Typescript Description An account of the resource Note, one item digitised from item 984. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 984 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [1] leaf. 539.65 KB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:1281ef1">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:1281ef1</a> Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/d238dd79bb3f1ee48d89a9ee1eaafa0d.pdf e2faa9a5b7a1df99c3768418e2d7768c PDF Text Text ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 984: Miscellaneous notes on anark Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten notes on scrap paper. Description An account of the resource Verso of leaves not digitised. Note, one item digitised from item 984. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 984 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [4] leaves. 1.84 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:5c3aeec">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:5c3aeec</a> Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/11628f2bcbc3662efac3cdfbd36f91f2.pdf 14d16e4188eb5909aab1b95fe48f8953 PDF Text Text ,x» REMARKS ON ‘COMMUNITARIAN ANARCHISM AND HUMAN NATURE’. This article makes a worthwhile historial contribution concerning communitarian anarchism, in helping to remove a familiar criticism. It needs considerable redrafting, in my opinion, before it is published. Necessary redrafting concerns both structure and several points of detail. In what follows some points are sketched and some suggestions made, in no particular order of importance. (It should not be simply assumed that what I have not commented upon, e.g. historical interpretation, I generally find more or less satisfactory.) • The naivety thesis is not satisfactorily specified. (It is said to be an inference, and then what is offered is a poorly structured argument, not strictly a thesis). In fact, most of the argument and discursion concerns thesis (i), better restated (cf. pl7) as the following target thesis (ti) Anarchists believe that egoism is a product of (contemporary) social organisation, not an inherent part of human nature. The main work is devo ted to trying to rebut such a thesis, at least as regards three classical anarchists. (The success of this main work is partially assessed below.) Part of the trouble with the “naivety thesis” arises because of apparent errors concerning the interrelations of propositions (i) and (ii) on the one side and propositions (iii) and (iv) on the other (as also as to (v) and its consequent). Showing (i) and (ii) are false does not show (iii) and (iv) and the back of (v) are all false (contrary to p.3 middle, and to p.20 end also). For the most part, as here, a believes that p is independent of p. (Note too that (iii) and (iv) look rather more plausible than what (ii) and (ti) cover.) As it happens, I suspect our author intended to cover all propositions, not just (iii) and (ti), by ‘anarchists believe that’. However such covering will not effect a repair. In sum, the naivety thesis should be better characterised, the associated argument should be clarified and rectified, and the interrelation of theses should be worked out properly. This affects the total structure of the article. • It may seem to be a minor matter that feature f is innate says something different from feature fis an inherent part of human nature, for features such as egoism, sociability, etc.. (E.g. the feature may be bom in, but fade out or be educated out, or it may not be “innate” but invariably develop.) However this comes to assume a larger role because of the emphasis put upon nativism (from p.4 on), nativism getting linked to innateness, when it is inherentness that matters. There is also an historical problem, that nativism is characterised in late 20th century terms, not in terms that automatically apply in a 19th century setting. A less metaphorical explication is required, which connects nativism with apparatus of the target thesis. • As regards elaborating and establishing the main thesis of the article, namely (ci) communitarian anarchism, as manifested in three major espositors, is not dependent upon a �2 naive account of human nature (that of (ti)), much in the article is strictly irrelevant. The article could be substantially cut in length and sharpened. Much space is devoted to trying to show that (li) ‘only in their later writings’ do ‘Proudhon and Bakunin adopt a clearly defined nativism’— ‘subsequent to their repudiation of Hegelian metaphysics’. This involves considerable perusal of their early writings, material that does not assist in supporting (ci). If historical exegesis directed towards (li) is to take up such a large part of the article, then the early part (e.g. p.l) should be reoriented to indicate what much of it is really about. Otherwise much of pp.5-9, for instance, can be chopped. Without such restructuring, but a. fraction of what appears on pp.5-19 is needed (a few critical points). A much sharper less circuitous defence of (ci) could be provided. And even with radical restructuring much diffuse material on “the intellectual voyages” of the expositors could be profitably deleted. • There is a serious difficulty as regards Proudhon; so much so that there is real doubt that he can be regarded as furnishing positive support for (ci). The problem is that, by the time Proudhon abandons ‘too ideal a conception of man’, he appears also prepared to abandon (or at least indirectly erode) communiitarian anarchism: for instance ‘it is unlikely... that all trace of government and authority will disappear—’ (both quotes from p.l 1). • The historical argument developed is not entirely decisive in shoring up communitarian anarchism (contrary to the impression given). For a critic could contend that the historical figures were either deluded about their continuing commitment to communitarian anarchism or else mistaken about the coherence and viability of their theory in this regard. In short, the historical examples are not genuine counter-examples to the naivety of such anarchism. Something should be added to offset this sort of objection. Richard Sylvan � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ,x» REMARKS ON ‘COMMUNITARIAN ANARCHISM AND HUMAN NATURE’. This article makes a worthwhile historial contribution concerning communitarian anarchism, in helping to remove a familiar criticism. It needs considerable redrafting, in my opinion, before it is published. Necessary redrafting concerns both structure and several points of detail. In what follows some points are sketched and some suggestions made, in no particular order of importance. (It should not be simply assumed that what I have not commented upon, e.g. historical interpretation, I generally find more or less satisfactory.) • The naivety thesis is not satisfactorily specified. (It is said to be an inference, and then what is offered is a poorly structured argument, not strictly a thesis). In fact, most of the argument and discursion concerns thesis (i), better restated (cf. pl7) as the following target thesis (ti) Anarchists believe that egoism is a product of (contemporary) social organisation, not an inherent part of human nature. The main work is devo ted to trying to rebut such a thesis, at least as regards three classical anarchists. (The success of this main work is partially assessed below.) Part of the trouble with the “naivety thesis” arises because of apparent errors concerning the interrelations of propositions (i) and (ii) on the one side and propositions (iii) and (iv) on the other (as also as to (v) and its consequent). Showing (i) and (ii) are false does not show (iii) and (iv) and the back of (v) are all false (contrary to p.3 middle, and to p.20 end also). For the most part, as here, a believes that p is independent of p. (Note too that (iii) and (iv) look rather more plausible than what (ii) and (ti) cover.) As it happens, I suspect our author intended to cover all propositions, not just (iii) and (ti), by ‘anarchists believe that’. However such covering will not effect a repair. In sum, the naivety thesis should be better characterised, the associated argument should be clarified and rectified, and the interrelation of theses should be worked out properly. This affects the total structure of the article. • It may seem to be a minor matter that feature f is innate says something different from feature fis an inherent part of human nature, for features such as egoism, sociability, etc.. (E.g. the feature may be bom in, but fade out or be educated out, or it may not be “innate” but invariably develop.) However this comes to assume a larger role because of the emphasis put upon nativism (from p.4 on), nativism getting linked to innateness, when it is inherentness that matters. There is also an historical problem, that nativism is characterised in late 20th century terms, not in terms that automatically apply in a 19th century setting. A less metaphorical explication is required, which connects nativism with apparatus of the target thesis. • As regards elaborating and establishing the main thesis of the article, namely (ci) communitarian anarchism, as manifested in three major espositors, is not dependent upon a 2 naive account of human nature (that of (ti)), much in the article is strictly irrelevant. The article could be substantially cut in length and sharpened. Much space is devoted to trying to show that (li) ‘only in their later writings’ do ‘Proudhon and Bakunin adopt a clearly defined nativism’— ‘subsequent to their repudiation of Hegelian metaphysics’. This involves considerable perusal of their early writings, material that does not assist in supporting (ci). If historical exegesis directed towards (li) is to take up such a large part of the article, then the early part (e.g. p.l) should be reoriented to indicate what much of it is really about. Otherwise much of pp.5-9, for instance, can be chopped. Without such restructuring, but a. fraction of what appears on pp.5-19 is needed (a few critical points). A much sharper less circuitous defence of (ci) could be provided. And even with radical restructuring much diffuse material on “the intellectual voyages” of the expositors could be profitably deleted. • There is a serious difficulty as regards Proudhon; so much so that there is real doubt that he can be regarded as furnishing positive support for (ci). The problem is that, by the time Proudhon abandons ‘too ideal a conception of man’, he appears also prepared to abandon (or at least indirectly erode) communiitarian anarchism: for instance ‘it is unlikely... that all trace of government and authority will disappear—’ (both quotes from p.l 1). • The historical argument developed is not entirely decisive in shoring up communitarian anarchism (contrary to the impression given). For a critic could contend that the historical figures were either deluded about their continuing commitment to communitarian anarchism or else mistaken about the coherence and viability of their theory in this regard. In short, the historical examples are not genuine counter-examples to the naivety of such anarchism. Something should be added to offset this sort of objection. Richard Sylvan  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 984: Remarks on 'Communitarian anarchism and human nature' Subject The topic of the resource Typescript. Description An account of the resource Note, one item digitised from item 984. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 984 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [2] leaves. 1.53 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:fa8761a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:fa8761a</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lake George - Floor - Pile 7 Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/b1f4840cd64571bcf1bf92d1568e0c8d.pdf 1b39fb24b6986433a2d2ec7d4699c241 PDF Text Text ·*' . ~":'" mw 10.4.95 PROBLEMS IN DEEPER GREEN POLITICAL ORGANIZATION THEORY: an Australi an perspective on radical institutio nal change . .. . people are ready for change and the impending debate will result m constitutional change. We should, therefore, explore all options .... 1 As elsewhere, there is growing dissatisfaction with Australia's political institutions, and increasing demand to change them. This demand, hiding co-optative elements, has been initiated and fostered in a conspicuously top-down fashion, by politicians and by academics. There is so far little surge of political enterprise at grass-roots levels, little pressure for the usually very limited changes proposed. Nonetheless, along with apathy, there is widespread popular disenchant ment with present political arrangements. There is now an opportunity (although still only a small window therefore no doubt) to put green and radical themes on the agenda for real political change in Australia. That opportunity should not be missed, within Australia, or elsewhere. While the exposition that follows concentrates upon Australia, as a convenient advanced example, much of what is argued and urged applies or adapts elsewhere. Disenchan tment with politics, and political proposals for change. There is now evident in Australia, what is variously described as disillusionment and anxiety, cynicism and pessimism about the state of politics-a loss of confidence in it, and a retreat from commitment. As much and more, Mackay has nicely exposed in a survey of the Australian situation: . anxiety about the nature and quality of Australian politics [has] increased. . .. Widesprea d anxiety about the state of politics is based [in part] on an uneasy feeling that, if the parties are not going to stand for some identifiable philosophy, and the leaders are going to be chosen on the basis of their potential as television performers or even as head-kickers, then the only appropriate response is cynicism. That cynicism is reflected in a turning away from support for the major parties ... and revealed in the attitudes of young Australians ... 2 who often cannot be bothered registering to vote, or voting. (though voting is legally compulsory). Lack of confidence is beginning to show not only as cynicism about politicians, but also as doubt about the integrity of Australia's political institutions .3 1. Hon . Ian Macphee, ' A new constitution? '. Of course Macphee did not really mean all options, nor even all constitutiona l options. Furthermore, his claim about preparedness of people for change is incompatible with Mackey's data (mentioned below) on exhaustion with change. 2 Mackay pp.174-177. For all the Australian casualness of Mackay's presentation, his sociological findings are nonetheless fairly solidly survey and interview based (if occasionally stretching the data). Plain findings are replicated by other socialogists. 3 Ibid. p.178 �2 In a recent survey, '62 percent of [Australians] expressed either little or no confidence in the political system. Such a figure accurately reflects the mood of the Australian community' .4 Australian loss of faith in conventional politics is attributed to a mix of factors. A first explanator y factor as regards this disenchantment comes from the changes in politics already remarked (ranging from policy issues to media performers) and from resultant uncertainty. ' ... the Australian electorate is confused about which party stands for what, and about whether any party has a long-term commitment to any particular point of view' .5 A complex 'second factor ... concerns the adversaria l nature of two-party politics' .6 How can this 'two party, adversarial approach ... continue to be appropriate when the distinctions between the two parties themselves are so hard to define'? But 'reµefinition of party politics implies the possibility of a redefinition of the whole parliamentary process itself . Why 'when parties seem quite capable of stealing each other's policies or of invading each other's traditional philosophical territory, [can not] politicians work together in a more cooperative and harmonious spirit' ?7 'Adversarial politics may have made sense ... when .. . distinction s between the parties were stark and when arguments about principle could be justified; today, the idea that politicians would be arguing over a point of principle or philosophy is almost unthinkable .... [They] are much more likely to be arguing over matters of personality, prejudice and power than over issues which effect the long-term health of the body politic' .8 'The quality of parliamentary debate is regarded not only as a symptom of the adversarial nature of the institution, but also as a symptom either of the poor quality of politicians ... , or of the effect of the system on those who are enmeshed in it' .9 Unless there is marked improvement in party philosophies, programs and performance, 'the call to re-examine the nature of the parliamentary process will gather momentum ' .10 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. pp.178-179. 6 Ibid. The adversarial character of dominant State legal systems is also becoming subject to more and more criticism. It appears likely that significant movement towards different inquiratorial systems will occur, not least because of the huge expense and growing unaffordabili ty of adversarial systems. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. p. 180. 9 Ibid. p.179. It is a symptom of both, the latter especially. lO Ibid . p. 181 . �3 A third relevant factor contributing to loss of faith is the impression of Australians that 'they are overgoverned ' 11 , with too many expensive bureaucracies and too many houses of parliament. Conflicts between State and Federal parliaments - and between the various State parliaments themselves - are regarded as a particularly unproductive expenditure of political energy, and Australians question whether 15 houses of parliament may be too many for the efficient government of 18 million people. The sheer number of parliaments is often blamed for the problem of too many bureaucracies and for many duplications of bureaucratic and political activity between State and Federal · governments. ... Whilst there is little love felt in the Australian community for Canberra and for the idea of more centralised government even that is beginning to appear preferable ... . The widespread support for the idea of a republic which emerged during 1992 is closely related to the underlying sense that Australia is overdue for _some kind of reexamination of its political institutions, and even the notion of Federation itself. ... As debate about the idea of a republic proceeds ... it has begun to incorporate the idea that Australian's political structures and systems might be quite significantly reformed. 12 Such diseffection reflects too a growing awareness that Australia's political arrangements owe more to historical accident than to rational design. Even though the main proposals for change no doubt remain reformist in character and could lead in unfortunate directions, some of them are far-reaching by normal standards. Both the extensive disenchantme nt with present political arrangements and the felt need for significant change further suggest political times are not altogether normal. Elements underpinning a political paradigm shift are already present, as are features supporting rational redesign, to which radical additions are now feasible. So far there have been, along with normal inertial resistance to change, two main responses to growing pressure for change: political, from politicians, ex-politicians and political commentator s , and academic from intellectuals, academic entrepreneurs and academic journalists. By and large, political responses have been grander, more sweeping and vaguer; academic responses more theoretical and cautious, piecemeal and detailed. But there are no grand detailed plans. Under the leading proposal so far for political change, Australia's constitutiona l monarchy will be displaced by a constitutional republic with its own head of state displacing the monarch, but with perhaps minimal adjustments otherwise. Nonetheless , as a result , republicanism is in the air. Politicians have begun to contemplate other practical reforms, while 11 Ibid. p. 181 , itals added. 12 Ibid. p.181 -2. Republican proposals have been circulating for some time . But the cause was finally taken up by prominent politicians, who made it their own, after which it became a popular issue. Mackay's accurate presentation of popular support for political change contrasts drolly with the first part of his book which depicts an Australian populace exhausted by change and longing for the old ease and somnolence. �4 academics have begun to embroider theories around republicanism and institutional reform. What happens to the Australian federation of states is one of the many unresolved issues presently being debated. The main reason for reform offered by the political camp can be summed up simply as changing geopolitica l circumstances. The camp tends not to acknowledge what would reflect adversely upon it, the poorness of federal political practice. Rather it tends to attribute popular dissatisfaction to economic circumstances and uncertainties: declining real standards of living, extensive unemploym ent, persistent recession until recently, problems to be surmounted by full-steam ahead untrammelled economic growth, to be attained by recoupling Australia to the Asian economic express. Meanwhile an orchestrated republican movement can help divert popular political attention from poor political management and a gloomy economic predicament. Much has changed in the century since present antiquated political arrangements were hammered out, arrangeme nts making the newly-fashioned .Commonw ealth of Australia, politically a federation of states, into a constitutional monarchy coupled to Britain, arrangements of convenience fashioned for very different circumstances. Most non-symbolic linkages with Britain, which has been inching towards a place in a united Europe, have already been severed. Australia has gradually begun to appreciate its geo-political position in the Indian-Pacific region (and the money-ma king opportunities for a sagging resource-based economy in allegedly booming parts of Asia). Whence the main idealistic proposal: for an independent republic, decoupled from Europe, assuming its own (prominent) place in its geo-political regions. In principle at least, place and region begin to assume, or resume, some of their neglected, but historic, significance (however that is not how it is yet seen). Most proposals for constitutional and federal reform fit within that limited idealistic conception. One important proposal, advanced by established political players, their most radical proposal so far, includes abolition of the present states. Such a proposal would clearly represent a welcome step in anarchist directi<;ms, were it not regularly offset by the idea of a strengthened central state.13 Supposing this latter unfortunate idea is bracketed for the moment, then what is being seriously considered already starts to look like a much more rational regionalism than what presently prevails. The present states of Australia are undoubtedly an anachronis m, based on accidental boundaries of a contingent colonial history. They are ecologically irrational management units, utterly failing to reflect ecological regions. Yet the states possess extensive environmental and other manageme nt powers, inappropriate 'powers which derive from what was largely a political bargaining process conducted a century ago.' Another effect of inapposite state-federal 13 Anarchists can even rest (if uneasily) with a con stitution , so long as it provides for an organisation, Australia Inc . even, sufficiently different from a state and its authoritarian trappings. �5 arrangements, especially 'funding arrangements, has been to lock out local government and, more importantly, local communities . ... local communities must be given greater control over those decisions of government which effect their lives ... '; the opportunity 'to design and provide the services which are needed locally.' 14 At this stage of the dialectic McPhee slides easily and naturally from localism to regionalism. A glance at the map reveals natural regions for local government on a viable scale [an optimistic contention]. Some cross State boundaries, and I would envisage that State governments would be replaced with regional governments. These would be more akin to larger local governments and would certainly not have the trappings of the States. They should not have parliaments and the expensive, unwieldy and inefficient bureaucracies which characterise our States. They should have a small number of full-time councillors. .. Regional governments should be solely accountable to their ratepayers ... 15 . So far so good: however McPhee thereupon begins to infiltrate stock (small /) ·liberal management assumptions. Nonetheless the basic idea to retain is simple: that of ecologicallyrational local and regional rearrangemen t of anachronistic state partitions. But that regionalizatio n should be greened, as reform should be radicalized. More generally, opportunites now present themselves to inset more radical ideas throughout the debate about Australia's future directions. For much has been left off political agendas for change, not merely environments and habitats of their less prominent or noisy inhabitants, but also such issues as rights and liberties, transformation of antiquated legal and executive frameworks, and so on. Omission of (human) rights is especially remarkable in states such as Australia, whose constitutions astonishingly do not mention at all (what is however often supposed to justify states) individual rights, such rights only being ensured, so far as they are, assumptions from uncodified common law, by indirect routes (statutes regarding treatment of minorities and the like). Nor do the political camps pushing limited change speak of rights or liberties; a very limited conception of adjustments required prevails (though without rights and liberties and a generous public sphere there is little, and little prospect of,justificatio n for a state at all). Accordingly political agendas for change need to be conspicuously broadened, to accommodate a decidedly more ambitious range of constitutional and institutional redesign. 2. A project within a project: radically reshaping Australian institutions. 14 All quotes in this paragraph are drawn from McPhee. An address along similar lines to the Hon. Ian McPhee, also proposing abolition of the states, was delivered by the former Prime Minister R.G. Hawke. Hawke's speech, by contrast with McPhee's, attracted much media attention, and though facilely dismissed as "unrealistic" by some practicing politicians , appeared to gain a good deal of support. I5 McPhee ibid. �6 Academic entrepreneurs have also responded quickly to proposals for constitutional and institutional changes. Early to scramble on the bandwagon was the institution to which I am affiliated, the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, with its ambitious decade-lon g project, Reshaping Australian Institutions: Towards and Beyond 2001. 16 One. small part of this project does connect with the republican push, which no doubt helped inspire it and gain its funding. The academic version of republicanism furnishes an institutional and historic setting, tracing its roots back to ancient Rome, and thereby linking in, what admits much modem adaptation, notions of citizenship and civic virtues. But most of the project is independent of any republican reorganisation. The Reshaping Australian Institutions project is presented in predominantly reformist fashion, unsurprisingly. It is supposed, for instance, to 'provide major input into evaluation and refonn of Australia's institutions'; indeed it is explicitly 'aimed at contributing to Australian constitutio nal reform'. 17 Nothing however precludes considerat ion of reshaping or transforming Australian institutions - those of the whole ecological region - in a unreformist and possibly unconstitutional way, in a radical way. Admittedly, the rough boundary between reformist and radical routes becomes even more blurred when the constitution of a country is open for possible major reconsideration and much political infrastructure may be altered. Nonetheless, from the perspective of a strong central state, the stock. boundary stands intact. For reformist changes would amount to comparative small adjustments leaving it substantially intact. For example, a minimal transformation, of the sort presently much favoured, from constitutional monarchy to Australian republic, though entailing non-negligible constitutional redrafting, need only amend the roles of a few elite power- and position-holders. By contrast, radical changes would substantially alter that strong central state, perhaps (as will be proposed) eliminating it altogether. There are appealing reasons for attempting wider, more radical investigations. For, firstly, there may be more satisfactory institutional structures not accessible, or even visible, along normal constitutional reform routes. Secondly, there is a demand, a small but growing 16 A recent brief description of this two million dollar project, now outlined in several places, is given in Tynan, pp.17-19. Fuller descriptions are available from a main coordinator of the project, J. Braithwaite, Law, RSSS, ANU. One of the many strands (17 at last count) of this project is an environmental (or green) strand. The immediate predecessor of this article was presented in a workshop at RSSS on green political theory , arranged under the project. That accounts for some of the otherwise puzzling structure of what has eventuated. Another earlier version was tried out at Ecopolitics VIII, Pacific Visions, held at Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 1994. 17 ' Reshaping Australian institutions : towards and beyond 200 l' in Tynan , p.17, italics added. �7 demand from green directions for instance, for radical institutional change. It would be prudent, then, to make some investigation of the options, to assess their prospects. Thirdly, reflection on such structures would certainly be part of a more comprehensive study of and theory of institutional design, which the Reshaping project also presents as an objective. Fourthly, much more controversially, major environmental problems cannot be satisfactorily solved along merely reformist paths. For states, what are reformed, states themselves are ecologically dysfunctional. In practice this appears obvious enough. Simply reflect upon their environmental records; these are even worse than those abysmal records compiled for human rights. But the practical case can be argued in detail in a state by state way, or less laboriously, through the familiar rough classification of states into first, second and third world states. In main third world regions, the rise of the state has seen the serious decline of environments. Those third world states that have not largely destroyed their natural environments are in rapid process of doing so. The activities involved are, furthermore, not merely tolerated by these states but are usually actively encouraged (e.g. with state participation or by state concessions, as through taxation advantages, subsidies, expert incentives, etc.). Further, the role of exploitation and plunder of remaining natural "resources'', and depletion of "biological capital", by third world states, most of which are now trapped in debt and structural adjustment, has increased many-fold in the last two decades. How destructively second world states of eastern Europe treated their own (and also other regions') environment, how they over-expoited and polluted them, has recently been much publicized. While the recent record in first world states is no doubt marginally better, many of these states dominated their natural environments and their wild inhabitants in the past and have heavily polluted and exported their urban and industrial regions. Nor does their present record gain an environmental pass. For example, those that have any natural forests (similarly fisheries) left are in the process of eliminating or degrading most what remains; most are failing seriously in meeting (their own) targets on greenhouse emissions, and so on. More theoretically, it is unlikely that states, increasingly focussed narrowly upon shallow economic agendas, will or can deliver satisfactorily environmentally. A prime reason is this: states are ineluctably committed, more and more as their populations expand, to high levels of economic activity characteristically to economic growth of sorts which impact heavily environmentally, inducing inevitable degradation.18 Accordingly, there are then, or should be, two bands to any green (or environmental) strand of a restructuring Australian institutions project: not merely an important reformist side, 18 This theme, that states are normally ecologically dysfunctional, is documented and argued in detail elsewhere; see e.g. Carter and especially . Sylvan 96 . On the dismal environmental records of particular states see Punting. For shocking figures and illustrations as regards environmental exploitation of third world states, see Bolla, pp57-65 . �8 but as well a radical spread. It is part of this underfunded and undersupported radical spread which forms the main object of investigation in what follows, that part that relinquishes present state structures, in favour of more environmentally benign institutions - which no doubt can be designed, even if not so readily brought to practical use. 19 In order to reach radical redesign ideas quickly, let us touch only lightly upon some of the more distinctively green reasons for this anarchoid quest (familiar anarchist reasons stand: the illegitimacy of present states, the undesirability and severe disutility of states, which typically are highly destructive and corrosive institutions based on concetration of power, hierarchical authority, massive coercion, manipulation by economic elites, technobureaucracy, utilitarian rationality, and sundry other evils. 20) As 1ndicated, present states are incompatible with stock ecologically sustainable practices, because of their heavy unrelenting commitments to shallow economic growth. More generally, standard states and their practices comprise very significant parts of environmental problems, but quite insufficient parts of any solutions. Moreover, states constitute an enormous and destructive drain on regional environments, a feature particularly evident in smaller states which are always looking out for revenue-raising expedients for their . . own expensive runnmg. Apart from those greens who have recognised the excessive environmental costs of states and their heavy demands on environments, and thus or otherwise have come to recognise the desirability of their withering away, there are many more who have become ambivalent about states, who appreciate their very problematic character and very questionable legitimacy, but do not see yet how to get along altogether without them, or more exactly (to point towards a partial resolution) without certain functions that they serve. To point immediately towards a resolution of this crucial problem, the functional dissolution idea advocated is this: that the functioning parts may be separately utilized without the colossal whole. The state is not an organism the functioning parts of which must fail without the whole. So it may well be the enormous fat of state can simply be shed, to great advantage. In any event, 'the State is a social institution', always 'within', Marxists continue, 'a ,concrete historic setting' .21 Granted, it is an institution. For an institution in the relevant sense is 'a society or association for the [organisation or] promotion of some particular object [or 19 To adapt a referee's trenchant summary . For detail on some familiar anarchist reasons , see Bumheim and above all Marshall. 20 Nonetheless practical revolutionary displacement of the state is not so remote as is generally supposed. 21 Thus, Green p.61, who adds quite wrongly that Proudhon and his disciples do not see it that way 'but as an abstraction and aberration'. �9 function]'. 22 Institutions include therefore the state, the central state. So it too is up for reshaping, radical slimming, and possible removal in a concrete historical setting, such as late twentieth century Australia. Whittling away the state means in tum dismantling corporate capitalism, which now dwells in symbiosis with the bureaucratic state, and also much else, often environmentally undesirable, that the state affords a supportive framework for and enables to flourish. Ideas and schemes for radical redesign are already available from rich anarchist and socialist sources, those for g_reen design and reshaping from growing and diverse environmental sources. In main part, then, radical ecoredesign is a matter of convivially meeting (not joining) the two, an intersection that favours anarchist inputs. Something ofthe sort has already been attempted, in an environmentally shallower way, in eco-anarchism, alias social ecology, and in a deeper way, in deep-green social theory. 23 Moreover, it could be attempted in other kinds of deeper green theory-itself really a plurality of theories, which however does not itself force radical ecoredesign, though most variants would support it. Thus Naess's "deep ecology" for example, which is not so far politically radical, only strongly reformist, could (and should) be given a radical tum. 24 Concentrating upon the radical spread of deeper green theory does not preclude concomitant reformist investigation and activity. Both sides of the green street should be played. Reformist opportunities should of course be pursued-increme ntal change, social engineering, greening bureaucrats, lobbying politicians, and like activity (but better really to cut through much such pleading and obiesance and be rid of politicians and bureaucrats). There are many reformist proposals being advanced for the greening of Australian federal institutionswith but few so far having much impact on practice. 25 Nonetheless, more limited, more constrained, proposals of this sort certainly have a better chance of making a difference than radical redesigns, regularly smartly dismissed as "unrealistic" or "utopian".26 No doubt the 22 Oxford English Dictionary, adapted. An institution is an organitution. 23 On social ecology, see Bookchin 90, and for information on deep-green social theory , see Sylvan and Bennett 94 and Routleys 80. 24 As to the political character of deep ecology, and why it should be turned, see Sylvan and Bennett 94, where an expose of the political theory of Naess's ecosophy is presented. 25 There are many many narrower economic and technological proposals. One of the more interesting wider proposals comes from an Opposition not noted for its green initiatives and commitments, for an overseeing Department of Sustainable Development, a Department that could see to the greening of all federal institutions. 26 Too smartly, as we argue elsewhere (e.g. Sylvan and Bennett 90). �normal "reshaping institutions" investigations are rightly focussed upon institutional reform, not upon revolutionary reshaping, where much freer scope for redesign is offered. However the real possibility of radical change should not be excluded; green radicals should be prepared. There have been various opportunities for revolutionary change in Australian history, the last occurring, according to some historians, with the ignominious fall of the Whitlam government. There may well be opportunities again both in the near and intermediate future, especially should some solid work be put into propagating the prospect. In the near term there is economic disarray, social fragmentation, and constitutional destabilization; in the longer term increasing ecological problems and expanding eco-catastrophes loom. Under present incremental reform and regression, for all th_e spasmodic environmental rhetoric, comparatively little in the way of radical green change occurs or can be expected. Witness, for comparison, the snail pace of the establishment movement towards a rather minimal grey republicanism in Australia, or differently away from meeting carbon-reduction commitments. It is increasingly doubtful, given prevailing responses to economic and other difficulties, that present structural and systematic problems confronting Australia, for example, will be satisfactorily addressed, environmental problems such as extensive and expanding land and water degradation not least. Furthermore, under more incremental reform, the sorts of problems concerning reorganising society in deeper green ways, problems that provide subsequent topics, would likely noi arise. So in getting beyond more muddling along, do imagine fairly free scope for institutional eco-redesign is somehow dispensed. One nice corollary is that once it is worked out where to go organisationally, it is much easier to ascertain how to arrive there. 3. A basic problem of structure: central or decentralised organisation. There are large and immediate advantages in pursuing a problem-oriented approach to redesign. That approach, which will tend towards anarchoid outcomes, will be anarchistically guided in this respect: Unless there is a genuine problem, already causing difficulties or developing, nothing need be done; otherewise let things alone, let Being be. 27 On this non.:. managerial low-work approach a good deal of structure presently inoperational, and of idle regulation presently enacted, can be removed; organisational arrangements can be very significantly down-sized. The leading methodological idea is that enough relevant (biodegradable) structure is introduced to resolve organisational problems, but not substantially 27 The non -prejudical term 'anarchoid' is deployed, not because what emerges will not be anarchistic (as characterized in Marshall and in Sylvan 94), but because it departs from standard forms of anarchism in significant respects, not least in planned political organization. In this exercise organization is of the essence .. �11 more. Organisationa l oversupply and waste is thus avoided. Moreover, much structure that keeps so much environmenta lly destructive industry in business is likewise shed. Among basic problems for deeper green theory are those of political reorganisation and so of organisatior,,. Evidently institutions, and their types, are critical to such organisation. And a major organisational problem for any putative green society concerns structure: to take a critical case, whether society is centrally organised (concentrated, bureaucratised , hierarchical, largescale and so on) or decentralised (dispersed, non-hierarchic al, small-scale and supposedly beautiful, and so on). This focal problem, to centralise or not to centralise, is sometimes presented as a serious dilemma for concerned green theorists. 28 The binary horns of this dilemma are respectively: on the one horn, the pull ( or push) to localisation and regionalisatio n, to non-anonymo us smallscale low-impactin g environmenta lly-friendly arrangements , to diffusion of power and dismantling of the incubus of a central state with its crippling costs and unfriendly practices; and on the other horn, the need for continuing and further central income generation and welfare (re)distribution, central regulation and control, and the pressures to environmenta l reliance upon and use of the central state. 29 The dilemma has been trenchantly posed as follows: ... the demands of the Greens sometimes appear contradictory, in seeking increasing environmenta l regulation and welfare measures ... alongside a halt to industrial expansion, the very source of income for the welfare state. Yet the expansion and further centralization of the bureaucratic state apparatus is neither their overt goal nor covert motivation. Quite the contrary. Their genuine long term vision is of a decentralized , steady state society of self-sufficient, relationally autonomous (albeit interlinked) regions. 30 As it happens, not only does the theoretical and utopian literature run both ways, towards and away from centralisation , but so does practice and experience. As to theory, anarchistically -inclined presentations tend to favour decentralisation, perhaps with some central compensation through federation (thus recent Blueprints, ecotopias, and so on), whereas socialistically -inclined presentations invariably opt for powerful central states (to control and redistribute grander social programs, etc.). As to practice, there are local councils, community organisations, residents' groups aiming to keep out, or to remove, the state-sponsore d nuclear plants, toxic waste incinerators, waste dumps or super-highway s, on the one horn; and, on the 28 As by Michael Jacobs of The Green Economy, who has posed the problem sharply, as part of an argument however for retaining the central state (and much of present status quo arrangements). 29 Environmental reasons for favouring small-scale bioregional organisation are nicely gathered in McLaughlin, chapter I 0. 30 Fox, Ecopolitics III. �12 other, central states blocking, modifying, or regulating local or regionally promoted schemes for large dams (e.g. Tasmania's Franklin), forest exploitation, pulp mills, strip mining, and so on .31 To some extent, the way the problem has often been re-presented, in terms of a dilemma between top-down and bottom-up structure and power transmission, already points towards a theoretical resolution: namely, both, or rather enough of both. But how is this combination to be achieved? An answer does not fall out by pure reason, operating in isolation from other problems. By taking advantage of information gathered from other connected problems, a promising answer can be teased out. Neither standard socialism nor anarchism afford answers, socialism because it leaves the central institution of state intact. But standard anarchism, much more promising, does not resolve the problem either, because federation , as usually explained, does not leave enough structure; it may not even concede sufficient power to delegates to constrain exploitative local communities. A solution to such dilemma lies through a combinational strategy, which includes partial dissolution of the central state, into its actual organisational functions in each region. While removing the state, itself source of several environmenta l and social problems, and its concentration of power, invariably under environmenta lly unfriendly control, functional dissolution nonetheless retains its apparently essential services, including (where necessary) those of environmenta l regulation. Relevant continent-wid e functions would persist or be introduced: for example, services controlling inflow into Australia of damaging forms and materials such as toxic wastes and exotic pest species, or regulating outflow from Australia of native wildlife and flora. In part, ecoregional functionalism offers a radical continuation of the separation of powers of recent historical process, of church and state, legislature and executive, and so forth. As these functions come to operate separately while remaining coordinated, so would those functional arrangements and institutions dissolving the state. It is a major illusion of modem political theory that a central state, ceded monopolies on coercion, currency, taxation and so on, is necessary in order to secure adequate supply of public goods, including public order and environmenta l regulation. To the contrary, the most that appears required, the most that arguments would support, is some network of specific organisations functioning to look after specific kinds of goods and services, those necessary for this or that, that are not otherwise supplied. There is no inherent reason why communities should not institute and regulate specialised bodies coordinated among themselves (by negotiations or, failing that, through recognised arbitrators) to ensure the adequate maintenance or production of various types of public goods, including control of damaging crime. Each 3I Much turns on the exploitative character of certain local and regional communities, their get-richquick schemes, what they are prepared to do to survive in old or affluent ways, and so on . �13 such institution could gain community standing from its support base, for instance through achieving democraticall y-generated recognition. Such an institution would aim to secure execution of its recommendat ions and decisions by sanctions and like admissible means, and in doing this it could mobilize in co-operation with communities and with other recognised institutions . There are many examples of such institutions operating successfully both regionally and internationally; for instance, those for postal and communicational arrangements, international sporting bodies, international academies and clubs, environmenta l and consumer organizations.32 4. Selecting satisfactory political arrangemen ts within the span of anarchoid options. Anarchoid options come in a wide variety of forms, including, among others, both right leaning individualisti c or capitalistic varieties, and lef-leaning social or communitaria n varieties.33 A suitably generous political pluralism will allow for all these form, while not encouraging all, <:lS they are of very different merit. For example, some may be neglectful or repressive of some of their inhabitants, or destructive of their environments; others, superior in these coino-environmental regards, may not be. Dismantling or deconstructing a state does not, on its own, make a sharp selection between alternatives. No doubt the hope is, what can be striven for, that adequate design are sought and adequate selections inadmissible forms rapidly perish. Those forms that are admissible can be ranked, for instance according to defeasible criteria based upon "pillars" of German green movement such as environmenta l sensitivity, democratic institutions, and nonviolent practices. While right leaning anarchoid arrangements could in theory work (e.g. under what is improbable, benevolent capitalists), they are unlikey to succeed in practice, for several reasons. Consider to illustrate in outline, why that much promoted rightist form, market (or "liberal" 32 This passage borrows from the summary in Burnheim 86 p.221 of Burnheim 85. For much fuller elaboration see Burnheim 85 and Sylvan 94. The critical issue of funding administration, without a coercive location system, is also breached in these places (and developed in Sylvan 96). The broad proposal is that low-cost administration , much of which would be volunteer, could be funded by rents (there would be no property in land and resources), use charges, and fines . 33 There are many more varieties of political systems than much recent theory has cared to concede . For example, to take right-leaning dimensions, all of individualism , market-organiza tion and capitalism function substantially independently. There can be markets without capitalism (characterised through opportunities to accumulate capital), and conversely, capitalism with free mar1cet arrangements. And so on . Most historic and modern systems, upon which political theory has tended inadmissilby to concentrate almost exclusively, are hybrid arrangements with mixes of different elements drawn from both "left" and "right". �14 capitalism is unlikely to serve. For one reasons an intrusive state is likely to emerge, with standing state controlled and funded military and police forces to defend capitalist interests and accommod ation, to protect private property, to uphold social in equalities, and to enforce particular market and trade structures, with a substantial and heavy taxation system to fund these forces and a correspond ing bureaucracy needed to administer and regulate these and other institutions, such as those required to guarantee that capitalist liabilites are limited and to keep markets (far from self-regulating) free and competitive. Not only are anarchoid conditions thus violated, so are those for benign green socities. In normal practice, market capitalism tends to be highly environmental exploitative, as modem history demonstrates all too plainly (plainly too it is not alone in this propensity, so are other modern statist systems). Furthermor e, given the sorts of humans and practices (including extravagen t consumptio n for all that can afford it) these systems tend to elevate, exalt, encourage and some times even enforce, extensive exploitation is to be expected, and liable to persist-wi thout further state interventio n to distort "natural" capitalistic incentives and institutions, to limit practices on private property (thereby altering the institution 34 ), to establish new mitoument s and commoditi es such as pollution licences, green investment s and futures, and so forth. Even though a shallow greenness could be sprayed upon parts of market capitalism (factoiries in fields, forest reserves retained for tourists, etc.) and some green chowcase exhibits tacked on, environme ntal depth cannot. Shallownes s is both an inevitable consequenc e of the justifying socio-econ omic theory, and also an expected best outcome of practice. Accordingl y in institutional design it is much more promising to look in democratic leftleaning directions. It would be rash to gamble upon any bright new clause of environme ntally and socially benign market capitalism, which could in any event easily revert back to dark industrial ages. Similar arguments to those sketched could be developed as regards centralised socialism, especially as untempered by democratic procedures. While island communiti es of a wide range of varieties are naturally not excluded under anarchoida l pluralism, brighter continental prospects lie through modifications of democratic sociality, which appears to permit much of what is sought in design. Under duly decentralized social organization, each requisite function would be carried out by some association of agents comprising operative and support staff (that is, as regards bare formal structure, more or less as now, in institutions like department s and corporation s). For direct accountability downwards , and also to ensure desirable separation and dilution of power, upper operatives, those of a directing or steering committee (the nervous system of the organisation), would be democratic ally selected (from a relevant lower level constituenc y, and 34 Infiltrated too is much mythology, including acclaimed environmenta l virtues of private property and privatization generally . �15 from the whole people of an ecoregion in case of a typical bottom level institution). Note well that selection is not election: election is but one method of democratic selection, and often enough not an altogether satisfactory method. The point of some sort of democratic selection, as a guiding though not invariant rule, is manifold: it is in part to ensure due accountability, in part to prevent unethical accumulation of power in special classes, and in part for reasons that devolve from the very notion of democracy itself. In brief, certain forms of democracy offer promising prospects for green reorganisation, particularly within complementing left-leaning settings where those froms can function in favour of sustainability. However even with an informed democracy in place, there are few guarantees. Some structure, such as limited executive power separated from judicial and administrative functions, needs to be set in place to block or retard worse eventualities (such as mob actions, selection of tryants, mistreatment of noncitizens and so on). Even then several thorny problems remain for any deeper green political theory. 5. Problems of chauvinism and present-time bias in democratic political institutions. In modem usage of the motherhood term democracy, two main lines are visible: included are not only forms of political organisation where 'power [is presumed to] reside in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them ... or by officers [selected] by them\ but 'often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege' 35 . It is on the basis of this second line that the call for democracy has operated to remove chauvinism and discrimination of a range of forms: against unpropertied minorities, nonconformists, women, blacks, tribals, and so on. Even so pursuit of the line, where successful, has not generally conferred adequate representation and rights on several of these groups; but, more important, pursuit has stopped short in its inclusions at certain humans, such as those granted citizenship-though relevant interests of many other creatures and welfare of many of other items may be affected by what those citizens elect to do. While democratic voters can perhaps be entrusted to take some account of those near and dear (within remarkably sharp limits, as the situation of women in many regions still shows), such as those deemed incompetent to vote: the young, deranged, and so on, much evidence reveals that they cannot be relied for what is less near or dear (and indeed are easily herded into casting their votes in accord with a shallow mercantilism). Consider what get left out , outcasts of even perfect democratic control:- 35 Oxford English Dictionary entry 1, main entry. These two lines are by no means the only distinctive lines now visible: increasingly conspicuous in calls for "democracy", notably in Asia, are calls to freedom and rights: not merely for basic legal freedoms such as free assembly, fair process and so on, but for freedom to access information (the "right to know" ). �16 • spatially distant agents. For example, the interests of many humans outside USA are much affected by practices of the US government, which however is outside their democratic reach. • temporally distant agents. Since the past is past, it is future agents who would be affected, often drastically affected, by present practices, that matter. Some way of taking due account of future agents, their interests and welfare, is required, even under shallow long-term ecology, that is under lighter green positions. Sustainable development has been regularly diverted into--what is part of what it is about-such a way, an indirect and so far utterly ineffectual way.36 Much more of importance is also excluded according to deep-green theory: • creatures with interests, other than present human citizens, and • items with welfare, but perhaps lacking interests. The category includes items with intrinsic value, whose value can be effected, made to fare worse or better. A major problem, little addressed, is how to take due account of such democraticall y excludes. It is a problem especially for deeper green theories: that deep problem is, so to say, how to obtain satisfactory representation of all that is of value in the natural world? That way of putting it, while a little misleading, does point to a particular type of resolution. Problems special to deep ecopolitical theory, include, that is, issues as to adequacy of representation of items of value outside those humans that are represented, representation of their interests, where they have them, of their welfare otherwise, of favourable conditions for their sustenance, continuation and retention of value. Democracy of discussed modem sorts, whether representative or participative, will not serve these purposes at all satisfactorily. For instance, insofar as party-political representative democracies represent anything (even human "bottom lines" as is sometimes erroneously supposed), they appear to represent primarily interests of certain business-allied elites. Among the issues are of course those as to adequacy of retention and protection of nonhuman items of intrinsic value, tropical forests and their inhabitants and elements for instance. As observed, there is really no organisationa l alternative to proceeding with and through agents, preferably well-disposed and quality agents. It is hard to guarantee either politically. As agents are but a subclass of what requires democratic representation and what should have its welfare or interests considered, how are the rest to be taken care of satisfactorily? There are significant older responses to like problems, through totems and taboos, guardians and constraints. Looked at one way the problem repeats, more or less, a familiar problem: namely, how in larger constituencies do decision-mak ing agents represent the whole mass of agents and others in the constituency? A main democratic answer, designed to avoid many shortcomings 36 See Sylvan and Bennett 93. �17 of alternatives, was: by representative means-only "representation" was almost never taken seriously or literally enough. The sorts of considerations that made representation a promising resolution make what is to be proposed-wh ere representation has, in any case, to be expanded -also promising. A key principle is this: all relevant items are to be represented. Relevance criteria enter importantly. Steering committees of lower level institutions among the main decision-mak ing bodies should be appropriately representative of all items whose welfare is affected by their decisions (principle of deepened demanarchy). Under more equitable arrangements, then, some decision-engaged agents will have to be selected as representative of relevant classes of excludeds. Electoral arrangements do not so readily allow for such; sortition, well-designed selection by lot, does. 37 Of course, however good the selection processes, however disinterested and well-intentioned the agents selected, some bias may remain. Nonetheless prejudice and mal-treatment may be much reduced. As already hinted, deepened representation is not the only promising resolution of the present problem that might be tried. Another, which could be attempted either separately or concurrently, operates through the directive of ecologically sustainable development, requiring as a constraint, not only intergenerational equity but also preservation of items of ecological value. 38 It might be suggested that such a directive be made mandatory, applying to all relevant steering committees. But, as already evident, there <;1re severe obstacles to getting such a directive properly implemented. (In present oligarchical circumstance s, even very dilute versions are worth pressing for however, as they would offer definite improvements upon what presently happens.) 6. A fundamenta l dilemma for (deeper)-gre en organization democratic or authoritaria n procedures? There is strictly no logical space for a deeper green democracy, according to Saward for one. For there is a clash, an essential tension, between democratic procedures and deeper green values and commitments, notably to intrinsic values in nature. The main drift of the argument is that green values, which are mandatory for deeper greens, require for their implementation antidemocratic, indeed authoritarian procedures; otherwise they cannot be guaranteed. This nasty conundrum for green theory over democracy, which the theory typically sponsors, is put in sharper form as follows :39 Democracy concerns procedures, environmentalism certain outcomes. What guarantee can 37 No doubt there are electoral approximations; e.g. candidates in separate classes for each category to be represented. 38 For elaboration of this option, see Sylvan and Bennett 93 and its sequel. 39 Goodin, condensing Saward, p.168 . �18 there be that the procedures will deliver the outcomes? What guarantee that democracy would yield a way of protecting environments? However the type of situation is worse than a matter of guarantess, which greens are not really seeking and could not in general expect. (For here as almost everywhere else, things can go wrong. Philosophy especially supplies few absolutes and little certainty.) It is a type of situation, moreover, which effects not only environmentalism but any sort of social and other amelioration, and even democracy itself. For democratic procedures may yield unsatisfactory and even anti-democratic outcomes. Unfortunately there are few or no guarantees that masitonous forms will eventuate or persist. Political history itself capiously illustrates that. But ti can be argued theoretically. For example, succession of regimes must view (owing to finite lifetimes, etc.), and in occasional transitions deterioration can occur; there are no effective mechanisms that an exclude decline absolutely. Democratic procedures of certain sorts offer better controls, and better prospects of satisfactory transition than most other available, but even they afford no cast as on guantees of adequacy, and are beset by paradoxes of their own. In inadequate democratic structure plausible scenarios are easily designed where just such outcomes occur, for instance as in what has been called a "paradox of democracy" where a constituency elects an anti-democratic tyrant. 40 A concerned attempt is made by Saward to mount a destructive version of such a paradox against deep-green political theory (which he darkly calls 'dark green'). The version is based upon holism and intrinsic value requirements, coupled with democratic demands, of deep green theory . In clearest form, the version runs as follows: Holism implies consistency or compatibility. But intrinsic value maintenance and democracy are not compatible, under evident conditions (e.g. democratic procedures result in diminution or destruction of intrinsic value). Firstly, partial confirmation for this explication: The green imperative contains a number of elements, variously economic, political, social, geographical, religious, and so on. Its force comes partly from the holism it embodies, and partly from its basis in the idea of the 'intrinsic value' of nature. Holism implies that the various elements which make up the imperative are compatible. The elements of the imperative gain their importance, and their links with each other, by being referable back to a common, intrinsic value. It is at this point that we can pick up the position of democracy or 'direct democracy' in lists of basic values set out by greens. These goals are the elements of the overall green imperative, and gain their importance from both the holistic nature and intrinsic merit of the values which the imperative represents. 41 40 Such paradoxes of democracy, and variants thereupon, are presented trenchantly by Popper, and nullified in Sylvan and Bennett 90. Improved structures can much reduce the likelihood and problematicness of paradoxical overturns. 41 Saward, paper version p.3 .; repeated p.5 . �19 As should now be plain, and is becoming plainer, consistency is not an invariant desideratum, and is not insisted upon; coherence is what is "implied" and what supersedes consistency .42 As more than a century of Hegelian theory should have revealed, there can be inconsistent wholes. A further key assumption in the argument is that guaranteeing that intrinsic value is protected (or like absolutes sustained) will require undemocratic procedures, such as authoritarian ones. An underlying assumption (soon to be rejected, e.g. as incorporating an offensive false dichotomy) is that only undemocratic, authoritarian procedures fit with deeper green imperatives or givens. 43 Several illustrations are offered of inconsistency of green imperative_s with types of democratic procedures-none of which tell, without testing adaptation, specifically against deeper green positions. A first illustration is directed against Porritt: A direct democratic procedure (is not) compatible with imperative goals like ' local production for local need', 'low consumption', 'labour-intensive production' , and ' voluntary simplicity' (other items from Porritt's list). 44 Against this and other illustrations, it is worth emphasizing goals resemble objectives and ~argets; goals are goals which are not mandatory and by no means always achieved, especially if the achievers, like present humans, fall short (e.g . irt ecological sensitivity) or their organisational means and opportunities are inadequate. Observe the oppositional attempt, to convert or to twist (since it is an up-grading by high redefinition), goals, programs , and principles-through 'imperative goals' and the like-into 'imperatives', 'prescribed outcomes' , undeniable principles, ultimates. That attempt should be resisted. A second example looks at an alleged contradiction in the programme of the German Green Party. ' Grassroots democracy' is one of the four 'basic principles' of the party's 'global conception' . Another is the 'ecological': 'Proceeding from the laws of nature, and especially from the knowledge that unlimited growth is impossible in a limited system, and ecological policy means understanding ourselves and our environment as part of nature'. In effect, this means that certain outcomes are proscribed from decision-making procedures. Proscribed outcomes go well beyond any plausible list of outcomes which must be proscribed in the interests of defending a direct democratic decision procedure. Therefore, there is a clear contradiction between elements of the value-set, whereas given the holism the green imperative is based on we would have the right to expect these goals and values to be_thoroughly compatible.4 5 42 See Priest and others. 43 Cf.p.12 essay. 44 [Reference] 45 [Reference] �20 The last charge repeats the critical point already rejected, that holism implies consistency. A further critical point should also be rejected: the flawed inference that 'certain outcomes are proscribed' . A political party in a democratic system has to be prepared to see its principles, however spendid, overridden, certainly by other parties if they gain or hold political power. There is a misconception too about principles (especially higher level principles) and their roles: ' principles [too] can only be akin to [givens and] "laws of nature", against which democratic procedures must inevitably be traded off the board'. Sets of principles, which may themselves turn out to be inconsistent, are hardly akin to natural laws; consider for instance reasons for their revision, procedures for rechecking and revision, and so on. In any case, democratic procedures are not traded away against laws of nature, which they may try to upset or suppress. (Rather effort should be directed at informing the electorate and the like). To reinforce his case, Saward appeals to other authors who have advanced similar claims (it is like appealing for confirmation of a newspaper report to other newspapers). Frankel accuses Bahro of an 'anti-democratic' vision of an ecological society, given that politics as conflict will have no place in a sea of 'givens'. He sees the dilemma as being similar to that of socialists-de eming certain things as desirable in an ultimate sense, but proclaiming attachment to democracy and the diversity it implies. Ophuls has stated the matter especially clearly. · The basic question about politics, he writes, is 'Is the way we organize our communal life and rule ourselves compatible with ecological imperatives and other natural laws? ... how we run our lives will be increasingly determined by ecological imperatives' 46 In an ecological society, enough of the demos (members of democratic constituency) will hold ecological attitudes and vote or select accordingly, almost by definition. Problems of effecting change lie with unecological communities, which may not support ecological principles under instituted democratic procedures (as presently in many places) . Principles, and ecological "givens", stand, they remain 'desirable in an ultimate sense', but they are not followed and implemented, while revealed democratic preferences go unchanged. There need be no 'antidemocratic vision', but rather an unecological praxis, which principled greens will work to change. The route is accordingly barred to Sayward's important conclusions ... : that at best direct democracy, and for that matter indirect forms of democracy, can only be at or near the bottom of value-lists of greens. A commitment to democracy must clash with values that are inherent to ecologism-a nd ecologism is about inherency, intrinsic values, laws of nature and holism. Things-like democracy-t hat can only have instrumental value must lose out to imperatives backed by inescapable canonical force.47 · 46 47 �.. ·- ·----------- ------ - - - - - - - - - - - -- ------ 21 What Saward proposes instead is depressing ly familiar: pragmatism , jettison intrinsic value. Out therewith go deep-green positions . ... greens should not think in terms of green imperatives . Indeed, it suggests that to think in terms of imperative s based on arguments about intrinsic merit is unjustifiabl e.48 Fortunately the argument developed does not sustain the proposals. There is, to iterate a central point, no internal or latent contradicti on between (deep-)gree n policy objectives and democratic procedures . Rather, green objectives would fail to be achieved without welldisposed decision makers, who may not straightforwardly reflect any "will" of the demos. A logical requiremen t on a realistic set of political objectives is that there are accessible circumstan ces where they are realisable, where all elements of the whole would obtain. It should not be required that there are are no situations where they may conflict, become inconsisten t. It is certainly not required that they are realised, by whatever means. A community , as variously represented , can choose better or worse. There are many means available, which it may shun (again there are no absolute guarantees) , enabling it to choose better, including improved structures, attitudinal change and consciousn ess raising; and so on. In the end Saward too recognises the popular power of attitudinal change, thereby removing himself his previous loading of authoritarian means upon greens. There needs, from a green perspectiv e [and others], to be a change in political culture such that it will be compatible with sustainability. This, of course, is a familiar theme from green writing. How[?] ... It can only be the case that 'political change will ony occur once people think differently or, more particularly, that sustainable living must be prefaced by sustainable thinking' . By abandoning foundation alist myths of intrinsic merit, greens abandon the implicit arrogance that have made democracy such a tenuous part of green political theory. 49 But he overstates the attitudinal point, with 'only ... the case'. People can be politically led (retardation , however, as distinct from genuine advancement, is a familiar phenomena ); they could just elect a green governmen t which instituted, under permissible democratic methods, sustainable living or the like. Worse still, his final ungrammatical sentence is a complete non48 Of course it is now put in terms of "imperatives "; it would be better expressed in terms of principles, policy objectives or the like. Opposition to deeper green political approaches often derives, as in Saward and in Goodin, from a underlying shallow utilitarianism . The differences concern not only depth, but the rejection of individual interest bases, in favour of welfare bases and holism in deeper approaches. 49 [Ref. and page] There are further defects in this passage than those noted in the text. For one, admission of intrinsic merit does not entail foundationalism. For another, such recognition of merit, which is less liable to disturb democracy, or render it tenuous, than adherence to Christianity, need caary no tinges of arrogance; to the contrary, by contrast with humanism it may yield a certain humbleness. �22 sequitur. Attitudinal change may including coming to appreciate intrinsic merit in natural things other than humans. 7. Ecoregio nal demanar choid reshaping of Australi an political institutio ns: one beginni ng. Is such a radical restructur ing as that suggested feasible? Initial investiga tions hold out the hope that major problems for deeper green theory can be solved, at least in theory. Investigations according ly suggest that the project within the Reshaping Australia n Institutions project is viable and worth pursuing. A logical next stage offers sketches for a radical political reorganisation of Australia. 50 Evidently there would be many designs (thereby removing facile jeers against "the blueprint ", a part of co-optative strategy for persistence with prevailing statist arrangem ents). Among the many designs, some few, conformi ng to favoured principles, would be selected for detailed study. If the study were attempted, most appropria tely through systems modelling s, then flexibility could be built into modellings, so that even though only a few basic designs were examined , many variations would be feasible. Not only is systems modelling particular ly well suited to modelling network designs; it also further offers prospects for computin g simulatio n and impleme ntation, and even some simulate d political experime ntation. Furtherm ore, such modelling s begin to give some grasp on the size and complexi ty of the task (a useful comparison is with World 3 modelling of the on-going "Limits to Growth" project 51 , or, better, with a regionalized version of it). To get started on such ecoregional design, for Australia, two broad classifica tions and associated maps and charts are required: • 1. an ecoregional classification, with partitions and overlays, for Australia and its continental shelf. Observe that this classifica tion would be hierarchi cal, as smaller regions merge into larger regions; but it is a benign hierarchy of levels (it facilitates no accumula tion of power or wealth) . Observe too that any such classification is far from unique. Plurality has already set in, and a choice of classifica tion (or a few choices) would have to be made, taking due account of political organisat ional principle s and objective s. Fortunate ly some of the prelimina ry classifica tory work has already been accompli shed in Environm ental Regional isations of Australia, where 3 broad classifications are presented and procedures for generatin g many more 50 Such design, well accomplish ed, would help considerab ly in revealing what is possible, thereby providing a seriously neglected contribution to politics, itself sometimes presented, with undue licence, as the art of the possible. 5I See e.g. Meadows. �23 given. 52 For political purposes further classification attributes (e.g. demog raphic features) need to be included. Ecoregions provide the basis for spatially linked admin istrativ e and comm unity units. (Not all units need be of this sort; many contemporary arrangements are spatially unlinked). At this stage a basic principle of decentralization and distributed and smalle r-scale organization can be invoked, namely • subsidiarization: organisational functions should be allowed to fall down to (or to be pushed down to) the lowest level compatible with their satisfactory performance . Thus, for instance, most matters concerning such things as sewerage and primar y educat ion would be localized. This subsidiarization principle, drawn from classical anarchism, has been widely adopted in green planni ng propo sals. (It is said to have been applie d by the Catho lic Churc h in admin istratio n of the Holy Roman Empire, whenc e the not altoge ther apt title derives. It is presently being reassessed for use in that successor organisation , united Europe.) No doubt the principle is open to challenge, for instance on grounds of efficiency, that larger size may prove more efficie nt, of duplic ation, and so on. But, the object ive is not maxim ization of technological values such as efficiency factors; instead it aims to satisiz e on a wider framework of values , including holistic social arrangements. Presum ably, howev er, undue duplication of expensive administrative bodies is to be avoided. Coupled with subidiarization is another principle, • direct accountability downwards: units should answer directly to region al constituencies. This contra sts with prevailing accountability (such as it is) upwar ds, throug h some indirect and tenuou s , centra lized circui ting chain. Natura lly much more gets compr ehend ed under accountability , for instance openness of environmental accounting. There are also principles interrelating smaller with larger regions, both bottom-up and topdown (or centre down) principles. Among these will be • repres entatio n of smalle r regions in relevant planni ng institutions of more compr ehensi ve region s . Representation, appropriately regulated, would often replac e anarchistic federation, which as observed appears too weak for requisite environmental contro l. The point needs no labouring that the classifications and principles are open to challenge at every step; for instance, there is nothing rock-hard about the type of ecoregional classification prefer red, nor about social functio ns to be addres sed. At a theore tical stage that is unproblematic: there are other (less preferable) models; elaborate your own if you want to and can. In any case, it is to be hoped that a diversity in theory might be to some extent reflected in some diversity in practi ce-wi th different regions and continents trying different arrangements, 52 See Thackway and Cresswell. Rudiments of a politically useful classific ation begin to emerge on their 30 Group Regionalisation . �24 with much less of the sort of cosmopo litan political monocult ure that we are presently being harassed toward, with much more resilient political biodiversity. Of course, not all political forms (includin g stateless types) are equally desirable or satisfactory, and some (includin g present state examples) are inaccepta ble. So there are bounds open diversity. Moreove r, what suits one communi ty or region well may not suit another to be satisfactory for it. So too there are limits open successful transfer of organisational structure; what works .in one region may require much modification in another, or may substantially resist transfer. Structural diagram : Schematic diagram of organisation structur e (with some sample components indicated, but not all their network interlinkages displayed) statistics bureau upper levels: administrative, executive, research ground level: functional inflow control materials selectoral college Australian region (federal) immigratio n sup_erreg10ns (a to k) interregional transport, etc. upper levels arbitration bureau resources income office ground level (local) regions (1 ton) water systems rental entitlements office hospital systems region 1 sewer systems reg10n n �25 • 2 a social function classification, of those community matters that require explicit organisa tion at some level. An initial listing can be compiled by consulting Australian metropolitan telephon e directories, especially the government sections that used to feature in the front (until a year ago). What results under redesign and reorganisation would, of course, look very different from what is listed. Parliaments, parties and all their supporting apparatus would vanish; the Australi an Bureau of Statistic s will assume a new significance and indepen dent role, and so on. But which instituti ons are retained, which adapted, and so on, would depend on further social organisa tional features, not yet considered here. The result would be a levelled pyramid al structure, a flat-untopped network as depicted in the structural diagram below, not a power hierarchy. While some requisite research has been undertaken .upon how the various functional bodies and decision -making committees can be selected and can operate 53, insuffic ient investig ation has been made of the interrelations and adequate fundings of the bodies and institutions involve d - whichever they are! For little such detailed anarchoid modellin g has apparen tly been attempt ed for any region anywhere. Evident ly there is much to be done theoretically. Detailed modellings could bring issues down to earth, without setting things in concrete; no doubt too they would disclose many further problems hidden in the detailing , problems to which anarchoid solutions can however reasonably be expected. Noneth eless compar atively little is likely to be done, unless requisit e support is forthcom ing, support in the shape of researchers (researc h volunte ers and students ) and research infrastr ucture (from research, donatio ns and the like). For such support, for investigating its own demise, a state is hardly likely knowingly to supply; nor are its establish ed research institutions. Insofar then as it is done visibly, it will probably have to be accompl ished largely outside state-supported and state-supporting infrastructure, such as prominent universi ty projects. (like Reshaping Australian Institutions). Fortunately there are now other structure s, such as internet and radio channels, that can facilitate interconnections and interchanges of researches, both regionally and internationally. On these sorts anarcho id communicationa l bases, networks of groups interested in elaborating such alternative political modellings, both in theory and in practice , could be formed. Given the dismal state of present politica l arrange ments, almost everywhere terrestial, there is a great need, as a very minimu m, for networks of innovative researchers who chose such goals. 54 53 Thus e.g. Burnheim 85. The present article is not only heavily indebted to Burnheim 's work, but overlaps on-going investigations on his part. 54 To echo one referee. My sincere thanks to demandin g referees for several helpful suggestio ns and many improvem ents. �26 Richard Sylvan* Refer ences . Bello, W., Dark Victory, Pluto Press, Londo n, 1994. Bookc hin, M., Remaking Society: Pathw ays to a Green Futur e, South End Press, Boston , 1990. Bumh eim, J., Is Democracy Possible?, Polity Press, Cambr idge, 1985. Burnh eim, J., 'Demo cracy, nation states and the world system Democracy. (ed. D. Held and C. Pollit t) Londo n, Sage, 1986, pp.218 ', New Form s of -239. Ul.rh2r) A Fox, W. , in Ecopolitics III, Hamil ton, New Zealan d. Goodi n, R., Green Political Theory, Polity Press, Cambr idge, 1992. Green , G., The New Radicalism: Anarchist or Marxist?, Intern ationa l Publis hers, New York, 1971. Jacobs , M., The Green Economy: enviro nmen t, sustainable development, and the politics of the future., Pluto Press, Conco rd, Mass, 1991. Macka y, H., Reinventing Australia: the mind and mood of Australia in the 90s, Hugh Macka y, Pymbl e, NSW, Angus & Rober tson, 1993. Macph ee, I., 'A new constitution?' (excer pts from an openin g addres s) NILEFA Newsletter, Griffith Unive rsity Schoo l of Law, June 1993. Marsh all, P., Dema nding the Impossible: a history of anarc hism, Londo n, Harpe r Collins 1992. Mc Laugh lin, A., Regarding Nature, SUNY Press, Alban y NY., 1993. Meado ws D., and others , Beyond the Limits, Chesle y Green, Vermo nt, 1992. Naess , A., Ecolo gy, comm unity and lifesty le (trans. and ed. D. Rothe nberg ), Cambr idge Unive rsity Press, Cambridge, 1989. Pontin g, C., A Green History of the World, Sincla ir-Stev enson, Londo n, 1991. Priest, G., Routle y, R. and Norma n, J. (eds), Paraconsistent Logic , Philos ophia Verlag , Munic h, 1989. Routle y, V. and R., 'Socia l theorie s, self manag ement and enviro nment al proble ms', in Environmental Philosophy (ed. D Mann ison and others ), RSSS, Austra lian Nation al University, 1980. * where is it �" . \)ot:;::,o 27 ~\)--:, \\-' Saward, M., 'Green. Democ racy', in Politics f Natur~ op cit, pp. ~~~ J..-.'->~f\, l(; ~ '5:> r 1\J ' ' . b3 - 'S/J L , £_? ~ J?_ \._\J.. cfr \~~ 2 ~"\,o (')roN CrlL~ rv fbltf ~~L, H-iof2 v- Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology, Green Series , RSSS, Australian National University, 1990. Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., The Greening of Ethics, White Horse Press, Cambridge, 1994. Sylvan, R., 'Anarc hism\ in Contemporary Political Theory (ed. R. Goodin and P.Pettit) Blackwell, Oxford, 1993. Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, University of Edinburgh Press, 1994. Sylvan, R., Green Anarchism, to appear, 1996. Thackw ay, R. and Cressw ell, I.D., Enviro nment al Regionalisations of Austra lia, Enviro nmenta l Resour ces Information Network, Australian Nation al Parks and Wildlife Service, 1992. Tynan, L., The Institute of Advanced Studies, The Australian National Univer sity, May 1993. �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter, Thomas V. Cahill, Editor, Department of Politics and International Relations, Lancaster University to Richard Sylvan, 18 May 1994 re feedback from referees on paper by Sylvan for Anarchist Studies (1 page) �ABSTRACT OF PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions" project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change. A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side, increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of encephaletic organisation. Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in present "best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these problems are sketched and defended. R. Sylvan RMB 683 Bungendore Australia 2621 f0J.._/ ,C. #--0/'...__~,_,k_J ver.r~ ~ -;- I c}~J ,h,,z'7 -?< �ABSTRACT OF PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions" project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change. A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side, increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of encephaletic organisation. Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in present ."best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these problems are sketched and defended. R. Sylvan RMB 683 Bungendore Australia 2621 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ·*' . ~":'" mw 10.4.95 PROBLEMS IN DEEPER GREEN POLITICAL ORGANIZATION THEORY: an Australi an perspective on radical institutio nal change . .. . people are ready for change and the impending debate will result m constitutional change. We should, therefore, explore all options .... 1 As elsewhere, there is growing dissatisfaction with Australia's political institutions, and increasing demand to change them. This demand, hiding co-optative elements, has been initiated and fostered in a conspicuously top-down fashion, by politicians and by academics. There is so far little surge of political enterprise at grass-roots levels, little pressure for the usually very limited changes proposed. Nonetheless, along with apathy, there is widespread popular disenchant ment with present political arrangements. There is now an opportunity (although still only a small window therefore no doubt) to put green and radical themes on the agenda for real political change in Australia. That opportunity should not be missed, within Australia, or elsewhere. While the exposition that follows concentrates upon Australia, as a convenient advanced example, much of what is argued and urged applies or adapts elsewhere. Disenchan tment with politics, and political proposals for change. There is now evident in Australia, what is variously described as disillusionment and anxiety, cynicism and pessimism about the state of politics-a loss of confidence in it, and a retreat from commitment. As much and more, Mackay has nicely exposed in a survey of the Australian situation: . anxiety about the nature and quality of Australian politics [has] increased. . .. Widesprea d anxiety about the state of politics is based [in part] on an uneasy feeling that, if the parties are not going to stand for some identifiable philosophy, and the leaders are going to be chosen on the basis of their potential as television performers or even as head-kickers, then the only appropriate response is cynicism. That cynicism is reflected in a turning away from support for the major parties ... and revealed in the attitudes of young Australians ... 2 who often cannot be bothered registering to vote, or voting. (though voting is legally compulsory). Lack of confidence is beginning to show not only as cynicism about politicians, but also as doubt about the integrity of Australia's political institutions .3 1. Hon . Ian Macphee, ' A new constitution? '. Of course Macphee did not really mean all options, nor even all constitutiona l options. Furthermore, his claim about preparedness of people for change is incompatible with Mackey's data (mentioned below) on exhaustion with change. 2 Mackay pp.174-177. For all the Australian casualness of Mackay's presentation, his sociological findings are nonetheless fairly solidly survey and interview based (if occasionally stretching the data). Plain findings are replicated by other socialogists. 3 Ibid. p.178 2 In a recent survey, '62 percent of [Australians] expressed either little or no confidence in the political system. Such a figure accurately reflects the mood of the Australian community' .4 Australian loss of faith in conventional politics is attributed to a mix of factors. A first explanator y factor as regards this disenchantment comes from the changes in politics already remarked (ranging from policy issues to media performers) and from resultant uncertainty. ' ... the Australian electorate is confused about which party stands for what, and about whether any party has a long-term commitment to any particular point of view' .5 A complex 'second factor ... concerns the adversaria l nature of two-party politics' .6 How can this 'two party, adversarial approach ... continue to be appropriate when the distinctions between the two parties themselves are so hard to define'? But 'reµefinition of party politics implies the possibility of a redefinition of the whole parliamentary process itself . Why 'when parties seem quite capable of stealing each other's policies or of invading each other's traditional philosophical territory, [can not] politicians work together in a more cooperative and harmonious spirit' ?7 'Adversarial politics may have made sense ... when .. . distinction s between the parties were stark and when arguments about principle could be justified; today, the idea that politicians would be arguing over a point of principle or philosophy is almost unthinkable .... [They] are much more likely to be arguing over matters of personality, prejudice and power than over issues which effect the long-term health of the body politic' .8 'The quality of parliamentary debate is regarded not only as a symptom of the adversarial nature of the institution, but also as a symptom either of the poor quality of politicians ... , or of the effect of the system on those who are enmeshed in it' .9 Unless there is marked improvement in party philosophies, programs and performance, 'the call to re-examine the nature of the parliamentary process will gather momentum ' .10 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. pp.178-179. 6 Ibid. The adversarial character of dominant State legal systems is also becoming subject to more and more criticism. It appears likely that significant movement towards different inquiratorial systems will occur, not least because of the huge expense and growing unaffordabili ty of adversarial systems. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. p. 180. 9 Ibid. p.179. It is a symptom of both, the latter especially. lO Ibid . p. 181 . 3 A third relevant factor contributing to loss of faith is the impression of Australians that 'they are overgoverned ' 11 , with too many expensive bureaucracies and too many houses of parliament. Conflicts between State and Federal parliaments - and between the various State parliaments themselves - are regarded as a particularly unproductive expenditure of political energy, and Australians question whether 15 houses of parliament may be too many for the efficient government of 18 million people. The sheer number of parliaments is often blamed for the problem of too many bureaucracies and for many duplications of bureaucratic and political activity between State and Federal · governments. ... Whilst there is little love felt in the Australian community for Canberra and for the idea of more centralised government even that is beginning to appear preferable ... . The widespread support for the idea of a republic which emerged during 1992 is closely related to the underlying sense that Australia is overdue for _some kind of reexamination of its political institutions, and even the notion of Federation itself. ... As debate about the idea of a republic proceeds ... it has begun to incorporate the idea that Australian's political structures and systems might be quite significantly reformed. 12 Such diseffection reflects too a growing awareness that Australia's political arrangements owe more to historical accident than to rational design. Even though the main proposals for change no doubt remain reformist in character and could lead in unfortunate directions, some of them are far-reaching by normal standards. Both the extensive disenchantme nt with present political arrangements and the felt need for significant change further suggest political times are not altogether normal. Elements underpinning a political paradigm shift are already present, as are features supporting rational redesign, to which radical additions are now feasible. So far there have been, along with normal inertial resistance to change, two main responses to growing pressure for change: political, from politicians, ex-politicians and political commentator s , and academic from intellectuals, academic entrepreneurs and academic journalists. By and large, political responses have been grander, more sweeping and vaguer; academic responses more theoretical and cautious, piecemeal and detailed. But there are no grand detailed plans. Under the leading proposal so far for political change, Australia's constitutiona l monarchy will be displaced by a constitutional republic with its own head of state displacing the monarch, but with perhaps minimal adjustments otherwise. Nonetheless , as a result , republicanism is in the air. Politicians have begun to contemplate other practical reforms, while 11 Ibid. p. 181 , itals added. 12 Ibid. p.181 -2. Republican proposals have been circulating for some time . But the cause was finally taken up by prominent politicians, who made it their own, after which it became a popular issue. Mackay's accurate presentation of popular support for political change contrasts drolly with the first part of his book which depicts an Australian populace exhausted by change and longing for the old ease and somnolence. 4 academics have begun to embroider theories around republicanism and institutional reform. What happens to the Australian federation of states is one of the many unresolved issues presently being debated. The main reason for reform offered by the political camp can be summed up simply as changing geopolitica l circumstances. The camp tends not to acknowledge what would reflect adversely upon it, the poorness of federal political practice. Rather it tends to attribute popular dissatisfaction to economic circumstances and uncertainties: declining real standards of living, extensive unemploym ent, persistent recession until recently, problems to be surmounted by full-steam ahead untrammelled economic growth, to be attained by recoupling Australia to the Asian economic express. Meanwhile an orchestrated republican movement can help divert popular political attention from poor political management and a gloomy economic predicament. Much has changed in the century since present antiquated political arrangements were hammered out, arrangeme nts making the newly-fashioned .Commonw ealth of Australia, politically a federation of states, into a constitutional monarchy coupled to Britain, arrangements of convenience fashioned for very different circumstances. Most non-symbolic linkages with Britain, which has been inching towards a place in a united Europe, have already been severed. Australia has gradually begun to appreciate its geo-political position in the Indian-Pacific region (and the money-ma king opportunities for a sagging resource-based economy in allegedly booming parts of Asia). Whence the main idealistic proposal: for an independent republic, decoupled from Europe, assuming its own (prominent) place in its geo-political regions. In principle at least, place and region begin to assume, or resume, some of their neglected, but historic, significance (however that is not how it is yet seen). Most proposals for constitutional and federal reform fit within that limited idealistic conception. One important proposal, advanced by established political players, their most radical proposal so far, includes abolition of the present states. Such a proposal would clearly represent a welcome step in anarchist directi<;ms, were it not regularly offset by the idea of a strengthened central state.13 Supposing this latter unfortunate idea is bracketed for the moment, then what is being seriously considered already starts to look like a much more rational regionalism than what presently prevails. The present states of Australia are undoubtedly an anachronis m, based on accidental boundaries of a contingent colonial history. They are ecologically irrational management units, utterly failing to reflect ecological regions. Yet the states possess extensive environmental and other manageme nt powers, inappropriate 'powers which derive from what was largely a political bargaining process conducted a century ago.' Another effect of inapposite state-federal 13 Anarchists can even rest (if uneasily) with a con stitution , so long as it provides for an organisation, Australia Inc . even, sufficiently different from a state and its authoritarian trappings. 5 arrangements, especially 'funding arrangements, has been to lock out local government and, more importantly, local communities . ... local communities must be given greater control over those decisions of government which effect their lives ... '; the opportunity 'to design and provide the services which are needed locally.' 14 At this stage of the dialectic McPhee slides easily and naturally from localism to regionalism. A glance at the map reveals natural regions for local government on a viable scale [an optimistic contention]. Some cross State boundaries, and I would envisage that State governments would be replaced with regional governments. These would be more akin to larger local governments and would certainly not have the trappings of the States. They should not have parliaments and the expensive, unwieldy and inefficient bureaucracies which characterise our States. They should have a small number of full-time councillors. .. Regional governments should be solely accountable to their ratepayers ... 15 . So far so good: however McPhee thereupon begins to infiltrate stock (small /) ·liberal management assumptions. Nonetheless the basic idea to retain is simple: that of ecologicallyrational local and regional rearrangemen t of anachronistic state partitions. But that regionalizatio n should be greened, as reform should be radicalized. More generally, opportunites now present themselves to inset more radical ideas throughout the debate about Australia's future directions. For much has been left off political agendas for change, not merely environments and habitats of their less prominent or noisy inhabitants, but also such issues as rights and liberties, transformation of antiquated legal and executive frameworks, and so on. Omission of (human) rights is especially remarkable in states such as Australia, whose constitutions astonishingly do not mention at all (what is however often supposed to justify states) individual rights, such rights only being ensured, so far as they are, assumptions from uncodified common law, by indirect routes (statutes regarding treatment of minorities and the like). Nor do the political camps pushing limited change speak of rights or liberties; a very limited conception of adjustments required prevails (though without rights and liberties and a generous public sphere there is little, and little prospect of,justificatio n for a state at all). Accordingly political agendas for change need to be conspicuously broadened, to accommodate a decidedly more ambitious range of constitutional and institutional redesign. 2. A project within a project: radically reshaping Australian institutions. 14 All quotes in this paragraph are drawn from McPhee. An address along similar lines to the Hon. Ian McPhee, also proposing abolition of the states, was delivered by the former Prime Minister R.G. Hawke. Hawke's speech, by contrast with McPhee's, attracted much media attention, and though facilely dismissed as "unrealistic" by some practicing politicians , appeared to gain a good deal of support. I5 McPhee ibid. 6 Academic entrepreneurs have also responded quickly to proposals for constitutional and institutional changes. Early to scramble on the bandwagon was the institution to which I am affiliated, the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, with its ambitious decade-lon g project, Reshaping Australian Institutions: Towards and Beyond 2001. 16 One. small part of this project does connect with the republican push, which no doubt helped inspire it and gain its funding. The academic version of republicanism furnishes an institutional and historic setting, tracing its roots back to ancient Rome, and thereby linking in, what admits much modem adaptation, notions of citizenship and civic virtues. But most of the project is independent of any republican reorganisation. The Reshaping Australian Institutions project is presented in predominantly reformist fashion, unsurprisingly. It is supposed, for instance, to 'provide major input into evaluation and refonn of Australia's institutions'; indeed it is explicitly 'aimed at contributing to Australian constitutio nal reform'. 17 Nothing however precludes considerat ion of reshaping or transforming Australian institutions - those of the whole ecological region - in a unreformist and possibly unconstitutional way, in a radical way. Admittedly, the rough boundary between reformist and radical routes becomes even more blurred when the constitution of a country is open for possible major reconsideration and much political infrastructure may be altered. Nonetheless, from the perspective of a strong central state, the stock. boundary stands intact. For reformist changes would amount to comparative small adjustments leaving it substantially intact. For example, a minimal transformation, of the sort presently much favoured, from constitutional monarchy to Australian republic, though entailing non-negligible constitutional redrafting, need only amend the roles of a few elite power- and position-holders. By contrast, radical changes would substantially alter that strong central state, perhaps (as will be proposed) eliminating it altogether. There are appealing reasons for attempting wider, more radical investigations. For, firstly, there may be more satisfactory institutional structures not accessible, or even visible, along normal constitutional reform routes. Secondly, there is a demand, a small but growing 16 A recent brief description of this two million dollar project, now outlined in several places, is given in Tynan, pp.17-19. Fuller descriptions are available from a main coordinator of the project, J. Braithwaite, Law, RSSS, ANU. One of the many strands (17 at last count) of this project is an environmental (or green) strand. The immediate predecessor of this article was presented in a workshop at RSSS on green political theory , arranged under the project. That accounts for some of the otherwise puzzling structure of what has eventuated. Another earlier version was tried out at Ecopolitics VIII, Pacific Visions, held at Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 1994. 17 ' Reshaping Australian institutions : towards and beyond 200 l' in Tynan , p.17, italics added. 7 demand from green directions for instance, for radical institutional change. It would be prudent, then, to make some investigation of the options, to assess their prospects. Thirdly, reflection on such structures would certainly be part of a more comprehensive study of and theory of institutional design, which the Reshaping project also presents as an objective. Fourthly, much more controversially, major environmental problems cannot be satisfactorily solved along merely reformist paths. For states, what are reformed, states themselves are ecologically dysfunctional. In practice this appears obvious enough. Simply reflect upon their environmental records; these are even worse than those abysmal records compiled for human rights. But the practical case can be argued in detail in a state by state way, or less laboriously, through the familiar rough classification of states into first, second and third world states. In main third world regions, the rise of the state has seen the serious decline of environments. Those third world states that have not largely destroyed their natural environments are in rapid process of doing so. The activities involved are, furthermore, not merely tolerated by these states but are usually actively encouraged (e.g. with state participation or by state concessions, as through taxation advantages, subsidies, expert incentives, etc.). Further, the role of exploitation and plunder of remaining natural "resources'', and depletion of "biological capital", by third world states, most of which are now trapped in debt and structural adjustment, has increased many-fold in the last two decades. How destructively second world states of eastern Europe treated their own (and also other regions') environment, how they over-expoited and polluted them, has recently been much publicized. While the recent record in first world states is no doubt marginally better, many of these states dominated their natural environments and their wild inhabitants in the past and have heavily polluted and exported their urban and industrial regions. Nor does their present record gain an environmental pass. For example, those that have any natural forests (similarly fisheries) left are in the process of eliminating or degrading most what remains; most are failing seriously in meeting (their own) targets on greenhouse emissions, and so on. More theoretically, it is unlikely that states, increasingly focussed narrowly upon shallow economic agendas, will or can deliver satisfactorily environmentally. A prime reason is this: states are ineluctably committed, more and more as their populations expand, to high levels of economic activity characteristically to economic growth of sorts which impact heavily environmentally, inducing inevitable degradation.18 Accordingly, there are then, or should be, two bands to any green (or environmental) strand of a restructuring Australian institutions project: not merely an important reformist side, 18 This theme, that states are normally ecologically dysfunctional, is documented and argued in detail elsewhere; see e.g. Carter and especially . Sylvan 96 . On the dismal environmental records of particular states see Punting. For shocking figures and illustrations as regards environmental exploitation of third world states, see Bolla, pp57-65 . 8 but as well a radical spread. It is part of this underfunded and undersupported radical spread which forms the main object of investigation in what follows, that part that relinquishes present state structures, in favour of more environmentally benign institutions - which no doubt can be designed, even if not so readily brought to practical use. 19 In order to reach radical redesign ideas quickly, let us touch only lightly upon some of the more distinctively green reasons for this anarchoid quest (familiar anarchist reasons stand: the illegitimacy of present states, the undesirability and severe disutility of states, which typically are highly destructive and corrosive institutions based on concetration of power, hierarchical authority, massive coercion, manipulation by economic elites, technobureaucracy, utilitarian rationality, and sundry other evils. 20) As 1ndicated, present states are incompatible with stock ecologically sustainable practices, because of their heavy unrelenting commitments to shallow economic growth. More generally, standard states and their practices comprise very significant parts of environmental problems, but quite insufficient parts of any solutions. Moreover, states constitute an enormous and destructive drain on regional environments, a feature particularly evident in smaller states which are always looking out for revenue-raising expedients for their . . own expensive runnmg. Apart from those greens who have recognised the excessive environmental costs of states and their heavy demands on environments, and thus or otherwise have come to recognise the desirability of their withering away, there are many more who have become ambivalent about states, who appreciate their very problematic character and very questionable legitimacy, but do not see yet how to get along altogether without them, or more exactly (to point towards a partial resolution) without certain functions that they serve. To point immediately towards a resolution of this crucial problem, the functional dissolution idea advocated is this: that the functioning parts may be separately utilized without the colossal whole. The state is not an organism the functioning parts of which must fail without the whole. So it may well be the enormous fat of state can simply be shed, to great advantage. In any event, 'the State is a social institution', always 'within', Marxists continue, 'a ,concrete historic setting' .21 Granted, it is an institution. For an institution in the relevant sense is 'a society or association for the [organisation or] promotion of some particular object [or 19 To adapt a referee's trenchant summary . For detail on some familiar anarchist reasons , see Bumheim and above all Marshall. 20 Nonetheless practical revolutionary displacement of the state is not so remote as is generally supposed. 21 Thus, Green p.61, who adds quite wrongly that Proudhon and his disciples do not see it that way 'but as an abstraction and aberration'. 9 function]'. 22 Institutions include therefore the state, the central state. So it too is up for reshaping, radical slimming, and possible removal in a concrete historical setting, such as late twentieth century Australia. Whittling away the state means in tum dismantling corporate capitalism, which now dwells in symbiosis with the bureaucratic state, and also much else, often environmentally undesirable, that the state affords a supportive framework for and enables to flourish. Ideas and schemes for radical redesign are already available from rich anarchist and socialist sources, those for g_reen design and reshaping from growing and diverse environmental sources. In main part, then, radical ecoredesign is a matter of convivially meeting (not joining) the two, an intersection that favours anarchist inputs. Something ofthe sort has already been attempted, in an environmentally shallower way, in eco-anarchism, alias social ecology, and in a deeper way, in deep-green social theory. 23 Moreover, it could be attempted in other kinds of deeper green theory-itself really a plurality of theories, which however does not itself force radical ecoredesign, though most variants would support it. Thus Naess's "deep ecology" for example, which is not so far politically radical, only strongly reformist, could (and should) be given a radical tum. 24 Concentrating upon the radical spread of deeper green theory does not preclude concomitant reformist investigation and activity. Both sides of the green street should be played. Reformist opportunities should of course be pursued-increme ntal change, social engineering, greening bureaucrats, lobbying politicians, and like activity (but better really to cut through much such pleading and obiesance and be rid of politicians and bureaucrats). There are many reformist proposals being advanced for the greening of Australian federal institutionswith but few so far having much impact on practice. 25 Nonetheless, more limited, more constrained, proposals of this sort certainly have a better chance of making a difference than radical redesigns, regularly smartly dismissed as "unrealistic" or "utopian".26 No doubt the 22 Oxford English Dictionary, adapted. An institution is an organitution. 23 On social ecology, see Bookchin 90, and for information on deep-green social theory , see Sylvan and Bennett 94 and Routleys 80. 24 As to the political character of deep ecology, and why it should be turned, see Sylvan and Bennett 94, where an expose of the political theory of Naess's ecosophy is presented. 25 There are many many narrower economic and technological proposals. One of the more interesting wider proposals comes from an Opposition not noted for its green initiatives and commitments, for an overseeing Department of Sustainable Development, a Department that could see to the greening of all federal institutions. 26 Too smartly, as we argue elsewhere (e.g. Sylvan and Bennett 90). normal "reshaping institutions" investigations are rightly focussed upon institutional reform, not upon revolutionary reshaping, where much freer scope for redesign is offered. However the real possibility of radical change should not be excluded; green radicals should be prepared. There have been various opportunities for revolutionary change in Australian history, the last occurring, according to some historians, with the ignominious fall of the Whitlam government. There may well be opportunities again both in the near and intermediate future, especially should some solid work be put into propagating the prospect. In the near term there is economic disarray, social fragmentation, and constitutional destabilization; in the longer term increasing ecological problems and expanding eco-catastrophes loom. Under present incremental reform and regression, for all th_e spasmodic environmental rhetoric, comparatively little in the way of radical green change occurs or can be expected. Witness, for comparison, the snail pace of the establishment movement towards a rather minimal grey republicanism in Australia, or differently away from meeting carbon-reduction commitments. It is increasingly doubtful, given prevailing responses to economic and other difficulties, that present structural and systematic problems confronting Australia, for example, will be satisfactorily addressed, environmental problems such as extensive and expanding land and water degradation not least. Furthermore, under more incremental reform, the sorts of problems concerning reorganising society in deeper green ways, problems that provide subsequent topics, would likely noi arise. So in getting beyond more muddling along, do imagine fairly free scope for institutional eco-redesign is somehow dispensed. One nice corollary is that once it is worked out where to go organisationally, it is much easier to ascertain how to arrive there. 3. A basic problem of structure: central or decentralised organisation. There are large and immediate advantages in pursuing a problem-oriented approach to redesign. That approach, which will tend towards anarchoid outcomes, will be anarchistically guided in this respect: Unless there is a genuine problem, already causing difficulties or developing, nothing need be done; otherewise let things alone, let Being be. 27 On this non.:. managerial low-work approach a good deal of structure presently inoperational, and of idle regulation presently enacted, can be removed; organisational arrangements can be very significantly down-sized. The leading methodological idea is that enough relevant (biodegradable) structure is introduced to resolve organisational problems, but not substantially 27 The non -prejudical term 'anarchoid' is deployed, not because what emerges will not be anarchistic (as characterized in Marshall and in Sylvan 94), but because it departs from standard forms of anarchism in significant respects, not least in planned political organization. In this exercise organization is of the essence .. 11 more. Organisationa l oversupply and waste is thus avoided. Moreover, much structure that keeps so much environmenta lly destructive industry in business is likewise shed. Among basic problems for deeper green theory are those of political reorganisation and so of organisatior,,. Evidently institutions, and their types, are critical to such organisation. And a major organisational problem for any putative green society concerns structure: to take a critical case, whether society is centrally organised (concentrated, bureaucratised , hierarchical, largescale and so on) or decentralised (dispersed, non-hierarchic al, small-scale and supposedly beautiful, and so on). This focal problem, to centralise or not to centralise, is sometimes presented as a serious dilemma for concerned green theorists. 28 The binary horns of this dilemma are respectively: on the one horn, the pull ( or push) to localisation and regionalisatio n, to non-anonymo us smallscale low-impactin g environmenta lly-friendly arrangements , to diffusion of power and dismantling of the incubus of a central state with its crippling costs and unfriendly practices; and on the other horn, the need for continuing and further central income generation and welfare (re)distribution, central regulation and control, and the pressures to environmenta l reliance upon and use of the central state. 29 The dilemma has been trenchantly posed as follows: ... the demands of the Greens sometimes appear contradictory, in seeking increasing environmenta l regulation and welfare measures ... alongside a halt to industrial expansion, the very source of income for the welfare state. Yet the expansion and further centralization of the bureaucratic state apparatus is neither their overt goal nor covert motivation. Quite the contrary. Their genuine long term vision is of a decentralized , steady state society of self-sufficient, relationally autonomous (albeit interlinked) regions. 30 As it happens, not only does the theoretical and utopian literature run both ways, towards and away from centralisation , but so does practice and experience. As to theory, anarchistically -inclined presentations tend to favour decentralisation, perhaps with some central compensation through federation (thus recent Blueprints, ecotopias, and so on), whereas socialistically -inclined presentations invariably opt for powerful central states (to control and redistribute grander social programs, etc.). As to practice, there are local councils, community organisations, residents' groups aiming to keep out, or to remove, the state-sponsore d nuclear plants, toxic waste incinerators, waste dumps or super-highway s, on the one horn; and, on the 28 As by Michael Jacobs of The Green Economy, who has posed the problem sharply, as part of an argument however for retaining the central state (and much of present status quo arrangements). 29 Environmental reasons for favouring small-scale bioregional organisation are nicely gathered in McLaughlin, chapter I 0. 30 Fox, Ecopolitics III. 12 other, central states blocking, modifying, or regulating local or regionally promoted schemes for large dams (e.g. Tasmania's Franklin), forest exploitation, pulp mills, strip mining, and so on .31 To some extent, the way the problem has often been re-presented, in terms of a dilemma between top-down and bottom-up structure and power transmission, already points towards a theoretical resolution: namely, both, or rather enough of both. But how is this combination to be achieved? An answer does not fall out by pure reason, operating in isolation from other problems. By taking advantage of information gathered from other connected problems, a promising answer can be teased out. Neither standard socialism nor anarchism afford answers, socialism because it leaves the central institution of state intact. But standard anarchism, much more promising, does not resolve the problem either, because federation , as usually explained, does not leave enough structure; it may not even concede sufficient power to delegates to constrain exploitative local communities. A solution to such dilemma lies through a combinational strategy, which includes partial dissolution of the central state, into its actual organisational functions in each region. While removing the state, itself source of several environmenta l and social problems, and its concentration of power, invariably under environmenta lly unfriendly control, functional dissolution nonetheless retains its apparently essential services, including (where necessary) those of environmenta l regulation. Relevant continent-wid e functions would persist or be introduced: for example, services controlling inflow into Australia of damaging forms and materials such as toxic wastes and exotic pest species, or regulating outflow from Australia of native wildlife and flora. In part, ecoregional functionalism offers a radical continuation of the separation of powers of recent historical process, of church and state, legislature and executive, and so forth. As these functions come to operate separately while remaining coordinated, so would those functional arrangements and institutions dissolving the state. It is a major illusion of modem political theory that a central state, ceded monopolies on coercion, currency, taxation and so on, is necessary in order to secure adequate supply of public goods, including public order and environmenta l regulation. To the contrary, the most that appears required, the most that arguments would support, is some network of specific organisations functioning to look after specific kinds of goods and services, those necessary for this or that, that are not otherwise supplied. There is no inherent reason why communities should not institute and regulate specialised bodies coordinated among themselves (by negotiations or, failing that, through recognised arbitrators) to ensure the adequate maintenance or production of various types of public goods, including control of damaging crime. Each 3I Much turns on the exploitative character of certain local and regional communities, their get-richquick schemes, what they are prepared to do to survive in old or affluent ways, and so on . 13 such institution could gain community standing from its support base, for instance through achieving democraticall y-generated recognition. Such an institution would aim to secure execution of its recommendat ions and decisions by sanctions and like admissible means, and in doing this it could mobilize in co-operation with communities and with other recognised institutions . There are many examples of such institutions operating successfully both regionally and internationally; for instance, those for postal and communicational arrangements, international sporting bodies, international academies and clubs, environmenta l and consumer organizations.32 4. Selecting satisfactory political arrangemen ts within the span of anarchoid options. Anarchoid options come in a wide variety of forms, including, among others, both right leaning individualisti c or capitalistic varieties, and lef-leaning social or communitaria n varieties.33 A suitably generous political pluralism will allow for all these form, while not encouraging all, <:lS they are of very different merit. For example, some may be neglectful or repressive of some of their inhabitants, or destructive of their environments; others, superior in these coino-environmental regards, may not be. Dismantling or deconstructing a state does not, on its own, make a sharp selection between alternatives. No doubt the hope is, what can be striven for, that adequate design are sought and adequate selections inadmissible forms rapidly perish. Those forms that are admissible can be ranked, for instance according to defeasible criteria based upon "pillars" of German green movement such as environmenta l sensitivity, democratic institutions, and nonviolent practices. While right leaning anarchoid arrangements could in theory work (e.g. under what is improbable, benevolent capitalists), they are unlikey to succeed in practice, for several reasons. Consider to illustrate in outline, why that much promoted rightist form, market (or "liberal" 32 This passage borrows from the summary in Burnheim 86 p.221 of Burnheim 85. For much fuller elaboration see Burnheim 85 and Sylvan 94. The critical issue of funding administration, without a coercive location system, is also breached in these places (and developed in Sylvan 96). The broad proposal is that low-cost administration , much of which would be volunteer, could be funded by rents (there would be no property in land and resources), use charges, and fines . 33 There are many more varieties of political systems than much recent theory has cared to concede . For example, to take right-leaning dimensions, all of individualism , market-organiza tion and capitalism function substantially independently. There can be markets without capitalism (characterised through opportunities to accumulate capital), and conversely, capitalism with free mar1cet arrangements. And so on . Most historic and modern systems, upon which political theory has tended inadmissilby to concentrate almost exclusively, are hybrid arrangements with mixes of different elements drawn from both "left" and "right". 14 capitalism is unlikely to serve. For one reasons an intrusive state is likely to emerge, with standing state controlled and funded military and police forces to defend capitalist interests and accommod ation, to protect private property, to uphold social in equalities, and to enforce particular market and trade structures, with a substantial and heavy taxation system to fund these forces and a correspond ing bureaucracy needed to administer and regulate these and other institutions, such as those required to guarantee that capitalist liabilites are limited and to keep markets (far from self-regulating) free and competitive. Not only are anarchoid conditions thus violated, so are those for benign green socities. In normal practice, market capitalism tends to be highly environmental exploitative, as modem history demonstrates all too plainly (plainly too it is not alone in this propensity, so are other modern statist systems). Furthermor e, given the sorts of humans and practices (including extravagen t consumptio n for all that can afford it) these systems tend to elevate, exalt, encourage and some times even enforce, extensive exploitation is to be expected, and liable to persist-wi thout further state interventio n to distort "natural" capitalistic incentives and institutions, to limit practices on private property (thereby altering the institution 34 ), to establish new mitoument s and commoditi es such as pollution licences, green investment s and futures, and so forth. Even though a shallow greenness could be sprayed upon parts of market capitalism (factoiries in fields, forest reserves retained for tourists, etc.) and some green chowcase exhibits tacked on, environme ntal depth cannot. Shallownes s is both an inevitable consequenc e of the justifying socio-econ omic theory, and also an expected best outcome of practice. Accordingl y in institutional design it is much more promising to look in democratic leftleaning directions. It would be rash to gamble upon any bright new clause of environme ntally and socially benign market capitalism, which could in any event easily revert back to dark industrial ages. Similar arguments to those sketched could be developed as regards centralised socialism, especially as untempered by democratic procedures. While island communiti es of a wide range of varieties are naturally not excluded under anarchoida l pluralism, brighter continental prospects lie through modifications of democratic sociality, which appears to permit much of what is sought in design. Under duly decentralized social organization, each requisite function would be carried out by some association of agents comprising operative and support staff (that is, as regards bare formal structure, more or less as now, in institutions like department s and corporation s). For direct accountability downwards , and also to ensure desirable separation and dilution of power, upper operatives, those of a directing or steering committee (the nervous system of the organisation), would be democratic ally selected (from a relevant lower level constituenc y, and 34 Infiltrated too is much mythology, including acclaimed environmenta l virtues of private property and privatization generally . 15 from the whole people of an ecoregion in case of a typical bottom level institution). Note well that selection is not election: election is but one method of democratic selection, and often enough not an altogether satisfactory method. The point of some sort of democratic selection, as a guiding though not invariant rule, is manifold: it is in part to ensure due accountability, in part to prevent unethical accumulation of power in special classes, and in part for reasons that devolve from the very notion of democracy itself. In brief, certain forms of democracy offer promising prospects for green reorganisation, particularly within complementing left-leaning settings where those froms can function in favour of sustainability. However even with an informed democracy in place, there are few guarantees. Some structure, such as limited executive power separated from judicial and administrative functions, needs to be set in place to block or retard worse eventualities (such as mob actions, selection of tryants, mistreatment of noncitizens and so on). Even then several thorny problems remain for any deeper green political theory. 5. Problems of chauvinism and present-time bias in democratic political institutions. In modem usage of the motherhood term democracy, two main lines are visible: included are not only forms of political organisation where 'power [is presumed to] reside in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them ... or by officers [selected] by them\ but 'often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege' 35 . It is on the basis of this second line that the call for democracy has operated to remove chauvinism and discrimination of a range of forms: against unpropertied minorities, nonconformists, women, blacks, tribals, and so on. Even so pursuit of the line, where successful, has not generally conferred adequate representation and rights on several of these groups; but, more important, pursuit has stopped short in its inclusions at certain humans, such as those granted citizenship-though relevant interests of many other creatures and welfare of many of other items may be affected by what those citizens elect to do. While democratic voters can perhaps be entrusted to take some account of those near and dear (within remarkably sharp limits, as the situation of women in many regions still shows), such as those deemed incompetent to vote: the young, deranged, and so on, much evidence reveals that they cannot be relied for what is less near or dear (and indeed are easily herded into casting their votes in accord with a shallow mercantilism). Consider what get left out , outcasts of even perfect democratic control:- 35 Oxford English Dictionary entry 1, main entry. These two lines are by no means the only distinctive lines now visible: increasingly conspicuous in calls for "democracy", notably in Asia, are calls to freedom and rights: not merely for basic legal freedoms such as free assembly, fair process and so on, but for freedom to access information (the "right to know" ). 16 • spatially distant agents. For example, the interests of many humans outside USA are much affected by practices of the US government, which however is outside their democratic reach. • temporally distant agents. Since the past is past, it is future agents who would be affected, often drastically affected, by present practices, that matter. Some way of taking due account of future agents, their interests and welfare, is required, even under shallow long-term ecology, that is under lighter green positions. Sustainable development has been regularly diverted into--what is part of what it is about-such a way, an indirect and so far utterly ineffectual way.36 Much more of importance is also excluded according to deep-green theory: • creatures with interests, other than present human citizens, and • items with welfare, but perhaps lacking interests. The category includes items with intrinsic value, whose value can be effected, made to fare worse or better. A major problem, little addressed, is how to take due account of such democraticall y excludes. It is a problem especially for deeper green theories: that deep problem is, so to say, how to obtain satisfactory representation of all that is of value in the natural world? That way of putting it, while a little misleading, does point to a particular type of resolution. Problems special to deep ecopolitical theory, include, that is, issues as to adequacy of representation of items of value outside those humans that are represented, representation of their interests, where they have them, of their welfare otherwise, of favourable conditions for their sustenance, continuation and retention of value. Democracy of discussed modem sorts, whether representative or participative, will not serve these purposes at all satisfactorily. For instance, insofar as party-political representative democracies represent anything (even human "bottom lines" as is sometimes erroneously supposed), they appear to represent primarily interests of certain business-allied elites. Among the issues are of course those as to adequacy of retention and protection of nonhuman items of intrinsic value, tropical forests and their inhabitants and elements for instance. As observed, there is really no organisationa l alternative to proceeding with and through agents, preferably well-disposed and quality agents. It is hard to guarantee either politically. As agents are but a subclass of what requires democratic representation and what should have its welfare or interests considered, how are the rest to be taken care of satisfactorily? There are significant older responses to like problems, through totems and taboos, guardians and constraints. Looked at one way the problem repeats, more or less, a familiar problem: namely, how in larger constituencies do decision-mak ing agents represent the whole mass of agents and others in the constituency? A main democratic answer, designed to avoid many shortcomings 36 See Sylvan and Bennett 93. 17 of alternatives, was: by representative means-only "representation" was almost never taken seriously or literally enough. The sorts of considerations that made representation a promising resolution make what is to be proposed-wh ere representation has, in any case, to be expanded -also promising. A key principle is this: all relevant items are to be represented. Relevance criteria enter importantly. Steering committees of lower level institutions among the main decision-mak ing bodies should be appropriately representative of all items whose welfare is affected by their decisions (principle of deepened demanarchy). Under more equitable arrangements, then, some decision-engaged agents will have to be selected as representative of relevant classes of excludeds. Electoral arrangements do not so readily allow for such; sortition, well-designed selection by lot, does. 37 Of course, however good the selection processes, however disinterested and well-intentioned the agents selected, some bias may remain. Nonetheless prejudice and mal-treatment may be much reduced. As already hinted, deepened representation is not the only promising resolution of the present problem that might be tried. Another, which could be attempted either separately or concurrently, operates through the directive of ecologically sustainable development, requiring as a constraint, not only intergenerational equity but also preservation of items of ecological value. 38 It might be suggested that such a directive be made mandatory, applying to all relevant steering committees. But, as already evident, there <;1re severe obstacles to getting such a directive properly implemented. (In present oligarchical circumstance s, even very dilute versions are worth pressing for however, as they would offer definite improvements upon what presently happens.) 6. A fundamenta l dilemma for (deeper)-gre en organization democratic or authoritaria n procedures? There is strictly no logical space for a deeper green democracy, according to Saward for one. For there is a clash, an essential tension, between democratic procedures and deeper green values and commitments, notably to intrinsic values in nature. The main drift of the argument is that green values, which are mandatory for deeper greens, require for their implementation antidemocratic, indeed authoritarian procedures; otherwise they cannot be guaranteed. This nasty conundrum for green theory over democracy, which the theory typically sponsors, is put in sharper form as follows :39 Democracy concerns procedures, environmentalism certain outcomes. What guarantee can 37 No doubt there are electoral approximations; e.g. candidates in separate classes for each category to be represented. 38 For elaboration of this option, see Sylvan and Bennett 93 and its sequel. 39 Goodin, condensing Saward, p.168 . 18 there be that the procedures will deliver the outcomes? What guarantee that democracy would yield a way of protecting environments? However the type of situation is worse than a matter of guarantess, which greens are not really seeking and could not in general expect. (For here as almost everywhere else, things can go wrong. Philosophy especially supplies few absolutes and little certainty.) It is a type of situation, moreover, which effects not only environmentalism but any sort of social and other amelioration, and even democracy itself. For democratic procedures may yield unsatisfactory and even anti-democratic outcomes. Unfortunately there are few or no guarantees that masitonous forms will eventuate or persist. Political history itself capiously illustrates that. But ti can be argued theoretically. For example, succession of regimes must view (owing to finite lifetimes, etc.), and in occasional transitions deterioration can occur; there are no effective mechanisms that an exclude decline absolutely. Democratic procedures of certain sorts offer better controls, and better prospects of satisfactory transition than most other available, but even they afford no cast as on guantees of adequacy, and are beset by paradoxes of their own. In inadequate democratic structure plausible scenarios are easily designed where just such outcomes occur, for instance as in what has been called a "paradox of democracy" where a constituency elects an anti-democratic tyrant. 40 A concerned attempt is made by Saward to mount a destructive version of such a paradox against deep-green political theory (which he darkly calls 'dark green'). The version is based upon holism and intrinsic value requirements, coupled with democratic demands, of deep green theory . In clearest form, the version runs as follows: Holism implies consistency or compatibility. But intrinsic value maintenance and democracy are not compatible, under evident conditions (e.g. democratic procedures result in diminution or destruction of intrinsic value). Firstly, partial confirmation for this explication: The green imperative contains a number of elements, variously economic, political, social, geographical, religious, and so on. Its force comes partly from the holism it embodies, and partly from its basis in the idea of the 'intrinsic value' of nature. Holism implies that the various elements which make up the imperative are compatible. The elements of the imperative gain their importance, and their links with each other, by being referable back to a common, intrinsic value. It is at this point that we can pick up the position of democracy or 'direct democracy' in lists of basic values set out by greens. These goals are the elements of the overall green imperative, and gain their importance from both the holistic nature and intrinsic merit of the values which the imperative represents. 41 40 Such paradoxes of democracy, and variants thereupon, are presented trenchantly by Popper, and nullified in Sylvan and Bennett 90. Improved structures can much reduce the likelihood and problematicness of paradoxical overturns. 41 Saward, paper version p.3 .; repeated p.5 . 19 As should now be plain, and is becoming plainer, consistency is not an invariant desideratum, and is not insisted upon; coherence is what is "implied" and what supersedes consistency .42 As more than a century of Hegelian theory should have revealed, there can be inconsistent wholes. A further key assumption in the argument is that guaranteeing that intrinsic value is protected (or like absolutes sustained) will require undemocratic procedures, such as authoritarian ones. An underlying assumption (soon to be rejected, e.g. as incorporating an offensive false dichotomy) is that only undemocratic, authoritarian procedures fit with deeper green imperatives or givens. 43 Several illustrations are offered of inconsistency of green imperative_s with types of democratic procedures-none of which tell, without testing adaptation, specifically against deeper green positions. A first illustration is directed against Porritt: A direct democratic procedure (is not) compatible with imperative goals like ' local production for local need', 'low consumption', 'labour-intensive production' , and ' voluntary simplicity' (other items from Porritt's list). 44 Against this and other illustrations, it is worth emphasizing goals resemble objectives and ~argets; goals are goals which are not mandatory and by no means always achieved, especially if the achievers, like present humans, fall short (e.g . irt ecological sensitivity) or their organisational means and opportunities are inadequate. Observe the oppositional attempt, to convert or to twist (since it is an up-grading by high redefinition), goals, programs , and principles-through 'imperative goals' and the like-into 'imperatives', 'prescribed outcomes' , undeniable principles, ultimates. That attempt should be resisted. A second example looks at an alleged contradiction in the programme of the German Green Party. ' Grassroots democracy' is one of the four 'basic principles' of the party's 'global conception' . Another is the 'ecological': 'Proceeding from the laws of nature, and especially from the knowledge that unlimited growth is impossible in a limited system, and ecological policy means understanding ourselves and our environment as part of nature'. In effect, this means that certain outcomes are proscribed from decision-making procedures. Proscribed outcomes go well beyond any plausible list of outcomes which must be proscribed in the interests of defending a direct democratic decision procedure. Therefore, there is a clear contradiction between elements of the value-set, whereas given the holism the green imperative is based on we would have the right to expect these goals and values to be_thoroughly compatible.4 5 42 See Priest and others. 43 Cf.p.12 essay. 44 [Reference] 45 [Reference] 20 The last charge repeats the critical point already rejected, that holism implies consistency. A further critical point should also be rejected: the flawed inference that 'certain outcomes are proscribed' . A political party in a democratic system has to be prepared to see its principles, however spendid, overridden, certainly by other parties if they gain or hold political power. There is a misconception too about principles (especially higher level principles) and their roles: ' principles [too] can only be akin to [givens and] "laws of nature", against which democratic procedures must inevitably be traded off the board'. Sets of principles, which may themselves turn out to be inconsistent, are hardly akin to natural laws; consider for instance reasons for their revision, procedures for rechecking and revision, and so on. In any case, democratic procedures are not traded away against laws of nature, which they may try to upset or suppress. (Rather effort should be directed at informing the electorate and the like). To reinforce his case, Saward appeals to other authors who have advanced similar claims (it is like appealing for confirmation of a newspaper report to other newspapers). Frankel accuses Bahro of an 'anti-democratic' vision of an ecological society, given that politics as conflict will have no place in a sea of 'givens'. He sees the dilemma as being similar to that of socialists-de eming certain things as desirable in an ultimate sense, but proclaiming attachment to democracy and the diversity it implies. Ophuls has stated the matter especially clearly. · The basic question about politics, he writes, is 'Is the way we organize our communal life and rule ourselves compatible with ecological imperatives and other natural laws? ... how we run our lives will be increasingly determined by ecological imperatives' 46 In an ecological society, enough of the demos (members of democratic constituency) will hold ecological attitudes and vote or select accordingly, almost by definition. Problems of effecting change lie with unecological communities, which may not support ecological principles under instituted democratic procedures (as presently in many places) . Principles, and ecological "givens", stand, they remain 'desirable in an ultimate sense', but they are not followed and implemented, while revealed democratic preferences go unchanged. There need be no 'antidemocratic vision', but rather an unecological praxis, which principled greens will work to change. The route is accordingly barred to Sayward's important conclusions ... : that at best direct democracy, and for that matter indirect forms of democracy, can only be at or near the bottom of value-lists of greens. A commitment to democracy must clash with values that are inherent to ecologism-a nd ecologism is about inherency, intrinsic values, laws of nature and holism. Things-like democracy-t hat can only have instrumental value must lose out to imperatives backed by inescapable canonical force.47 · 46 47 .. ·- ·----------- ------ - - - - - - - - - - - -- ------ 21 What Saward proposes instead is depressing ly familiar: pragmatism , jettison intrinsic value. Out therewith go deep-green positions . ... greens should not think in terms of green imperatives . Indeed, it suggests that to think in terms of imperative s based on arguments about intrinsic merit is unjustifiabl e.48 Fortunately the argument developed does not sustain the proposals. There is, to iterate a central point, no internal or latent contradicti on between (deep-)gree n policy objectives and democratic procedures . Rather, green objectives would fail to be achieved without welldisposed decision makers, who may not straightforwardly reflect any "will" of the demos. A logical requiremen t on a realistic set of political objectives is that there are accessible circumstan ces where they are realisable, where all elements of the whole would obtain. It should not be required that there are are no situations where they may conflict, become inconsisten t. It is certainly not required that they are realised, by whatever means. A community , as variously represented , can choose better or worse. There are many means available, which it may shun (again there are no absolute guarantees) , enabling it to choose better, including improved structures, attitudinal change and consciousn ess raising; and so on. In the end Saward too recognises the popular power of attitudinal change, thereby removing himself his previous loading of authoritarian means upon greens. There needs, from a green perspectiv e [and others], to be a change in political culture such that it will be compatible with sustainability. This, of course, is a familiar theme from green writing. How[?] ... It can only be the case that 'political change will ony occur once people think differently or, more particularly, that sustainable living must be prefaced by sustainable thinking' . By abandoning foundation alist myths of intrinsic merit, greens abandon the implicit arrogance that have made democracy such a tenuous part of green political theory. 49 But he overstates the attitudinal point, with 'only ... the case'. People can be politically led (retardation , however, as distinct from genuine advancement, is a familiar phenomena ); they could just elect a green governmen t which instituted, under permissible democratic methods, sustainable living or the like. Worse still, his final ungrammatical sentence is a complete non48 Of course it is now put in terms of "imperatives "; it would be better expressed in terms of principles, policy objectives or the like. Opposition to deeper green political approaches often derives, as in Saward and in Goodin, from a underlying shallow utilitarianism . The differences concern not only depth, but the rejection of individual interest bases, in favour of welfare bases and holism in deeper approaches. 49 [Ref. and page] There are further defects in this passage than those noted in the text. For one, admission of intrinsic merit does not entail foundationalism. For another, such recognition of merit, which is less liable to disturb democracy, or render it tenuous, than adherence to Christianity, need caary no tinges of arrogance; to the contrary, by contrast with humanism it may yield a certain humbleness. 22 sequitur. Attitudinal change may including coming to appreciate intrinsic merit in natural things other than humans. 7. Ecoregio nal demanar choid reshaping of Australi an political institutio ns: one beginni ng. Is such a radical restructur ing as that suggested feasible? Initial investiga tions hold out the hope that major problems for deeper green theory can be solved, at least in theory. Investigations according ly suggest that the project within the Reshaping Australia n Institutions project is viable and worth pursuing. A logical next stage offers sketches for a radical political reorganisation of Australia. 50 Evidently there would be many designs (thereby removing facile jeers against "the blueprint ", a part of co-optative strategy for persistence with prevailing statist arrangem ents). Among the many designs, some few, conformi ng to favoured principles, would be selected for detailed study. If the study were attempted, most appropria tely through systems modelling s, then flexibility could be built into modellings, so that even though only a few basic designs were examined , many variations would be feasible. Not only is systems modelling particular ly well suited to modelling network designs; it also further offers prospects for computin g simulatio n and impleme ntation, and even some simulate d political experime ntation. Furtherm ore, such modelling s begin to give some grasp on the size and complexi ty of the task (a useful comparison is with World 3 modelling of the on-going "Limits to Growth" project 51 , or, better, with a regionalized version of it). To get started on such ecoregional design, for Australia, two broad classifica tions and associated maps and charts are required: • 1. an ecoregional classification, with partitions and overlays, for Australia and its continental shelf. Observe that this classifica tion would be hierarchi cal, as smaller regions merge into larger regions; but it is a benign hierarchy of levels (it facilitates no accumula tion of power or wealth) . Observe too that any such classification is far from unique. Plurality has already set in, and a choice of classifica tion (or a few choices) would have to be made, taking due account of political organisat ional principle s and objective s. Fortunate ly some of the prelimina ry classifica tory work has already been accompli shed in Environm ental Regional isations of Australia, where 3 broad classifications are presented and procedures for generatin g many more 50 Such design, well accomplish ed, would help considerab ly in revealing what is possible, thereby providing a seriously neglected contribution to politics, itself sometimes presented, with undue licence, as the art of the possible. 5I See e.g. Meadows. 23 given. 52 For political purposes further classification attributes (e.g. demog raphic features) need to be included. Ecoregions provide the basis for spatially linked admin istrativ e and comm unity units. (Not all units need be of this sort; many contemporary arrangements are spatially unlinked). At this stage a basic principle of decentralization and distributed and smalle r-scale organization can be invoked, namely • subsidiarization: organisational functions should be allowed to fall down to (or to be pushed down to) the lowest level compatible with their satisfactory performance . Thus, for instance, most matters concerning such things as sewerage and primar y educat ion would be localized. This subsidiarization principle, drawn from classical anarchism, has been widely adopted in green planni ng propo sals. (It is said to have been applie d by the Catho lic Churc h in admin istratio n of the Holy Roman Empire, whenc e the not altoge ther apt title derives. It is presently being reassessed for use in that successor organisation , united Europe.) No doubt the principle is open to challenge, for instance on grounds of efficiency, that larger size may prove more efficie nt, of duplic ation, and so on. But, the object ive is not maxim ization of technological values such as efficiency factors; instead it aims to satisiz e on a wider framework of values , including holistic social arrangements. Presum ably, howev er, undue duplication of expensive administrative bodies is to be avoided. Coupled with subidiarization is another principle, • direct accountability downwards: units should answer directly to region al constituencies. This contra sts with prevailing accountability (such as it is) upwar ds, throug h some indirect and tenuou s , centra lized circui ting chain. Natura lly much more gets compr ehend ed under accountability , for instance openness of environmental accounting. There are also principles interrelating smaller with larger regions, both bottom-up and topdown (or centre down) principles. Among these will be • repres entatio n of smalle r regions in relevant planni ng institutions of more compr ehensi ve region s . Representation, appropriately regulated, would often replac e anarchistic federation, which as observed appears too weak for requisite environmental contro l. The point needs no labouring that the classifications and principles are open to challenge at every step; for instance, there is nothing rock-hard about the type of ecoregional classification prefer red, nor about social functio ns to be addres sed. At a theore tical stage that is unproblematic: there are other (less preferable) models; elaborate your own if you want to and can. In any case, it is to be hoped that a diversity in theory might be to some extent reflected in some diversity in practi ce-wi th different regions and continents trying different arrangements, 52 See Thackway and Cresswell. Rudiments of a politically useful classific ation begin to emerge on their 30 Group Regionalisation . 24 with much less of the sort of cosmopo litan political monocult ure that we are presently being harassed toward, with much more resilient political biodiversity. Of course, not all political forms (includin g stateless types) are equally desirable or satisfactory, and some (includin g present state examples) are inaccepta ble. So there are bounds open diversity. Moreove r, what suits one communi ty or region well may not suit another to be satisfactory for it. So too there are limits open successful transfer of organisational structure; what works .in one region may require much modification in another, or may substantially resist transfer. Structural diagram : Schematic diagram of organisation structur e (with some sample components indicated, but not all their network interlinkages displayed) statistics bureau upper levels: administrative, executive, research ground level: functional inflow control materials selectoral college Australian region (federal) immigratio n sup_erreg10ns (a to k) interregional transport, etc. upper levels arbitration bureau resources income office ground level (local) regions (1 ton) water systems rental entitlements office hospital systems region 1 sewer systems reg10n n 25 • 2 a social function classification, of those community matters that require explicit organisa tion at some level. An initial listing can be compiled by consulting Australian metropolitan telephon e directories, especially the government sections that used to feature in the front (until a year ago). What results under redesign and reorganisation would, of course, look very different from what is listed. Parliaments, parties and all their supporting apparatus would vanish; the Australi an Bureau of Statistic s will assume a new significance and indepen dent role, and so on. But which instituti ons are retained, which adapted, and so on, would depend on further social organisa tional features, not yet considered here. The result would be a levelled pyramid al structure, a flat-untopped network as depicted in the structural diagram below, not a power hierarchy. While some requisite research has been undertaken .upon how the various functional bodies and decision -making committees can be selected and can operate 53, insuffic ient investig ation has been made of the interrelations and adequate fundings of the bodies and institutions involve d - whichever they are! For little such detailed anarchoid modellin g has apparen tly been attempt ed for any region anywhere. Evident ly there is much to be done theoretically. Detailed modellings could bring issues down to earth, without setting things in concrete; no doubt too they would disclose many further problems hidden in the detailing , problems to which anarchoid solutions can however reasonably be expected. Noneth eless compar atively little is likely to be done, unless requisit e support is forthcom ing, support in the shape of researchers (researc h volunte ers and students ) and research infrastr ucture (from research, donatio ns and the like). For such support, for investigating its own demise, a state is hardly likely knowingly to supply; nor are its establish ed research institutions. Insofar then as it is done visibly, it will probably have to be accompl ished largely outside state-supported and state-supporting infrastructure, such as prominent universi ty projects. (like Reshaping Australian Institutions). Fortunately there are now other structure s, such as internet and radio channels, that can facilitate interconnections and interchanges of researches, both regionally and internationally. On these sorts anarcho id communicationa l bases, networks of groups interested in elaborating such alternative political modellings, both in theory and in practice , could be formed. Given the dismal state of present politica l arrange ments, almost everywhere terrestial, there is a great need, as a very minimu m, for networks of innovative researchers who chose such goals. 54 53 Thus e.g. Burnheim 85. The present article is not only heavily indebted to Burnheim 's work, but overlaps on-going investigations on his part. 54 To echo one referee. My sincere thanks to demandin g referees for several helpful suggestio ns and many improvem ents. 26 Richard Sylvan* Refer ences . Bello, W., Dark Victory, Pluto Press, Londo n, 1994. Bookc hin, M., Remaking Society: Pathw ays to a Green Futur e, South End Press, Boston , 1990. Bumh eim, J., Is Democracy Possible?, Polity Press, Cambr idge, 1985. Burnh eim, J., 'Demo cracy, nation states and the world system Democracy. (ed. D. Held and C. Pollit t) Londo n, Sage, 1986, pp.218 ', New Form s of -239. Ul.rh2r) A Fox, W. , in Ecopolitics III, Hamil ton, New Zealan d. Goodi n, R., Green Political Theory, Polity Press, Cambr idge, 1992. Green , G., The New Radicalism: Anarchist or Marxist?, Intern ationa l Publis hers, New York, 1971. Jacobs , M., The Green Economy: enviro nmen t, sustainable development, and the politics of the future., Pluto Press, Conco rd, Mass, 1991. Macka y, H., Reinventing Australia: the mind and mood of Australia in the 90s, Hugh Macka y, Pymbl e, NSW, Angus & Rober tson, 1993. Macph ee, I., 'A new constitution?' (excer pts from an openin g addres s) NILEFA Newsletter, Griffith Unive rsity Schoo l of Law, June 1993. Marsh all, P., Dema nding the Impossible: a history of anarc hism, Londo n, Harpe r Collins 1992. Mc Laugh lin, A., Regarding Nature, SUNY Press, Alban y NY., 1993. Meado ws D., and others , Beyond the Limits, Chesle y Green, Vermo nt, 1992. Naess , A., Ecolo gy, comm unity and lifesty le (trans. and ed. D. Rothe nberg ), Cambr idge Unive rsity Press, Cambridge, 1989. Pontin g, C., A Green History of the World, Sincla ir-Stev enson, Londo n, 1991. Priest, G., Routle y, R. and Norma n, J. (eds), Paraconsistent Logic , Philos ophia Verlag , Munic h, 1989. Routle y, V. and R., 'Socia l theorie s, self manag ement and enviro nment al proble ms', in Environmental Philosophy (ed. D Mann ison and others ), RSSS, Austra lian Nation al University, 1980. * where is it " . \)ot:;::,o 27 ~\)--:, \\-' Saward, M., 'Green. Democ racy', in Politics f Natur~ op cit, pp. ~~~ J..-.'->~f\, l(; ~ '5:> r 1\J ' ' . b3 - 'S/J L , £_? ~ J?_ \._\J.. cfr \~~ 2 ~"\,o (')roN CrlL~ rv fbltf ~~L, H-iof2 v- Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology, Green Series , RSSS, Australian National University, 1990. Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., The Greening of Ethics, White Horse Press, Cambridge, 1994. Sylvan, R., 'Anarc hism\ in Contemporary Political Theory (ed. R. Goodin and P.Pettit) Blackwell, Oxford, 1993. Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, University of Edinburgh Press, 1994. Sylvan, R., Green Anarchism, to appear, 1996. Thackw ay, R. and Cressw ell, I.D., Enviro nment al Regionalisations of Austra lia, Enviro nmenta l Resour ces Information Network, Australian Nation al Parks and Wildlife Service, 1992. Tynan, L., The Institute of Advanced Studies, The Australian National Univer sity, May 1993. The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter, Thomas V. Cahill, Editor, Department of Politics and International Relations, Lancaster University to Richard Sylvan, 18 May 1994 re feedback from referees on paper by Sylvan for Anarchist Studies (1 page) ABSTRACT OF PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions" project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change. A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side, increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of encephaletic organisation. Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in present "best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these problems are sketched and defended. R. Sylvan RMB 683 Bungendore Australia 2621 f0J.._/ ,C. #--0/'...__~,_,k_J ver.r~ ~ -;- I c}~J ,h,,z'7 -?< ABSTRACT OF PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions" project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change. A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side, increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of encephaletic organisation. Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in present ."best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these problems are sketched and defended. R. Sylvan RMB 683 Bungendore Australia 2621  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 971: Draft of Problems in deeper green political organization theory: an Australian perspective on radical institutional change, with letter from Thomas Cahill, Editor of Anarchist Studies to Richard Sylvan, 18 May 1994 Subject The topic of the resource Typescript (photocopy) draft, with handwritten emendations. Paper dated 10.4.95. Includes two copies of abstract of paper, with handwritten annotations. Description An account of the resource Letter redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:14e81ee">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:14e81ee</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lake George - Floor - Pile 7 Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/a603a32bcffb437ca1dd4fad4f934d13.pdf 7072bb701d0ea4422e4c861df9571694 PDF Text Text page PREFACE Part 1 ill ECOLOGICA L ETHICS & ECOLOGICA L POLITICS: TURNING JOHN MCCLOSKE Y'S CHALLENGE i Conservative, reformative and radical responses to the impacts of ecology on ethics 1 ii A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism 3 iii On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics especially that deep-green upstart 8 iv Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics 12 V Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved classification of environmental problems 19 vi Population impact: the fact of human consumption 21 vii On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations 24 viii On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof ix Part 2 Two other critical features of dominant political ways: the shibboleths of extensive private property and high technology 26 31 A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WEST DEEP ECOLOGY: A RESPONSE TO w ARWICK Fox's RESPONSE TO AN EARLIER CRITIQUE. i Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism 39 ii Value in deep ecology 42 iii The extent of values-in-nature 46 iv A biocentric ethic? 49 V Biospheric egalitarianism revisted 51 vi The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology and the condemned environmental axiological route 53 vii The 'case' against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological approach viii Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification ix Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the issue of evil 57 62 65 �11 X Deconstruction and reselection of self 68 xi More troubles with Self as foundation 73 xii Liquidating Fox's 'deep ecological territory 75 xiii Justifying 'extreme interpretations' of and 'extreme reactions' to wild West deep ecology 77 xiv Transpersonal logic and methodology 82 xv More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science 86 Part 3 ANOTHER 'REFUTATION' OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: JANNA THOMPSON'S CRITICISMS i The newer destructive phase: overtaxing requirements for (environmental) ethics 94 ii Satisfying duly modified requirements, environmentally 98 iii The former constructive phase: a new anthropocentric environmental ethic? 105 �PART 1. CRITICAL EXPOSITION Chapter 1. AT THE PYRAMIDS' JUNCTION. THE BASICS AND CREED OF DEEP ECOLOGY Deep ecology in both a movement and an ideological position. Thus in significant respects it resembles a new religion, which has a creed as well as an organisational structure, practices and so on; a political party, which has a platform as well as organisation, objective and so forth; and an intellectual school, which aim to propagate a philosophy, gain converts and adherents, etc. Like a religion in a literate society, there is a set of texts, DE texts as we shall call them, which present elements of the faith: doctrine, themes, parables, heroic figures, warnings, and so on. The DE texts have not so far been arranged into any authoritative form. Although the movement may have come first, and the theory been but gradually extracted (the historical and pseudo-sociological impression given by the DE texts), it makes for neater characterisation and easier exposition to consider the theoretical structure J first. The very looselyknit movement, subsequently considered, essentially the genuine environment movement (excluding those just in it for human ends), is in any case clustered around this structure - as older cities are around their centre. The theoretical structure is itself conveniently organised in the following (double) pyramidal diagram (now called by Naess, who devised it, "the Apron"):- �Diagram 1. Basic Double Pyramid LEVELS UPPER (INVERTED) PYRAMID C B p 1. Sources, or ultimate bases 2.Core Principles DE PLATFORM R E E D REGULAR PRACTICE PARTICULAR PRACTICES POLICIES LIFESTYLES 3. General themes & norms 4. Particular norms and concrete decisions LOWER (COMPLEX) PYRAMID The theoretical centre of DE is to be found at level 2, where the upper and lower pyramid join. The various sources of the central part, such doctrines as those of Buddhism (B) and Christianity (C) and of philosophic cast (P) at level 1, are not usually a part of DE at all. But there is a preferred philosophical source, ecosophy - another theory elaborated by N aess, who again coined the term which does enjoy a closer connection with DE, and is sometimes considered almost part of it. Levels 3 and 4, which are supposed to derive from the central creed, and in turn inductively inform it, are parts of DE, but less central parts, parts of the varying practice. It is level 2 then that is crucial for �understanding DE. While the upper pyramid givgs the theoretical or intellectual content and sources of DE, the lower pyramid supplies working DE, and core principles and the practice. 1. The Central level, level 2, and the standard DE platforms Deep Ecology is structured around level 2, the central operational level. The main distinctive principles of DE are set on level 2, the platform level. These principles may be grouped as shown in the following diagram:CREED LEVEL2 BASIC CREED wider platform 8 point platform further and more peripheral principles The reason for distinguishing the 8-point platform from the wider platform is simple this:- The 8point platform, as variously presented in DE texts, omits some of the standard articles of the core DE position, and fails to develop others. 1 There is accordingly a real point in distinguishing "the" platform from the more comprehensive and better rounded core or creed. DE is a decidedly vague object, with vague parts. Perhaps the most definite things about it are its 8-point platform and its diametric opposition to features of the mainstream Western ideology, and dominant social paradigm as it otherwise known. The core position is something discerned from the DE texts, in much the way the platform is. But whereas the 8 point platform is explicitly presented, though in different and incompatible terms, the core has to be winnowed and from an array of more peripheral material (as is shown in part II). �Box 1 The 8-point platform, in capsule form. 2 I. Both non-human and human life have intrinsic value: The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth have intrinsic value, inherent value, etc. These value are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. 2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues: Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation themselves these values and are also values in of 3. Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues: Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. 4. Human interference with natural world excessive: Present human interference with the and the situation is rapidly worsening. non-human world is excessive 5. Policies and basic structures must be changed: Policies must therefore be changed. These policies will affect our basic economic, technological and ideological structures. 6. Human (values compatible with) population decrease: The flourishing of human life and culture is compatible with a substantial population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease. decrease of the human 7. Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living: The change in our attitudes will bring an appreciation of the quality of life rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great. We will have a great society with no bigness. 8. Obligation to attempt implementation: Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement necessary changes. 2 The 8-point platform is perhaps the most repeated exhibit in the DE texts. The present formulation adopts the presentation of Naess in Resorg ; the brief formulation on the left does not occur in Naess. A slightly different formulation of the platform under heading 'Basic Principles' is given in DS p.70. �The principles have been rendered, and grJuped, to make their structure and interconnections a little clearer. Principles / and 2 concern intrinsic values; principles 3-7 concern human practices and policies. Principle 5 elaborates in principle 3; principle 6 draws the policy consequence of this. The most important of the general policy changes is listed in principle 4; but another crucial policy change is indicated in principle 7: decreased production and consumption. The prime terrestrial policy objectives (that should have obtained separate listing) can in fact be derived from the impact formula: roughly, human environmental impact = human population x personal consumption x available technology. Reducing excessive interference thus requires at least some of, and no doubt all of, human population reduction, consumption reduction, and appropriate technology improvements. Finally, principle 8 supplies a commitment principle. Observe that some of the principles of this 8-point platform, 8-point principles as we may conveniently call them, provide linkages with other levels of the DE pyramid. For example most of the principles, principles 3-7 especially, have implication for policy at level 3, and thence for day-to-day practice at level 4. 8-point principle 8 has direct application to level 4, individual lifestyles. Before the incomplete 8-point platform was devised (as part of a political conciliation and unification attempt), DE was rather differently characterised: primarily through listing of principles countering assumptions of the conventional socioeconomic wisdom, resistance principles. Indeed, in many respects DE is marked out through reaction and resistance: by its opposition the prevailing ideology of industrial society, especially by those elements of it that have lead to the assault on the natural environment, but also by elements that have led to breakdown of connected features of the social fabric. It gives a clearer picture of what DE is about if we tabulate are principles in opposition to those of the dominant Western ideology (or social paradigm), and as compared with those of shallow or reform environmentalism: �TABLE 2 DE PRINCIPLES AS CONTRASTED, ON THE ONE SIDE, WITH THOSE OF THE DOMINANT PARADIGM AND SHALLOW ECOLOGY, ON OTHER, WITH ONE OF ITS SOURCES, TAOISM. DOMINANT SHALLOW (WESTERN) ECOLOGY DEEP ECOLOGY TAOISM (DE) PARADIGM (DE) Domination over nature Stewardship of Nature Nature an exploitable resource: intrinsic value confined to As for, but with nature a manager resource Natural environment valued for itself Human supremacy Human ascendency Biocentric egalitarianism Harmony with Nature Elaboration of DE Much as for DE; ''humanism'' rejected Differs from DE; wide impartiality Ample resources substitutes Some resource limitations Earth supplies limited Supplies Material economic growth a predominant goal Sustainable development Non-material goods especially self-realization Following Tao-te Consumerism Optimised consumerism Doing with enough/ recycling Doing with enough (recycling inappropriate) Competitive lifestyle As for DP Cooperative lifeway Much as for DE: voluntary simplicity Centralised/urbancentred/national focus As for DP Decentralized/ bioregional/ neighborhood focus As for DE Largely as for DP Non-hierarchical/ Grassroots democracy Hierarchy without structure More careful high technology Appropriate technology Limited technology Power structure hierarchical High technology ample Power �7 Shallow ecology, or reform environmentalism as it can to be called3 , differs from the dominant paradigm primarily in its emphasis on stewardship, on long-term management, on sustainable development. DE, while it reacts against the dominant paradigm primarily on environmental grounds, stands opposed to shallow ecology, which it correctly sees as not going nearly far enough, in particular to satisfy genuine environmental values. Of course the dominant paradigm resisted is not itself a uniform or static position; some of the in determining of DE flows from this very feature. For example, until very recently DP used to support dominance as a throughgoing feature: not just over Nature, but of the male, white, Western, Protestant, rich, powerful, free, adult, etc., over their opposites. Domination of the latter sorts, within the human species, is, for the most part, no longer a part of the progressive ideology, having been gradually shed over the last century; but such domination still remains part of much practice (as well as of cultural ideologies). Some of the most distinctive, and most controversial, principles of DE, are omitted from the 8-point platform, as is evident from the opposition/resistance principles. These include the principles regularly, and pontifically, claimed to distinguish deep ecology. Moreover without these further principles, DE amount to nothing more than a slightly less shallow environmental position (indeed apart from principle 1 and perhaps 2, all the principles of the 8-point platform can be adopted by reform environmentalism and in fact often are enough espoused therefor). These additional principles, part of the wider platform (and the creed) include these:9. Biospheric egalitarianism [in principle]: 'all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom'. The principle is presented in this unqualified form (in DS) as one of the two ultimate norms, the other being self-realisation. Fir fact Devall and Sessions proceed to tack on a self-realisation component to this principle, of biocentric equality as they call it: namely 'and to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realisation with the larger Selfrealisation' (DS p.67). But, they immediately add, the 'basic intuition is that all organisms and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth' (p.67, continuing, italics added). This italicised value-formulation is straightforward, and has the advantage of moving rights out of the formulation (No doubt, if equal intrinsic value guarantees an equal right to live and blossom, it yields the "equal rights to" formulation.) But it encounters immediate difficulties, because in the process of continuing to live and blossom some organisms interfere with others, for instance through basic demands for food and shelter, most conspicuously in predation. To try to escape these difficulties, Naess at least regularly adds the rider: in principle . 'Naess suggests that biocentric equality as an intuition is true in principle, 3 For example in D & S. The alternative, shallow ecology, was set aside because of the negative conditions of the word 'shallow'. �8 although in the process of living, all species use each other as food, shelter, etc.' (DS p.67). 10. Self-realisation . This involves the realisation - growth, development and maturity - of the self, becoming a whole and full person, but not merely in isolation or in a social setting as in older models of self-realisation, but within a biospheric setting, taking due account of other forms of life. It 'can be summarised symbolically as the realisation of "self-in-Self' where "Self' stands for organic wholeness' (DS p.67). Intimately linked with self-realisation in this wider ecological sense is the next principle. 11 Biospheric identification . The procedure, again a personal one, consists in suitably identifying with parts or wholes of the larger surrounding biosphere. The underlying notion here is one of partial identity, sharing certain salient features with, which permits a qualified substitutivity of an imaginative person into the position of another creature, ecoobject or ecosystem. Such "identification" is a significant method of heightening 12. Ecological consciousness . Less grandiosely this covers environmental awareness, appreciation, and concern, and thus responsiveness to environmental depredation. Engendering ecological consciousness is regarded as a crucial part of spreading the deep ecological message. 13. Holism. On DE precepts, this amounts to more than the modem holism according to which there are nonadditive wholes, wholes or objects which amount to more than the sums of their parts. But as to what else holism demands, there is some disagreement within deep ecological circles. 2. Further principles of the DE creed and important optional extras Beyond the standard platform there are further principles, not enunciated at all, or until very recently, or else more peripheral. Some of the further themes help in deciding what clarity DE had; that is one reason why they presumably do not feature in the 8-point platform. Among the principles not enunciated are these:• Non violence. The new themes, several of them periphical to the main concerns of DE include the following:• Deep ecology offers a green synthesis. It 'combines the "Social Greens" with the "Natural Greens" avoiding the extremes of both' (Naess R p.6). This is a surprising theme for a position that has itself been regularly castigated as extreme. What N aess means, above all, is that DE does not neglect humans, and their legalerate social concerns and aspirations, in the way that the �9 Natural-greens have been (generally erroneously) accused of doing; nor does it neglect or devalue nature and its features in the way that many social-greens are inclined to do. Among the important optional extras that may be coupled with DE are principles of a more through-going animal liberation, such as:• a severe reduction oforend to the enclavement, confinement and slaughter of animals. • vegetarianism (of some form). Some deep ecologists are vegetarians (e.g. Bennett), some are not (e.g. Drengson), and some are in between (e.g. Naess). Unless they undergo a conversion, Northerness brought up in the hunting-fishing-shooting tradition eschew these optimal principles. But evidently there is a tension here; there is pressure coming from other principles, especially nonviolence, to limit sharply slaughter of other creatures. 3. The creed, the basic creed, and the movement. Like many a religious creed, the DE creed is an elaborate concoction (as well as a dubious and rather arbitrary one). Adoption of it, knowledge of it even, cannot be expected of all adherents, especially given its features: its vagueness, its inaccessibility, and so on. It is not surprising that, again like many another creed or ideology, many of the faithful do not know too well what it comprises, still less do many of the fellow-travellers (and DE has many). The most that can perhaps be expected of adherents is adoption of some simpler creed, a basic creed more or less in the vicinity of the 8-point platform. But it is apparent from DE texts that not even all of that platform is demanded: enough will do, especially if other DE principles are adopted. The platform represents 'what most supporters have in common at a deep level' 4 No doubt supporters who eschew part of the platform compensate by adherence instead of other DE principles or practice. Hence the depiction of the basic creed in diagram 2. A basic creed comprises enough of the 8-point platform plus enough other principles at least to compensate for omissions. But not even a basic creed is always demanded. At its most generous and laxest, the DE movement includes everyone who professes a concern for some part of the natural environment and does not demolish a manifestation of concern or interest by blatantly anti-environmental activity or involvement therewith. Inclusion in the movement does not even require strict adoption of, or adherence to the DE platform, though it involves some vague recognition of parts of it. Talk of membership of the movement would be somewhat inapposite; there is no paid-up or recorded membership (or even rewarding as would be done in a voting system). 4 Naess R p.3, italics added. �10 It is sometimes said that the DE movement was born in Europe and adopted elsewhere, US and Australia especially. But such a claim confuses the movement with quasi-sociological extraction of the principles involved and the platform assembling them. The movement itself emerged as a late 1960's affair, substantially under way before it was reported upon and labelled (as usual, academics, like politicians, reacted to, rather than led, more popular movements). Such a movement involves some "mass" of people; it must therefore be anticipated by some smaller groups and likely some initiating individuals. So it was with the DE movement. There were prominent individuals in several countries where environmental groups with deep leanings formed or operated, in the 60s and before; and before that there were many isolated individuals. In USA, where the DE movement no doubt grew to substance first, before that in Europe or Australia, there is a significant chain of deep ecologists, or rather deep ecological thinkers, reaching back to the beginning of the century and perhaps into the previous century; for instance, in reverse temporal order, Carson, Leopold, Muir, perhaps Thoreau. 5 Muir is regularly alluded to as an early deep ecologist by Americans. 6 There are deeper-seated motives for vagueness about the basic creed and uncertainty about the basic requirements to be deep ecologist and who makes the hororific status. One is a dislike of criticism, and resulting vacillation among the high bishops of DE as to what extent critics, and those who declare themselves not to be deep ecologists, should be included in the fold, and consequently as to who exactly is a deep ecologist. (From outside the issue can look rather trivial, but gangs are gangs whether ecological or more generally not..) A main reason for the omission of central doctrines of DE from the 8-point platform is of course related: the desire to increase the flock, to turn away no-one who might be decently admitted. 7 Another motive, linked also with trying to enlist support, in order to mobilize democratic forces and like people power, concerns the pluralistic drive that is an important aspect of authentric DE. It concerns the insertion of pluralistic elements within level 2 itself (rather than confining these elements to other levels, where there are conspicuous, as later exposition will show). As Naess explains the idea 5 6 7 In Australia there were, in reverse order, Dunply, Griffin, Stead; there were of course many others with very considerable environmental concerns (e.g. Ratcliffe), who apparently lacked however the requisite feature of depth, and world count only as reform environmentalistser conservationists. But, quite evidently, there are serious problems in discerning whether some environmentalist or other is deep (there is generally only indirect evidence, as the category was not clearly recognised). The issue as to whether some deep environmentalist is a (prota)-deep ecologist is even more vexed because of the muddiness of DE. It is important to observe that little reliance can be placed, in such issues, on standard and applauded histories, such as Nash's Wilderness and the America Mind, because these are written from a shallow perspective and fail to realise the significance of depth; See further Devall's report on Nash's third edition, Ecorotes, pp23-9. See, for instance, Devall Ecorates. Devall also suggests that St. Francis is a deep ecologist, but given what is now known about St. Francis there is room for considerable doubt. Or othersie admitted. But may be excluded by ignored or incompetance, or deterred by qualms about significent propositions (human populations restraint esp.). �11 is avoid the 'devastating' 'tendency to dogmatism': 'there is not one, definite, deep ecology philosophy, not one definite one kind of green society'. Likewise there is no definite or definitive basic creed. For many purposes this does not matter; we can still normally assert such and such, so and so, definitely deep ecological, such and such, so and so, is definitely not. In an attempt to evade criticism, DE is nowadays sometimes represented as a grass-roots movement, one but loosely associated with philosophical views 8 But such movements have intellectually-shaped objectives, offer at least a set of slogans and elementary principles. And DE is this and more; it verges on the dishonest to try to portray DE as such a movement, when in large measure it is the work of intellectuals, initiated by reporting, rather inaccurately it seems, on the supposed attitudes of field ecologists and like workers - hardly typical grass-roots people. 8 In a different respect, in term of moral of ideas and change of themes, DE is no doubt a movement. It has moved (and with Fox shedding critical principles, it continues moving). Such movement is not good for the types of virtues that stable positions may acquire, such a replenity, reliability, assessibility etc; but it does make life difficult for critics. �PART II CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY Chapter 5. THE INITIAL PROBLEM: WHAT ON EARTH IS DEEP ECOLOGY? WHO IS AND ISN'T A DEEP ECOLOGIST? Deep ecology appears , on a preliminary reading, to be some elaboration of the position that natural things other than humans have value in themselves, value sometimes exceeding that of or had by humans. So much appears to follow from the first part of the 8-point platform. But even this much is denied by some of the never philosophers (e.g. Fox). Moreover which elaboration is quite another matter, and decidedly controversial. Indeed DE has not just been rapidly converted (in part through overuse) into a conceptual bog, but is well on the way to becoming all things to all interested parties. This is undoubtedly a drawback; it makes communication, and theoretical and persuasive use of the notion, that much more difficult though it does not condemn an afflicted notion, such as deep ecology undoubtedly is, out of hand. For several important and fruitful notions, which have survived, have encountered very much of this sort of problem - force, mind, energy, differential, infinitesimal, to take some older examples, paradigm and culture to take relevant recent examples.O On the other hand, many notions no more afflicted than deep ecology, such as societism, timocracy and ungrund, have been assigned to the historical scrap-heap. These include the sort of neo-Hegelian panpsychism which deep ecology of the American texts will tum out to resemble. What is evidence of conceptual murkiness and degeneration? The trouble begins with the very introduction of the terminology. Naess, - when first setting down in one preliminary codification what was already in the air,* wrote only of the 'Deep Ecology movement' and set down what he has subsequently described as a 'Deep Ecology platform'. The suggested notion of deep ecology, the underlying notion that informed the loosely-knit and open-ended movement and platform, was not extracted; that subtraction task fell primarily to West Coast American intellectuals, and it was done differently by different proponents of deep ecology. The trouble was accentuated through rapid evolution of the notion. Thus Naess's account of the movement in 0 * In case it is supposed this sort of conceptual muddiness is limited to less exact science, consider such recent notions as anthropic principle, from physics, and nonmonotonic logic, from computer science. See Naess 73, p.98ff. While slogans and preliminary formulations are fine, particularly in campaigns, philosophy cannot rest at the level of slogans or platforms, as too much of DE continues to do. �2 1983 is significantly different from the account he outlined in 1973; seven principles are replaced by six different themes, only two or so of which have much in common with the original principles. t Although DE is introduced in the 8-point platform as a value theory, basically concerned with environmental values 1 , it has been presented as a metaphysics, as a consciousness movement (and as primarily psychological), and even as a sort of (pantheistic) religion. Popular Australian sources will begin to indicate some of the spread. The Deep Ecologist , a network newsletter, sees deep ecology as metaphysical at base, as part of a natural philosophy of humans' place in nature (though many of its correspondents see it as a matter of deep experiences , often of a religious cast, too often decidedly anthropocentric, obtained in or through Nature). According to its manifesto, carried in each issue on its title page, Deep ecology is the search for a sustaining metaphysics of the environment; it represents "a deep understanding of our unity with other beings and livings processes" (Drengson); it is biocentric, not anthropocentric. Though we shall come to modify or reject this manifesto phrase by phrase (deep ecology is not a search, but on one level a position or theory, on another a movement; sustaining should concern the environment, not the metaphysics; depth lies elsewhere than understanding; unity too is a metaphor for integration; biocentric is misleadingly restrictive), the present enterprise, illustrating the degenerative spread of deep ecology, is different. Let us hasten on to the strikingly different explanation John Seed prefers in introducing and advertising his anthology Deep Ecology 2 , a person - and consciousness-oriented souffle (drawn from Devall): "What I call deep ecology ... is premised on a gestalt of person-in-nature [an image Naess had rejected at the very outset of the enterprise 3]. The person is not above or outside of nature. The person is part of creation on-going. The person cares for and about nature, shows reverence towards and respect for nonhuman nature, loves, and lives with nonhuman nature, is a person in the "earth household" and "lets beings be", lets nonhuman nature follow separate evolutionary destinies. Deep ecology, unlike reform environmentalism, is not just a pragmatic, short-term social movement with a goal like stopping nuclear power or cleaning up the waterways. Deep ecology first attempts to question and present alternatives to conventional ways of thinking in the modern West. Deep ecology understands that some of the "solutions" of reform environmentalism are counter-productive. Deep ecology seeks transformation of values and social organisation. t 2 3 The claim is documented in the Appendix to this chapter. Thus according to Naess (73, p.99), ' ... the significant tenets of the Deep Ecology movement are clearly and forcefully normative . They express a value priority system ... '. But even this core claim is now challenged, by Fox, who sees the primary focus of deep ecology as ontological and not evaluative. This is one of three different collections with this title which have been circulated or announced recently: see references. See Naess 73, p.95; but Naess's rejection is rejected below. �• 3 Deep ecology is liberating ecological consciousness ... Consciousness is knowing. From the perspective of deep ecology, ecological resistance will naturally flow from and with a developing ecological consciousness (Devall, 'The Deep Ecology Movement'). Again, while informative, much of this will have to be rejected or rectified (for example, the gesalt theme is problematic, and the deep person need do part only of what is specified; shallow or reform ecology need not be short-term, insofar as it may take account of many future generations of humans; it may well not be pragmatic; shallow ecology is better pluralistically combined with deep ecology, as in Naess's original platform, than denigrated; etc.) It is to Bill Devall, more than anyone, that we are indebted for a confusing myriad of formulations of the driving notion, several of them however extending Naess; for instance, deep ecology is first of all deep questioning, deep ecology is ultimately self-realisation and biocentrism, in deep ecology the most important ideas are 'the wholeness and integrity of person/planet together with biological egalitarianism'; it is also however much else - that again we shall come to modify or reject including a new psychology and new philosophical anthropology. 4 But Devall has been much encouraged by George Sessions, and it is Sessions especially who has tried to convert deep ecology into a new religion, with main texts drawn from pantheism, Spinoza and Buddhism. Thus according to Sessions, If the promise of American pantheism and nature mysticism is to be fulfilled, it will occur in the deep ecology social paradigm which is based upon pantheism and the idea of ecological egalitarianism in principle (Ecophilosophy ill). But although Sessions refers immediately to Naess, there is nothing in Naess about American pantheism and nature mysticism. At most Naess would allow that pantheism, along with other comprehensive positions, like Christianity or ecosophy, can be an underlying base for the deep ecology platform. Small wonder that John Passmore (hardly one to be philosophically baffled given his immense experience in comprehending Continental philosophy) goes astray in yet another account, in which he conveniently pushes the shallow-deep contrast into the unsatisfactory conservation/preservation boxes (of his 74): Deep ecophilosophers ... are mainly interested in the preservation of species and wilderness even when preserving them is not immediately and advantageous to human interest. In order to provide intellectual support for such preservation they are prepared to break with traditional Western ethical principles and metaphysical beliefs (Passmore 83). 4 Devall 79, 83; for a synopsis, see Appendix 1, figure 7B. �4 Again, most of this will have to be rectified, since the presentation is decidedly misleading, not to say biassed. As initial explanations of the deep ecological movement straightaway show, and applications reveal, deep ecology has always concerned, and deep ecophilosophers have always been interested in, much else as well, especially in human population levels and human interference, and in quality of life and technological and organisational structures. While this of course requires breaking with some Western traditions - which are in no way sacrosanct Wes tern tradition is far from uniform, and there are other tradition: deep ecology can remain, and is, rooted in tradition, though much about it is as new and fresh as anything of this sort can be. As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than most vague ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is broad vague way is how the label often functions, honorific ally. That is, for instance how it functions in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which gives deep ecology none but a nebulous content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as the interview with Soleri) in diametrical opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by the intellectual "leaders" of the deep ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular appeal of deep ecology has been obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic forms and the slack or nebulous forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some of those who calls themselves 'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes from the more detailed platform (thus e.g. Fox, as explained below). Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous banner. 5 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the march. Attending a consciousness - raising weekend, purchasing or growing organic vegetables, having spiritual experiences in a special natural place, or practising some oriental art or exercise routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental position, though it can be a step on the way. While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in 5 I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to this sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I didn't expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously reduce information sources. �5 several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as biological egalitarianism, have already been subject to much criticism, deserved criticism as will soon appear. But other features of authentic deep ecology have hitherto been left largely untouched, and new features have emerged. So an ongoing critique is needed. Recently 6 , it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp what DE is all about. New themes are introduced, older ones withdrawn or whittled away. Even Naess, the finder of the movement, who now tends to adhere much more closely to the (nonetheless adjustible) platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make apparently large concessions to opposition charges, which however he subsequently more surreptitiously withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he withdraws with one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other. The oscillation can be partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the desire, stronger in the finder-founder, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophets, to create a wide constituency, to tum no one away if doing so can in any way be avoided. But, on the other, there is an evident desire, among the prophers, to make deep ecology a very select position, a place for a chosen few, a place to be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and involving some difficult life adjustments i.e. after an appropriate testing pilgrimage. Deep ecology, however, lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its religious sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict. There is a considerable lack of discrimination among the pace-setters of the movement over, and marked differences between them as to, who and what is accounted within deep ecology, and some unwarranted discrimination from this exclusive club (e.g. of Rodman). Many of the people classed as within or associated with deep ecology are shallow. And some who are excluded are not. For example, Naess (in 75) presents a long list of people he associates with the movement, many of whom are rather or even entirely shallow in their environmental orientation. Elsewhere (in 83) Naess proceeds to identify with deep ecology several other positions or movements which only overlap it, and which may be substantially shallow (such as green politics and new natural philosophies). Some of the predominantly American lists Devall and Sessions assemble are not so artless. To some extent, this combined discrimination and lack of discrimination again reflects the conceptual murkiness of deep ecology; to some extent it is symptomatic of other oldconsciousness malignancies, both within the notion and as regards its use. 6 Since the first critique was produced �6 Still more damaging to the movement is that several of the advertised prophets of deep ecology verge on the shallow, and some of these have denied DE.7 A striking example is Bookchin who has recently denounced DE, and written ranging declamations much of Bookchin's main, windy, bringin-it-together book, The Ecology of Freedom, said to be a "book of deep ecology" is very far from that; it is yet another, is a celebration of humans in very much the old (enlightenment) style. Insofar as it gets to grips with deeper environmental issues, Bookchin's material amounts to an extension of shallow ecology. 8 Ecologically Bookchin, like other of the prophets, buys into vitalism by way of extended consciousness. Ecological ethics is said to render nature self-conscious; the mechanistic alternative is presented as deadness, thus making an entirely false contrast. Indeed, part of the problem with the selection of prophets, is that mechanism is seen as the main bogy - when it is only one of the forms metaphysically underpinning shallower positions, Cartesian dualism being another - with the result that work that simply attacks mechanism and its variants and also advocates some sort of environmental way, gets accounted deep. N aess has cast the net of deep ecology too wide, catching therewith not only many remote "supporters", but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly the antagonistic Bockchin (RS p.6). Naess now considers the 8-point platform, formulated by himself and Sessions and published in several slightly different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of Deep Ecology' - though it leaves out what Devall and Sessions assert are the two essential features of DE, biospheric egalitorionism and self-realisation, and though it does not require depth (immediate positions conforming to the platform). Even so Naess 'look[s] upon the formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all supporters of the movement have in common ' (letter 23.6.88). Thus the 8-point platform provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the distinguishing platform, of DE. To get around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to an approved minimum of the principles of the distinguished platform (in some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They are adherents in (simply and literally) holding to that much of the platform. They may not be members of the movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because appropriate intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let alone made any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is neither necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockchin, or Routley, can be an 7 8 See, e.g., B. Devall and G. Sessions, 'The books of deep ecology', Earth First! 4(8) (1984). Several of these books do not penetrate very deep ecologically or otherwise. See especially p.344, with remarks like 'and wherever possible the wildlife they may support on their fringes'. The paragraph portrays a very human-centered (and conquered-land) picture. See also p.342, middle. �7 adherent without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not be an adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not adherents. The DE movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep ecologists', who do not adhere to the platform, even "more or less". Many of these supporters are shallow environmentalists, who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside humans, or else try to evade it (e.g. by redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextricably in relations to valuers). Since there are, in my experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts who tum out to be of this shallow sort, Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here 'almost all supporters'? Also which isolated exceptions does he have in view? With the rise of environmentism, most of the distinguishing platform is no longer demanding; indeed it is deliberately lax with a view to increasing the following. Moreover, none of it, except for the last point, specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any commitment in the past of adherents. Plainly adherence to DE, as well as support for DE, could be very considerably increased were this requirement evaded. A neat strategy, common to ecomonical practice and sociological research, readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent adherents as those who adhere to the platform, more or less, except that they make no requisite effort to implement it (they may of course have some vague feeling of obligation, should they ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit of scholarly survey work, it is evident that DE would now have a large number of silent adherents, many of whom are not however adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions or social situations, or simply uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively many excessively interferring humans of Caucasian stock). The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as to envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go into detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' 9 • The reasoning does not hold up. A range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be defined by constraints well-known ones as it happens. Naess should certainly be encouraged to go on and delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and neighbouring environmental positions. For instance, 6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of 9 RS p.7. But elsewhere. Naess did go into some detail (e.g. Book). Furthermore, if Naess - old, famous, unorthodox, courageous enough on difficult mountains - doesn't get down to requisite details of structural change, who will? Well, even some rather shallow theorists do. �8 a highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a change in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not implied by, point 7. 6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky and polluting technology. 6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated regions. Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly included in principles of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration. Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the lax distinguishing platform itself, which is pretty wishy-washy when contrasted with what is happening out there environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much further, and to witness some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments, such as extensive clear-cutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of rangelands, extensive strip and beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on. Even deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE creed, though some of the text enjoin it (e.g. DS); but the issue is (no doubt wisely) avoided by leading prophets of DE familiar with the demands of socialism. Yet deindustrialization - a considerable reduction in the levels of industrial activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive polluting types of industry that conspicuously contributed to the first industrial revolution - would emerge from all the alternative futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, along with a much smaller, less consumption-oriented, terrestrial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important environmental objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially, in obtaining some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters as greenhouse effects, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out. The idea of progress is, like that of more industrialisation, also under a cloud. It is now naive to assume that progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism of something is that it would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating (in some respects); there is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much that was progress, and still is in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for instance, elimination of wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The 'previously ... dominant [assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress towards the industrial state and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly rejected (cf. Naess, on the "status of mythology"). �9 So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select band, philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded, philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human chauvinists, led in the textbook stakes by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative persona) and McCloskey, but recently joined by some Americans Many of these excluded philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core platform, as weakly interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that there are severe environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly far-reaching by conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who becomes immersed in some spread of these problems (though it is still a rather rare professional philosopher that does), and who does not develop some environmental commitments - even if a liberalish social agenda still continues to dominate an environmental one (even so it is fast becoming hard to avoid observing the interprenetration of social with broadly environmental problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics 10 , tended to become progressively more accommodating to what was only a short time ago radical environmental throught, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep ecology has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing pluralism with broad consensualism, and has lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental pluralism is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep or an ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the linking of different positions, not their mergence. Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:Example 1. Moral extensionists, both utilitarians and rationalists 11 . Among utilitarians are Singer, and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed. Utilitarians in the Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences, sentience or the like, and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures. Accordingly they satisfy point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much nonhuman life'. It all depends upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both are quantified with 'all', the theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured 10 11 Now benchmark of reaction rareness, but itself beginning to exhibit some restlessness and unpass and signs of change. The useful category of moral extensionism derives from Rodman. It is critically examined also in EE. �10 abominations as intrinsically valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists. If the terms are more weakly quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are admitted. An evident dividing line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough to exclude shallow philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate positions which do not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension positions, almost invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of rationalistic persuasion, grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have gradually move away from utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including those of vegetarianism, can be reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent thinking (thus, the broad position is really a coherence theory of morality). Example 2. More far-reaching intermediate positions, which do assign intrinsic value less stingily throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some nonindividuals, such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which human values always take precedence over non-human assignments. Positions of this sort are delineated (so far in insufficient theoretical detail) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions so far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Ralston's case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral extensionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive classification of positions). Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1, though not in big formulation given above. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an adherent of DE, despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism however, only what has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this restriction as very like that imposed by utilitarians, to sentience as unwarranted, unnecessary, unenforceable and arbitrary. Deep-green theorists, like environmental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Firsters, now see the DE platform as much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism of DE has been excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an environmental consensus (in place of a genuine pluralism), the religio-political quest for a large support base (which could however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and the input of conservatizing academic thought and the aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE which has not gained much ground or good grades academically, as compared with its success outside academia, especially with book-reading environmentalists, would better forget academic success, where it has made progress only among outsiders, not power-players, and return to its �11 more radical mission. Academics, after all, form only a tiny minority, though one dangerously and influentially supportive, on the whole, of most past environmental excesses and assaults. We have proceeded to cut through the problem of what DE is or may be by formulating a specific version, authentic deep ecology, and by taking explicit account of main alternatives proposed. Authentic deep ecology follows, for the most part, Naess's account of deep ecology. But insistence on authentic deep ecology leaves several casualties, nebulous deep ecologists who prove not to be authentically deep. An important test is offorded through the greater value assumption, and the associated special place reserved for humans in the scheme of things, assent to which serves to expose the inadequate depth of more nebulous 'followers of deep ecology'. For (after proper preparation) they make the wrong responses on the crucial tests of depth. A conspicuous casualty who fails to negotiate 'these tricky slopes' is Drengson, behind whose genuine ecological sensibility lies a human supremacist position with humans occupying 'a unique position ... in the scheme of things', at the summit of that old-consciousness hierarchy, "the great chain of being" .12 According to Drengson, circumstances Might force us, sometimes, to choose between the life of a fish or a cow and that of a human child. We do not hesitate to choose the child. Our priorities are a result of our position in the scheme of things, with a spectrum of species (p.7). Not even followers of medium-depth ecology need respond in this reflex fashion, for instance where the child is seriously defective. Certainly, faced with a range of duly-elaborated imagined circumstances of difficult or forced choice, deeper thinkers would hesitate - since such situations tend to pose moral dilemmas. And sometimes at least their priorities would be different from Drengson's; for example, the fish is rare and the child ordinary, the cow occupies a unique place in an important ecosystem.13 Even Naess himself, who vacillates considerably in what he has to say and occasionally lapses badly from the authentic way. 14 It is worth examining some of Naess's logics, not for nonphilosophical reasons (or even to reveal N aess as a further flaws doyen, typical of the heroes 12 13 14 See The Trumpeter 1(4) (1984), 6-7. Drengson is not the only casualty; Berry, whose criticism Drengson is trying to meet, is another. Differently, the child is Hitler or the President who chooses to press the nuclear button. Such cases, which in some settings permit of a traditional treatment, were considered from a deeper perspective in Routley 2 79. A most striking example is Naess's Rescequence article, 'The basis of deep ecology', which departs considerably from the spirit and themes of DE. Even Naess, who is not significantly hang-up in doctrinal purity and doctrinal divergence, felt obliged to circulate a note correcting, "reformulating", what he had said and written (the article was originally a Sub ...... lecture). 'Some ... may find some of its sentences not quite in forming with what I usually tend to say. Therefore I offer some reformulations ... I still stick to my views recently expressed in various articles and books' (Nute, italics added). �12 of DE), but because these show committing about DE, they are indicative of its doctrical instability, lack of clarity, and scope for improvement. • Any society worthy of the name Green is a deep ecological one. 15 Given that there are a range of ........... societies that are green but not deep green, such a claim must fail. Even if 'deep green' were substituted for 'green' it could not be contained, because DE policies exclude some deep green alternatives. Accordingly, it is false that explication of DE is 'articulation of the fundamental positions that are presupposed in Green societies' (p.4); DE societies are but part of that rich and variety plurality. What does Naess say by way of rectification? Frankly, not nearly enough. He proceeds to assert that in his opinion, a 'society that does not operate in harmony with [the 8-point platform of DE ... is not] worthy of being called Green! But a genuinely Green society may well reject or violate several of the points emanciated, e.g. the wide intrinsic value assumption (of point 1), the obligation to action (of point 8). • 'We should never engage in any discussion on technicalities without asking, "What do we basically need in life?" Always ask the basic question. This is what I mean by the term Deep Ecology Movement' (p.5). Naess does nothing whatever to complenish for presentation of the basic technical question in this (biospherically) chauvinistic way. Do we need a DE which tells us that the bottom line is "What's in it for us?"! Doesn't part of deep environmentalism consist in seeing through and explaining what is wrong with this pernicious bottom line. As regard the 'This is what I mean by ... ' blunder, Naess tries to exonerate himself by use of the well-worn criterion/definition distinction.1 6 But on its own it hardly helps; such bottom line inquiry is not a criterion for DE either. Nor is following inquiry through to ultimate ends a distinctive feature of DE; the shallowest sorts of hedonism, for example, may adopt similar procedures. In fact N aess lands himself in further trouble in trying to extricate himself. To try to make the criterion offer look tempting (a comprehensive test for depth), he claims that 'when supporters of the shallow ecology movement are seriously asked about ultimate ends they tend to affirm the same ones as supporters of the deep movement'. Not only would this be a most unlikely outcome of a satisfactory questionaire; but worse, if it were the outcome, it would render shallow ecology supporters deep; so the criterion would eliminate a fundamental contrast for, and for making out, DE. In any event, too many humans, especially powerholders, remain outside the orbit of 15 16 This follows from what Naess asserts given on that a society that adapts 'policies characteristic of Deep Ecology' is a deep ecological one. There is at least a touch of arrogance (or is it part Naess's disdain for conceptual nicety?) in Naess's introduction of this shabby exoneration attempt: The damaging sentences, - those quoted - 'might be reformulated (in honor of my conceptually interested friends) in the follow way:'. Maybe Naess was serious in his (otherwise ab sure) opening remarks in the R ......... article about looking forward to hobnobbing with the aristocracy. �13 shallow ecology, often attached to the pernicious bottom line (it is doubtful that 'most people dwell in shallow ecology', p.5 heading). • Articulation of DE principles gives a total view. (An amazing contrast with the ....... . juxtaposed doctrine of ignorance which suggest we can never obtain a total view.) By contrast with 'shallow ecology which (avoids) the basic questions ... the Deep Ecology Movement concerns itself with basic beliefs and assumptions about the universe. If you articulate the principles of the Deep Ecology Movement you get a total view . The term "total view" is essential. The Deep Ecology Movement is a total view. It covers our basic assumptions, our life philosophy and our decisions in everyday life' (Res ,p.6.italics added). In first place, the alleged contrast with shallow ecology do not stand up to much examination. A dedicated shallow Christian or capitalist may practice the same depth of questioning and reflection or a deep ecologist, or rather more; such a person may have a well-integrated lifestyle, with a fairly comprehensive philosophy (as these thing go) covering it. Secondly, N aess takes what seems to be asserted back in commentary. 'If we articulate the principles of the deep ecology movement, -- you do not get a total view' (p.3); but that apparently directly contradicts the above italicized passage. There is an escape from contradiction offered - distinguish the principles, by filling in the dashes by "in the sense of principles of the DE platform" - but it leads a severe problem - what are the principles of DE? What is DE? Naess's commentary implies that the principles of DE required for a total view are those of all levels of the double pyramid. Such an idea lands the articulation of DE in hopeless difficulties. Firstly, we do not, and cannot, know what the principles are, because they now include principles applied and decisions taken at the bottom level which refers to particular situations, including 'particular direct actions at a particular date'; but these will vary, in ......... ways, over-future times. Secondly, since there are various different, and compating, principles at the top level, DE will either be damagingly inconsistently characterised, or else it will be far from uniquely characterised. For DE will include Christianity of this and that sect, Buddinism of this and that form, and so on. In fact Naess accepts such an outcome (but in his misdirect attempt to avoid dogmatism): 'There is not one, definite, deep ecology philosophy, not one definite "ecosophy", no definite set of green policies' (p.3) and, he should have added on this line of thinking no definite deep ecology or set of DE principles. But there is a set of central principles, those at level 2. They do not present a total view. But nor in general do those of all four levels of deep ecology. There is much, a mass of opinion (for instance, concerning scientific speculation) which would form part of a more comprehensive (world) view that is not reflected at any of the four levels. It is indeed entirely unclear what would present a total view? Spiniza's philosophy perhaps? But it is easy to ...... of topics it does not cover, such as city architecture and factory farming, on which a total view could have an angle. It is certainly doubtful that lesser mentals than Spinaza, such as typical supporters of DE, �14 operate in a total view. N aess claims that they do, but adduces no evidence; testing is much more likely to reveal how pragmentory the ecological view of most deep ecologists are. Not only is the noton of a "total view", drawn from Naess's earlier philosophizing muddy; the desirability of the notion is open to (damaging) questioning. "Total view" comprehends too much, fixes too much that perhaps should be left open; it sails too close to "totaliterian view" for real pluralistic comfort. There is, then, quite evidently, a serious problem with deep ecology, and in finding out exactly what it is, that even the clearer accounts offered differ in significant subjects face similar difficulties, philosophy for one. With movements, which is what deep ecology is often presented as, the situation is normally much worse. Consider the difficulties in saying, with much precision, what some political movement (such as green politics) represents, what some party stands for and against. And despite the accelerating diversity of accounts there appears to be substance to the deep ecology notion. Several important interconnected distinctions, which look to be worth disentangling, are marked out, and an important group of ideas is assembled. Rather than being simply junked (something my conservative inclinations rise against with notions, as with the premature discarding of material "goods"), the notions involved should at least be disentangled and, if feasible, renovated or recycled. More generally, it is not merely valuabe, but quite essential in senous intellectul assignments, to indicate what deep ecology is and isn't - for lots of purposes, including explaining it, arguing from it, and applying it. What can be done? One resolution can be obtained along the lines of critical rationalism. The fuller formulations of deep ecology, after reorganisation into more tractable form, are subject to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining thereby an improved, more satisfactory, thinner and fitter formulation, which at the same time meets other desirable criteria. Among these is a desideratum often lost sight of in the ferment of environmental action, the need for environmental pluralism. A start on this rather analytic approach involves separating out the different components of the deep ecology messages, and isolating core themes of deep and shallow ecology from wider positions and paradigms which they inform. The core is (as Naess indicated) essentially normative. Fortunately the core themes have already been isolated, in a previous application of deep ecology to population theory 17 , and this work can be taken over largely intact. For the extensive remainder, the following pretty complicated sort of picture starts to emerge (upon organising themes and claims of several supporters of deep ecology, in a way explained in the Appendix to this chapter):- 17 In Routley 84. �Figure 5.1. SHALLOWER AND DEEPER POSITIONS, AND THEIR ACCLAIMED ASSUMPTIONS, PARTLY SCHEMATIZED. SHALLOW VALUE CORE ENVIRONMENT AL SUBJECT SOLE (INTRINSIC) K,' ALUE ASSUMPTION VALUES-IN-NATURE GREATER VALUE ASSUMPTION BIOSPECIES IMPARTIALITY FURTHER PHILOSOPHICAL BASES GROUNDOF VALUE DEEP (separable theoretical underpinning) FEATURES OF HUMANS DIVERSITY, RICHNESS OF NATURAL(LIFE)FORMS ii. METAPHYSICAL INDIVIDUAL REDUCTION. NATURE AS BACKDROP IRREDUCIBLE SYSTEMS. NATUREAS IN1EGRAL m EPISTEMIC REDUCTIONIST/ANALYTIC SUBJECT-OBJECT ACCOUNT HOLISTIC/GESTALT /FIELD ACCOUNT LARGER ENCOMPASSING AND INFORMING THEORY EMPIRICISM,IDEALISM, ECOSOPHY, PANTHEISM, POSITIVISM AMERICAN NATURALISM +- DIFFERENT FACETS ➔ OF CHRISTIANITY, BUDDHISM, ... VALUE (DEONTIC AND ACTION) COLLARIES EXTENSIVE INTERFERENCE FOR HUMAN INTERESTS AND PURPOSES 1. ACTION (META-) PRINCIPLE APPLICATIONS (AS COROLLARIES) LIMITED INTERFERENCE AND RIGHTS THEREfO ETHICS ASETHETICS METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY IDEOLOGY/ RELIGION LIFESTYLE +-OBLIGATION TO IMPLEMENT COMMITMENTS➔ To population, (individual) consumption, (individual) impact, resources, technology, pollution, economic growth and quality-of-life, culture, organisation, science, education; and to the variety of natural (and some artifical) forms, such as land, oceans, atmosphere, arctic regions, swamps, forests, soils, ... POLICY ECONOMICS POLITICS Given the picture some major and serious sets of problems with deep ecology begin to appear at once. First, the value core arrived at already substantially transforms that suggested by the literature, with, for instance, biospecies impartiality improving on biospheric egalitarianism. Secondly, both the bases and the encompassing theories usually indicated (those diagrammed) are not just highly problematic but are detachable from the core and can be avoided. For example, the various, rather different, epistemic and metaphysical theories that have been proposed as �16 supporting, or even essential to, deeper positions are, to say the least, very dubious. So it is fortunate that the deeper value core is independent of them all - though that is not to say that it is independent of every account, since some (plausible) story of value qualities in the natural world, and our perception and knowledge of them, has to be told, sooner or later. But one weaker parts of the larger deep ecological story as usually told concerns the embedding of deep ecology in a broader philosophical theory, such as Naess's system ecosophy T, or Buddhism, or nature mysticism, or whatever. This much is true: as it is with shallow positions, which can be supported by most of the mainstream, more comprehensive, philosophical theories (for what they are worth), so it is with deeper positions, which can be supported by very different, though unorthodox, philosophical theories, for instance, by (a modification of) Whitehead's process theory or by (an adaption of) Meinong's object theory. But, for reasons we shall come to, such theoretical frameworks as ecosophy, pantheism, Christianity and Buddhism do not include thorough-going deep positions, but sustain only shallower positions, and a properly deep picture is not derivable from them. This suggests that the proposed derivation of deep ecology from ecosophy is substantially astray (and that so, more sweepingly, is the whole derivational pyramid regularly presented by Naess in his four-level picture). So it will prove to be: the success of these derivations would depend upon importing analogues of shallowness into deep ecology. APPENDIX 1. Survey methods as a way of pinning down deep ecology. How does the sort of picture shown in figure 5.1 - which is worth persevering with, elaborating and applying - fit in with the burgeoning deep ecological literature? It is surely not just tangential to that, so that we should look elsewhere to grasp the deeper features of deep ecology? In fact the core themes, and philosophical basis, and extension themes, were assembled in a quite impressionistic fashion, namely working through much of the literature, and all the more basic work, and setting down the themes which on reflection seemed to be presented or emerge. Something like this is still a main method of research in the humanities, e.g. in history, history of ideas, and philosophy. �Figure 7a Schematic picture of elementary procedures Source 1 T H Source 2 Source n i INTERSECTION (COMMON CORE) E M E s UNION t DISCOUNTED But here, with deep ecology, there were prospects of doing better than such impressionistic methods, or so one might have thought. Empirical, or at least quasi-empirical, methods (of the sort favoured by Naess in his earlier days) could be employed. The main idea is that the set of relevant sources is assembled, and then some statistical and set-theoretic work is done on the themes extracted from these sources; so the method is an elaboration of the sort of technique larger dictionaries such as the Oxford adopt in pinning down the standard senses of a term. The hope was that analysis of the serious philosophical literature (pretty rough selection criteria these, to be sure) on deep ecology would lead, not to despair, but in particular in two directions:Firstly, to what is more or less common to the positions presented - the intersection of theories, giving the substantial core or basic theory. And secondly, to what results when all the theories are put together - the union of themes, giving an approximation, after some sifting, to a deep ecological paradigm. As you might have anticipated by now, this thematic method hardly worked to perfection. Still it is worth explaining the method in a little more detail since, despite its limited success, it �18 reveals much. First a set of sources is assembled. Here there is scope for sampling and statistical methods, so beloved of social scientists; but in the case of deep ecology it seemed feasible, back in 1984, to gather for winnowing all more serious texts accessible in Australia. That latter limitation (all too familiar in environmental research) imposes a perhaps unfortunate parochial geographical constraint; but it induces no violation of such adequacy requirements as that sources introducing the notion be included in the bundle, as are all sources referred back to in several other sources. With the rise of networking magazines concerned with deep ecology, there are many references to deep ecological thinking and experience which get discounted, as not appropriately serious. Increasingly often, any sort of deeper experience or thought gets assigned under the "deep" heading, no matter how anthropocentric. This is one of the many problems with the depth notion and deep terminology, rather counteracting the valuable idea of penetrating below the conventional surface of received environmental assumptions, that it is important to think deeper than the assumption of Environment Z-land, for instance, that the environment should be managed for present and future generations of humans - a typical governmental surface assumption, often announced, but much less often put into practice. Once the sources are assembled, a beginning can be made on unscrambling themes, something that calls for a good deal of judgement also, especially in such matters as deciding whether themes from different sources come to the same or not. Here and elsewhere care is required not to penetrate too deeply, to expose only so much of surface themes as is necessary (a well-known principle in logical analysis). When the themes are duly marked out, there is some smoothing of the thematic data; for instance, evidently remote and irrelevant themes in one source may be deleted. (It is like the judging of a diving contest or the massaging of statistics, where isolated wild elements are removed from the sample used for assessment.) Then the elementary set operations of union and intersection are applied, again subject to some qualification. In particular, if a very prominent theme in some formulations is omitted from, or only approximated in, one formulation, then that theme will be put, initially at least, in the intersection. (Logicians and mathematicians, for example, sometimes omit intended or assumed axioms; e.g. Parry in analytic implication, Maclean in category theory.) A striking example concerns the very introduction of the notion of deep ecology into the philosophical literature (Naess 73), which fails to present the fundamental value thesis, that intrinsic value is not confined solely to humans or human features. While it can be argued that rejection of the sole and greater value assumptions is implied by what is said concerning biospheric egalitarianism (the equal right to live and blossom), the argument is not decisive, since value is only involved indirectly and perhaps only instrumentally (as Naess's appeal to effects on the 'life quality of humans' and to our ecological dependence might suggest). �19 The results are tabulated, as follows: Figure 7b. Actual results, in not form, of a survey of some main sources. Naess 73 Naess 83 Naess-Sessions 84 Intrinsic value Intrinsic value of life (1) (1) Biological egalitarianism (2) Diversity/richness(3) Complexity not complication (6) Diversity/ richness (2) Diversity/ richness ( 1) Total field holism (1) No negative interference rights, excepting vital needs (3) No negative interference, etc. (3) Devall 79 ROUGH CLASSIFICATIONS VALUE CORE Diversity (10 GROUNDSAND BASES New person/planet metaphysics (1) Objective approach to nature 2 Earth wisdom, VALUEAND limited interference ACTION COROLLARIES More leisure (13) Action obligation 6 Present interference excessive (4) Policy adjustments to economic and ideological structures (5) Anti-pollution/ resource depletion (5) Local autonomy/ decentralisation (7) Anti-class posture 4 Action obligation 8 Present human interference excessive (5) Policy adjustments, etc. [Also to technological structures (6) Objective life quality rather than higher living standard (7) World population reduction (4) POLICY AND LIFESTYLE APPLICATIONS Interim policy steady state (15),(18) Soft Technology ( 11) Life quality rather than quantity of products (6) Reduction of population to optimum (7) Emphasis on pollution and like topics counterproductive (8) Local autonomy/ decentralisation (11),(14) New psychology (3) DISCOUNTED AREAS: with rejection of NEW SUBJECTS dualisms: man/nature, subject/object, etc New philosophical anthropology (9) New objective �20 Embedding in ecosophy NOTES: science (4) New education (12) ? Embedding in updated Spinoza (2) EMBEDDJNG PHrr,OSOPHY/RELIGION 1. Bracketed numerals indicate theses numbers in the sources. 2. The disappointing absence of core themes can to some extent be compensated for by appeal to statements of them or implying them elsewhere in accompanying texts and commentaries. 3. Naess-Sessions 84, also Naess 84, became the 8-point platform, now widely reintensted. Naturally one does not attempt this sort of analysis entirely in the dark, but in the partial expectation that certain kinds of results will emerge, these three especially: • The substantial core represents a significant deviation from mainstream assumptions, a deviation which has been encountered before. • The total theory, or union, is not simply a jumble of theses, but has some reasonable coherence. • There are ways of getting from the substantial core toward the total theory. In the case of deep ecology it would have been pleasant to report triumphantly that these expectations, and more, are fulfilled; indeed the theory is so well integrated it represents a (sub)cultural paradigm. Unfortunately it did not work out that way, as is evident. What is more, the situation has become markedly worse, as presentations of deep ecology have burgeoned since 1984. Partly the thematic enterprise did not succeed because of the poor calibre of the leading presentations of "the" deep ecology intuition, and because exponents had and have different intuitions, messages and objectives. Partly, however it did not work because the idea of obtaining a substantial core and a coherent union was misconceived. Taking the union, in particular, assumed that there was much wider common ground - something that could be called the deeper ecological paradigm which could be approached in this sort of way - rather than as a plurality of positions. Pluralism is fine and feasible, and worth encouraging much more widely; but taking the union of themes of some pluralistic system of positions is likely to lead only to intractable inconsistent sets, and perhaps to trouble. Consider, to illustrate, the United Religion, about to sweep California, a pluralist grouping made up of representations of the World's great religions. While the refined common core of these positions is likely to be interesting, the union is not: it will contain, for example, all of the following inconsistent triad: Many gods exist (from e.g. Hinduism); Exactly one god exists (e.g. Islam); no gods exist (from e.g. Buddhism). There is analogous trouble in combining deep ecological sources with such results as that stones and mountains both do and do not have inherent value; there both are and are not detachable intrinsic values; and so on. The picture is then as shown:- �21 putative substantial core inconsistent elements of putative union What all this emphicizes once again is that deep ecology has to be treated differently, not as a coherent position but as a loose pluralistic grouping of position. To obtain a clearer authentic starting position, we shall have to discount since of what paradox as deep ecology. It is for this sort of reason of course that we chose to follow Naess before other prophets. Once an authentic position has been made out other prositions can be clustered around it. Such a pluralistic outcome does not show that the notion of a deeper ecological paradigm is illusory. It only reveals some of the pluralistic features, mostly not duly recognised at the deeper ends of ecological movements. And it only indicates that a different route should be taken in getting to a deeper paradigm. For the alternative environmental, and deep ecological, paradigm covers a spread of positions, much as the contrasting dominant social paradigm does. �A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WESTERN DEEP ECOLOGY: a response to Warwick Fox's Response to an earlier Critique. Western deep ecology differs in important respects from the deep ecology originated and pursued by Naess, what I now call authentic deep ecology, at which my Critique of Deep Ecology was mainly, but by no means entirely, directed. Western deep ecology, also known as transpersonal ecology (though the ecology has largely dropped out), is very roughly a doctrine of the west of those new world continents where environmental philosophy functions; it has been advanced primarily by West Coast Americans (Devall, Drengson, Sessions and others) and associated West Australians (Fox, now of Tasmania, also Hallem and others). Unlike authentic deep ecology, Western deep ecology is hostile to environmental ethics, which it tends to dismiss as mere axiology; and it is excessively enthusiastic about trans personal experience, spiritual "paths" and "ways", and unitarian metaphysics - in which there are no ontological divides, no dualisms (of subject/object, subjective/objective), and no separation of things. Consider what Drengson 'take[s] to be at the heart of deep ecology as Devall and Sessions present it', and which he enthusiastically endorses: What deep ecology directs us towards ... is neither an environmental axiology or a theory of environmental ethics nor a minor reform of existing practices. It directs us to develop our own sense of self until it becomes Self, that is, until we realise through deepening ecological sensibilities that each of us forms a union with the natural world, and that protection of the natural world is the protection of ourselves .... reality lies not in the imaginative, subjective dualism of the dominant outlook, with its self-destructive exploitation of nature and overkill nuclear weapons. Reality is to be found in a quite different way: by a path that is nonaggressive, humble, compassionate, and knows itself as ultimately embedded in the Self of nature. The sacred is immanent in the profane, the spirit pervades and is the world, the cosmos. It is the formed and formless as a unity. This ecosophy is at hand for each of us [ecosophical salvation]. Its realisation is always personal, firsthand experiential understanding. It is an I-Thou, not an I-it relationship (Review pp.87-8). Fox's Response to my Critique develops similar themes, in considerably more detail, so they become rather more open to assessment. That is why my further critique will concentrate on his Responses. (On its own, I doubt that his Response would have sufficient intrinsic interest to warrant an extensive reply.) In Western deep ecology, the focus is upon, or even (as in Fox 89) contracts to, that of self and Self (or what it might almost as well be, soul and Soul/Anima sive Natura, or spirit and World Spirit). For example, Drengson pontificates upon �• 38 the crux of the issues raised by deep ecology [as follows]. We are challenged to move to genuinely ecological modes of perception, conception, and practice. If we do this, we will do it to the degree that we realise that our self is part of a larger Self for which we must care. This is part of the ecology of self-Self in the cosmology of deep ecology' (p.89). Fox goes further, making this type of stuff coextensive with "deep ecology": Stated rather formally ... the deep ecological framework ... proceed[s] from two basic hypotheses and one ultimate norm [all concerning self and Self]. The hypotheses are (i) that "the self is as comprehensive as the totality of our identifications. Or, more succinctly: Our Self is that with which we identify" ... ; and (ii) that the self can and does grow/develop/mature (i.e. widen its sphere and intensity of identification over time). The norm is that the ideal state of being is one that sustains the widest (and deepest) possible identification and, hence, sense of Self.... this ideal state of being is referred to as "Selfrealisation" by N aess and as "ecological consciousness" by Devall and Sessions" and its cultivation - effective a spiritual discipline - is considered to be the "real work" of deep ecology (pp. 86-7). This self-Self cultivation of Western deep ecology, which will be severely criticised, is far removed from the deep ecology platform upon which authentic deep ecology is centred, a mundane, secular platform concerned with real environmental issues, which is not a predominantly human psychological exercise and which does not mention 'self' or 'Self'. On the strength of the variant presentation of "deep ecology", of this elaboration of Western deep ecology, Fox feels entitled to assert that 'Sylvan has seriously misunderstood what deep ecology is about. ... Sylvan's criticisms miss their mark ... Sylvan's critique leaves deep ecology ... largely untouched' (p.5). Drengson feels entitled to enlarge this unfounded assertion: 'the critiques of deep ecology that have appeared so far have been based on misconceptions of what deep ecology is all about, and they have therefore been off the mark, or at best superficial' (p.89). The critiques that are substantial, not substantially tirades or shallow, have been substantially directed at authentic deep ecology, not at its different Western analogue. There has been no misconception or misunderstanding by such critics; they have aimed at a different target in the same broad field. On a personal level, I am quite attracted by authentic deep ecology; but I am substantially repelled by Western deep ecology. I subscribe, more or less, to the 8-point platform of deep ecology, and accordingly should be accounted a supporter of deep ecology (for all that critics are not very welcome). Though I do not care for some features of Naess's system Ecosophy T, which does provide a rickety bridge ·to Western deep ecology, N aess has always insisted that this was but one of several optional background ideological frameworks. Western deep ecology is another matter. Too much of it strikes me as like an evangelic cult, much too incidentally coupled to deep environmentalism; too much is a �39 celebration of self, human self, an expanded egoism; too much is essentially a good oldfashioned celebration of things human, a comparatively shallow celebration disguised in new environmental and avant-gard attire. Drengson has the ability to lay on these obnoxious, chauvinistic features disagreeably thick. Consider a bit of his poetic outpouring on that jumbled text, Deep Ecology: Sessions and Devall see humans as beings who are an expression of a nature deeper, more mysterious, and creative than any of our abstract theories appreciate .... it is hoped that [our] experiential encounter with the otherness of Nature transformed as Self will help us to live in such a harmonious way as to continually discover ever new wonders and value inherent in wild nature and in the natural human self. ... The book, thus is dedicated to ... presenting a philosophy of life that resolves some of our most fundamental questions, the central one of this is: how can we live truly in authentic, harmonious relationships with all beings so as to realise a maximum of intrinsic goodness? This is a question, ultimately, of what it means to become a complete, mature, fully Selfrealised human being (pp.94-5 rearranged). The statement could almost have come straight out of modem romanticism; all the same elements are there down to the maximization of human self-realisation. So presented, the new environmental paradigm of Western deep ecology is the old anti-Enlightenment movement in contemporary gear. Though I am substantially turned off by some of Western deep ecology, though I am disappointed by its apparent shallowness, by its reversion to human chauvinism, though I try to take cover when its heavy evangelism blows through, I am far from suggesting that more than critical intellectual action be taken against it. It is, after all, generally for the right sorts of things environmentally, even if it has invested too heavily in dominant notions, such as the exalted human self that a radical environmentalism should be escaping; and it is no worse intellectually than predominant creeds that are far less kind to natural environments, such as Vatican christianity and American pragmatism. Live and let live. 1. Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism. Well is Fox's response to Sylvan's critique of deep ecology entitled 'Approaching Deep Ecology'; for it does no more than approach deep ecology, it does not reach the authentic article. Instead Fox converts deep ecology into a related concoction, largely of his own (now called transpersonal ecology*). Having thus commandeered deep ecology for * Transpersonal ecology is an extreme variant of Western deep ecology, which tries, for instance, to jettison what Drengson and others retain: intrinsic goodness, intrinsic value, and the like. �40 his own purposes, it is easy for Fox to feel confident in his charge that 'Sylvan has seriously understood what deep ecology is about' (p.5). Fox's main accusation is indeed that I have seriously misunderstood what deep ecology is about, that my criticism is misdirected, and that deep ecology emerges largely unscathed. We shall see about that. But first, I want to lodge a counter-charge: Fox appears to have misunderstood a good deal of what I was about. My critique was not concerned with his position, except - in so far as it purported to be deep ecology - in passing; it was addressed to the mainstream of deep ecology. Fox's own transpersonal ecology does not belong to the mainstream of deep ecology; indeed it is doubtful that it is deep ecology at all. It tries to throw away central parts of deep ecology, the value theory in particular, and to revert to what appears, to all intents and purposes, to be a rather shallow position. But, most remarkable, it has very little to do with the natural environment; much of it is but expanded self adulation. Both Fox and N aess, in their responses to my critique, try to make some easy initial capital by pointing to the different ending of a working draft of the critique from the pluralist ending of the published version. 1 Naess uses the different endings to ground his allegation that Sylvan is uncertain what he is about, an ad hominem strategy which he presumably hopes will help to defuse substantial criticisms of deep ecology which he does not address (see his 84 and 85). Fox makes much of the different endings (almost 5 pages worth) in order to reveal an uncharitable interpretation: that already indicated, of misunderstanding, and that my 'critique leaves deep ecology .... largely untouched' (p.5). Naess and Fox seem to think that it counts against a critique that it may enjoy more than one ending, that it can leave room for doubt as to whether something should be restored or abandoned. Yet these are very much the sort of outcome a more tolerant and careful assessment may yield. Consider an old building seriously defective in main structural detail, yet with many worthwhile period features. It may be a hard question, over which there is room for uncertainty, whether it should be restored or demolished. So it is often with intellectual systems, such as deep ecology and ecosophy. By and large I am in favour of rehabilitation (see e.g. Routley 74), though from a favoured nonpluralistic 1 Though I feel a bit used, I'm not going to make anything of incomplete working drafts I naively handed out not being a fair target for commentary (it is obvious that one can be even more stupid and so forth in drafts than in more considered final versions). Much of the interesting work in and around deep ecology appears only in working draft form or in what academic snobs describe as semi-published form. �41 stance such systems as ecosophy include material destined for the intellectual scrap heap. But, in any event, I am in favour of recycling of rubbish wherever this is feasible. For anyone who adheres to a select position within an also conceded pluralistic setting, there is always more than one presentation, and more than one ending: a monistic, or singular, ending deriving from the select position, and a pluralistic ending from the setting. There is nothing particularly remarkable about this, for all that it baffles Fox. On the singular ending (of the limited edition "penultimate version" of my critique) many major themes of deep ecology go down, not because they are ' insubstantial or vacuous' (what Fox finds it convenient to infer p.2ff.), but because they are all defective, all substantially astray. So much had already been argued in the main body of the work; for instance, one sustained development aimed to demonstrate the substantial falsity of the principle of biospheric egalitarianism and its inconsistency with other principles of deep ecology. What of the last words, drawn from Eliot's Four Quartets, 'there is no one to bury'? By this, I meant: no correct doctrine, not: nothing substantial. It is true that from the singular position I did look upon several main 'ideas of deep ecology ... not even as if they were once useful ... but rather that upon closer scrutiny there is ... nothing ... [correct in] them in the first place' (p.3); from that stance I still look upon them in that way. On the final pluralistic ending what remains 2 are not the trumpeted major themes, which still go down, but a good many of the less heralded points and themes, such as departure principles in the 8-point platform of deep ecology. What can be added, furthermore, are significant variations upon some of the major themes; for instance ecospheric impartiality in place of biospheric egalitarianism. Now both Naess and Fox assume that a pluralistic ending diminishes, or ought to weaken, the force of the criticism. Not so. Naess ends his response to the critique with a relativistic complaint: 'if you have your own philosophy from which you generate the [core] position of deep ecology, ... why object to ecosophy T?' (Naess pp.3-4 reordered, also quoted in Fox). The short answer is because system T is seriously intellectually flawed. A pluralist may let such material stand, but, unlike a relativist, doesn't have to let it alone; its weaknesses can be exposed, its inferiority exhibited. Fox goes on to claim that under pluralism, which he also confuses with relativism, my 'critique loses much of its original sting and no longer constitutes the challenge to deep ecology that was formerly intended' (p.5). Again, not so; the challenge and sting remain as before. But now deep ecology is regarded more benignly; and more future work will be directed at restoration, etc. As you might now anticipate, Fox finds 'a 2 Fox's surprise about this (p.3) can be attributed to his failure to appreciate the force of 'acclaimed major themes' in the theories to be put to rest. �42 strong tension between such a pluralistic position' and the singular position which he regards as 'essentially argumentative' (p.5). But there is no tension; the singular position slots neatly into the pluralistic array. Further, both are argumentative, though neither essentially so. 3 2. Value in deep ecology Fox's 'most fundamental objection to [my] critique' is that it offers, is based upon, an 'environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology' (p.29, p.53). Given what Fox intends by 'environmental axiological interpretation' (his never properly explained terminology, not mine), which involves axiological reductionism and a certain axiological priority and hegemony throughout environmental philosophy (p.52) 4 , I deny this. My critique neither offers nor is based upon such an interpretation; and, as inspection will confirm, my other work will not bear such an interpretation 5 , I do not 'pursue environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental axiology'. What I do ascribe to deep ecology is "a value core", features of which I explain in some detail (and to which we shall have to return). But a large transformer (or similar item) does not reduce to its cores, there is much to such an item besides the core; nor do the cores pervade, dominate or guide all the rest. The core, which was introduced primarily as part of an organising structure, does not support what Fox tries to read out of it, namely an axiological reduction (back in 84, Naess thought 'core' was a 'good expression' for a quite proper part of deep ecology). In fact, I am not hooked on the term 'core'; substitution of 'value part' for 'value core' would make very little difference to the substance of my critique of deep ecology, but it would quite adversely effect Fox's response. An early example of the feebleness of Fox's reconstruction is his attempt to make my treatment of deep ecological theory outside the value core look as if it too was part of an axiological interpretation. He proceeds to argue from a title of a later section, 'Beyond the value core: metaphysical and epistemological "intuitions" of deep ecology', thus: 'as this title suggests, it is Sylvan's environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology that underpins his criticisms there (as elsewhere)' (p.29). The title was not intended to suggest, and would not normally suggest, such an interpretation; it indicated a separation of parts and 3 For much more detail on all these pluralistic matters, see my Deep Plurallism. 4 For fuller illustration of such undesirable phenomena at work in philosophy, see Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy. 5 For one example, see the jointly authored The Fight for the Forests. �43 the upcoming contents. As an argument (to be slack with this term), Fox's move is a nonsequitur. 6 Now to get down to the real adjudicational business (of this section), I claim to have been verballed by Fox.7 While I am becoming pretty accustomed to serious misrepresentation, I see Fox as ascending to new heights in this regard. For he proceeds to attribute to me major derivative theses which I nowhere presented, which do not derive from what I did present, and to which I should not, in any case, accede. Let's look straight away at some of what Fox proceeds to foist upon me. 'Sylvan assumes from the outset and proceeds upon the basis that deep ecology is ... primarily a value-in-nature position' (p.30), that is the 'primary claim' (p.31). I do not assume that deep ecology is primarily that, but that it is that among other things; 8 I do not proceed on that basis, and I never did suppose that deep ecology was primarily or only a values-in-nature position. As I say, in a clause Fox left out in the selective quotation of his indictment, deep ecology 'has been presented as a metaphysics, as a consciousness movement (and a primarily psychological), and even as a sort of (Pantheist) religion' (and in an accompanying note I mention Fox's alternative ontological focus). I am not committed to such a primacy claim (what Fox refers to as 6 As the text reveals, Fox is rather fond of making passages suggest not what they were intended to suggest or prima facie do suggest, but what he would have them "suggest" conveniently for his own unscrupulous purposes (we might even label this the suggestive fallacy). He is not averse either to considerable distortion. For example (also on p.29) he makes it look, by a clever use of sectional divisions, as if the bulk of my critique was concerned with the value part of deep ecology, when in fact I get beyond that part on p.26 in a critique of 60 pages. Of course it would not show that much even if I had devoted virtually the whole critique to the value part rather than less than a third; it could just mean that that was the part of deep ecology that interested me most, or that I ran out of energy and patience thereabouts, etc. In the present critique I ran out of these commodities and time before I had finalized a section on fallacious methodological practices in deep ecology, perhaps to be called 'fallacies of transpersonal ecology'. Next edition, perhaps. 7 Verbal is an Australian verb, alluding to fabricated evidence made up by police or official prosecutioners. Verballing was a common practice in Queensland, and is certainly used by police gangs in some other states. 8 I do begin the first "problem" section of the critique 'Deep ecology appears to be some elaboration of the position that natural things other than humans have value in themselves .. .' (Cp.1 ). But that says nothing more offensive than what can be inferred from point 1 of the 8-point platform of deep ecology, and nothing about primacy. Moreover I go on to say that the elaboration is extensive (e.g. Cp.4), a claim well illustrated by Figure 1 (Cp.5), where the "value core" comprises but a small part of the deep position. �44 'Sylvan's primary claim', p.31, p.33, p.34, p.47, p.48, p.57, p.70 and many other pages, sometimes obliquely as 'Sylvan's claims' and the like, e.g. 'Sylvan says', p.86). 'Moreover', Fox continues (p.30), 'for Sylvan, it is an objective position since its "core theme" of "values-in-nature suggests ... that natural items have value qualities independently of perceivers"'. Firstly there is a misquotation; I refer to 'core themes', which furthermore extend beyond the value part. 9 Secondly, no objectivist claim is made or follows for Sylvan. 10 On the basis of the primacy claim, in conjunction with the objectivist claim (in the case of D2 at least), Fox proceeds to foist upon me 'two derivative claims': Dl. 'deep ecology does not proceed from a general vision of reality or "underlying perception of the way things are" ' 11 , and D2. 'deep ecology is not at all concerned with the way in which we experience the world' (p.31, Fox's italics). Firstly, I do not present such claims; indeed I present a substantial amount of material incompatible with such claims, for instance in the discussion of the theme of extreme holism as regards D 1, and of cosmic identity as regards D2. Secondly, I did not and do not adhere to such claims; indeed I have put a good deal of effort into exposing the metaphysical and epistemological parts of deep ecology. Thirdly, as should be thus evident, they do not derive from what I did present in the critique. Fourthly, in particular, they do not derive from the primacy and objectivist claims. Indeed readily available counter-models will show as much. Consider a values-in-nature objectivist position such as that of Holmes Rolston, which we can conveniently call 'R(olston)'s deep ecology' (there is not even any cheating here, as Ralston's position has a better claim to be accounted deep ecology than some of the positions admitted to the club). Now simply substitute 'R's deep ecology' for 'deep ecology' throughout the "derivation" of the claims. The premiss or grounds hold, as R's deep ecology satisfies both primacy and objectivist claims; but the claims supposed to be derived do not hold, both RD 1 and RD2 fail. For example, Ralston's deep ecology is very 9 It seems to be on the basis of efforts like this misquotation that Fox feels himself justified in writing of 'Sylvan's "core claim" that deep ecology is primarily a valuesin-nature position ' (p.34). That is remote from what I do. For example, I am in trouble for dismissing a sizeable chunk of core deep ecology as rubbish; but a valuesin-nature position is not rubbish. 10 The point was explained in considerable detail in EE p.154ff, where the ugly term nonjective was deliberately introduced to remove illusions as to objectivity or subjectivity. 11 The context makes it look as if the internal quotation is drawn from me, but it is not as perusal of fn.44 will show. DI gains no support from anything I assert. �45 much concerned with the way we experience the world, as a reading of Rolston quickly discloses. Or if a clearer deep example than Rolston is demanded, there is N aess himself. Finally, unsurprisingly now, Fox has made elementary mistakes in his alleged derivations. Consider D2 first. 'This follows', Fox says, 'since value-in-nature are held to exist "out there" independently of perceivers' (p.31). But again it just does not follow, as a topic can be deeply concerned with something that enjoys some independence. You might almost as well try to say that epistemology is not at all concerned with the way in which we experience the world since primary properties are "out there" independent of perceivers. Consider next D1, where there is considerably more distortion to be exposed. Fox's "derivation" really consists of two separable parts. In the first part, Fox's thoroughly fallacious strategy is to replace 'concerned with' by 'only concerned with' and 'because' by 'simply because', as textual comparisons, of my text with what Fox draws from it, make plain. His strategy certainly makes for terrific derivations. For example, from "the Prime Minister is concerned with his sex life" we obtain the startling result that the Prime Minister is only concerned with his sex life. From the premiss that a man likes his wife because of her body we obtain without any further ado the familiar worry that he likes her simply because of her body. 'Beyond this', in a second part, there is an argument based on independence (apparently involving some misunderstanding of the notion). The argument appears to be of the form: A is independent of B, therefore A does not proceed from B. The defectiveness of such an argument is obvious enough once its form is exposed. And the defectiveness of the case in hand should have been evident to Fox. For Naess has explained many times how a person can be a deep ecologist (e.g. can adhere to the platform) without adopting (or even being aware of) the general metaphysical vision from which it proceeds. The felling of Fox's derivations brings down, like trees felled in a rainforest, a good part of the rest of the structure. For instance, there cease to be the problems Fox supposes he has found (p.32 ff.), such as difficulties of consistency in accounting for the metaphysical 'sources that supporters of deep ecology draws upon' (p.33). With that small exercise in logic, the remainder of Fox's "response" to my critique (pages 31-89 of text and miles of footnotes) is disposed of in main essentials. For pages 53-84 constitute a largely separate essay on wider identification, an essay which only bears obliquely on my critique; and most of the rest turns upon lumbering me with the claims just off loaded, the claims which 'constitute [my] very poor understanding of deep ecology' (p.31). Thus, for example, Fox expends a good deal of space upon citing authorities from deep ecology (who too often supply extremely dubious statements) directed at contradicting D 1 and D2. Obviously that is beside the point. But while my main work on Fox's dismal response is done, and I could stop here, I don't intend to, as there is a lot more heavily �46 polluting rubbish to be despatched, or recycled. One's rubbish may be another's input (therein for Moore lay the whole challenge of philosophy). 3 The extent of values-in-nature. Even a casual reader of Fox's Response will have observed the following: that Fox is very quick off the mark with (largely unsubstantiated) accusations like 'so and so has failed to grasp', 'has misunderstood', 'has ignored', 'has missed the point'; that the evidence for these ad hominem claims is often quite insubstantial; and that that 'so and so' often happens to be Sylvan. One of the many things Sylvan allegedly 'fails to grasp' is 'that (a position) deep ecology can be normative (i.e. offer prescriptive proposals) without that necessarily meaning that it is prescriptive [of this or that,] of a values-in-nature position'. Well, I thought I had a reasonable grasp upon, and had made use in print of, the distinction between prescription and evaluation (likewise deontology and axiology), and had in the critique sufficiently emphasized that shallow positions were normative but decidedly not prescriptive of values-in-nature. So what evidence does Fox present for his charge? Well, none really. True he begins his next sentence with a 'Thus', but he then rambles on with quotations of material (he has previously tried to flog to death) concerning deep ecology and value theory. But, as nearly everyone appreciates, a position may include a value theory without that theory being a values-in-nature position; shallow positions are such. Now 'Sylvan takes Naess's statement that deep ecology is normative as direct support ... the only support that Sylvan provides ... for his own ... "claim" that deep ecology is ... a value-in-nature position' (p.36 rearranged, prejudicial terms deleted). Well, he didn't take that as direct support; what he did take as support is Naess's oft-repeated assertion (quoted by Fox on the very page) that 'the significant tenets of ... Deep Ecology ... express a value priority system' (many places, e.g. 73 p.99, my italics). So it includes a value framework. Furthermore further evidence is adduced or alluded to both for the claim that deep ecology involves a value framework and that it includes a values-in-nature tenet (e.g. 'deep ecology seeks a transformation of values' Cp.29, quoting Devall; an 'egalitarian principle of equal value of all life, is "an intuitively clear and obvious value axiom"' Cp.13 quoting N aess; the restriction of this axiom to cases 'when genuine conflicts of value are absent 'Cp.14 quoting Fox; etc). Fox issues the challenge: 'where is the (objectivist) values-in-nature "core claim"?' (p.36). Of course it is right there in the platform, in the very first point which duly �47 distributes intrinsic value much more widely than humans and human features; it is also implied by the biocentric egalitarian principle; and so on. 12 What is more, although I have at long last (late 1989) read Fox's tactless Response, I am sticking to my claim that deep ecology has a value core. As it happens, I think as much is evident from Naess's recent publications (esp. 89 chapters 2 and 3). But the claim can be argued, for example as follows:- Firstly, Deep ecology has a value part. Secondly, that part is a core part. As to the first, I should begin by appealing to the value themes of the deep ecology platform, particularly points 1 and 2 which amounts values-in-nature points. Curiously, when several of the points in the platform are value themes, Fox proceeds to assert that 'biocentric ... egalitarianism ... is the deep ecological notion that most lends itself to interpretation as a value-in-nature position' (pp.31-33). Perhaps this is a diversionary tactic. It seems that it would be most convenient for Fox's anti-axiology and unauthentic view of deep ecology if critics forgot about the platform of deep ecology. The value part of deep ecology is reasonably taken as a core, i.e. as a central or inner part (to use dictionary accounts of 'core'). A number of arguments can be advanced for adopting it as a core, of which I'll indicate one 13 . The 8-point platform is a central part of deep ecology, what more or less distinguishes deep ecologists; value themes comprise a central part of this platform (the first three points as well as others such as point 7); what is a central part of a central part is indeed central. It is no doubt 'somewhat unfortunate that the 8-principles start with ethical terms ... ' (quoting Sessions p.49). Fox tries to wriggle out of that unfortunate predicament, that the 8-point platform of deep ecology - one of the few hitherto stable parts of the whole jerrybuilt structure - begins with value themes and a values-in-nature claim, by an expansion of the same shabby tactic he has already tried to use to defuse biological egalitarianism and displace apparently ethical principles of deep ecology (such as the important obligation to implement environmental commitments): Namely, the formal-axiological waste-disposal is replaced by an even grander formal-philosophical disposal - down which goes my criticism. 'Sylvan ... takes the "neutral"' (i.e. variously: literal, nontechnical, 12 It is only anomalous that the intrinsic value theme is missing Naess's early paper because it features so prominently in the platform and in parts of Naess's later work, both characterising deep ecology. Fox tries to twist the anomaly into a contradiction in my evidence (pp.36-7), but it is a shabby effort, entirely neglecting the evidence I assemble in Appendix 1 (which he quotes from however) for Figure 1 of the Critique which indicates the value core. 13 Thereby doing in, by example, another of Fox's unpleasant shotgun accusations, p.6. �48 understandable to most persons) 'formulation of basic principles as a formal philosophical position .... Thus, even such limited support for his "core claim" as Sylvan is able to find turns out to be due to mistaking an everyday language 8-point list for an ultimate expression of deep ecology in formal philosophical terms' (p.51) That I find, I confess, a ridiculous accusation and defence. I wasn't taking the basic principles at other than face value, as other than principles in a "neutral" formulation; I was, and am, 'using the word "value" in a metaphorical or everyday sense' (p.49), namely in the literal everyday non-metaphorical sense where it signifies worth. I frankly don't really know what it would be like to take deep ecology in the way Fox alleges I do, as a 'formal philosophical position' (p.49, p.51). It is not just that we are far removed from 'the ultimate expression of deep ecology in formal philosophical terms'; deep ecology is not, in the hands of Fox and friends, the sort of position that looks at all likely to obtain such formulation ever. Until it is properly made out, then, Fox's "defence" lapses. He owes us an account of what a 'formal philosophical expression' would be, by contrast with what we have, and to provide requisite evidence that Sylvan (whatever his actual intentions) was "taking" the platform in that "mistaken" way. I'm not surprised that Fox has not attempted the requisite philosophical work; I am surprised he got Session to go along with him in the intellectually disreputable ploy. I freely confess, then, my astonishment that Sessions states that he and N aess would not agree philosophically to the principles of the deep ecology platform (p.50,p.51 ). What on earth does he mean? In his own book (with Devall), these principles are presented as 'basic principles of deep ecology' (in boldface capitals, p.69), they are supplemented by a detailed commentary of a type appropriate for serious philosophical principles, and they are introduced as having 'summarized fifteen years of thinking on the principles of deep ecology' (p.69). If that doesn't make them philosophical, what in the deep ecological scheme of things would? In any case, Sessions has elsewhere been prepared, in highly philosophical contexts to ascribe intrinsic values to parts of nonhuman Nature (e.g. p.236). For Naess too there is no easy escape. Firstly, the platform is said to derive from his Ecosophy T; secondly Ecosophy T itself assigns 'intrinsic value to every life form' (89 p.164ff). But I should make an admission; deep ecology is bound to be a values-in-nature position, at least as I characterised those things. It follows from the way I explained depth and what is meant by 'values-in-nature'. That is one reason why I claim Fox's �49 transpersonal ecology is not deep ecology, because it is explicitly not a values-in-nature position. 14 Fox himself has tried various ways of avoiding values-in-nature; but, needless to say, value expressions of "in-nature" cast creep into much of his discourse. For example, the shallow/deep distinction is now "explained" (in 89 p.33), not directly in terms of value, but, to begin with, through an anthropocentric/ecocentric distinction. The trouble is that, in explaining the intended senses of contrasting terms, value slips back again (as in 'use value for humans (e.g. its scientific, recreational, or aesthetic value)'). But Fox's main chance is the "value constellation" idea, which tries to lock values away in a complex involving a valuer and a valuing relation. But nothing stops analyses of this complex, examination of components of the constellation; and for many logical purposes (such as quantification of the value end of the complex) some separation is required. 4 A biocentric ethic? It has been widely thought that deep ecology supplies 'a biocentric ethic as opposed to an anthropocentric one' 15 , that it includes at least rudiments of a value theory and leading features of an environmental ethics. But now whether deep ecology is, among other things, an environmental ethic is in increasing doubt. There are now many, not merely on the margins of deep ecology, who would question the role or significance of ethics or even dispense with it altogether. On these issues, as on others, deep ecology speaks not just with many tongues, but forked tongues as well. Fox does something to assemble the diverse voices from the deep ecology multitude (p.42ff.). Let us classify - in a preliminary way: A. Getting rid of ethics altogether. This appears to be a position taken by Livingston and by Shepard, at least in the quotes Fox supplies. There is nothing new and exciting, still less of new paradigmatic cast, about this. It is as old as ethical nihilism and scepticism, which is to say, very old, reaching back to classical Greek thought. 16 Nor are the entirely dubious supporting considerations adduced in any way new: 'ethics and morals were ... invented by one species to meet the needs of that species' p.42, or, more cynically, for the advantage of certain classes or pressure groups within that species; ethics are at best mischievous, more 14 See e.g. p.85. The matter is further discussed below. 15 Thus Bradford 89,p.10. The authentic deep ecology (of. Naess, on reliable days) certainly does. 16 For preliminary notes on the history of moral nihilism, see Hinckfuss p.17. �50 likely damaging; ethics are unsuccessful and even counterproductive in their effects (p.43); 'ethics and morals are unknown in nature' (p.42); and similar. A*. Retaining ethics, hardly intellectually revolutionary either, but B. Downgrading the whole enterprise. Such appears to be one of Naess's newer tactics, where ethics, now of minor importance, becomes an experiential epiphenomenon. 'I'm not much interested in ethics or morals. I'm interested in how we experience the world .... Ethic follows from how we experience the world' (p.46, also Naess 89 p.20 and elsewhere). Naess is doing more in this much quoted passage (which involves clear commission of the prescriptive fallacy 17 ) than expressing personal idiosyncracies; he is saying, he is taken as saying, by those who quote him, how things now stand for deep ecology (of which he is still, though losing ground, the chief guru). B*. While ethical enterprise is perhaps not downgraded, C. Ethics as usually conceived is displaced or superseded. According to Fox, "conventional ethics", which combines a code of conduct with a set of values, is displaced by an 'experientially grounded state of being' (p.41). 18 That state of being is none other than ecological consciousness, which 'precedes and preempts the search for an "environmental ethic"' (Devall quoted p.45, similarly Sessions, who also goes further, suggesting we should abandon the search for an environmental ethics' p.44). But surely it is foolish to discard useful tools (if admittedly due for repair) because something that may look brighter and shinier and does something for some agents, attracts attention; in these critical times everything that works at all is needed. A bit differently, Rodman suggests superfessions of conventional ethics (though perhaps not of a more expansive ethics), because it is an integral part of the former moral/legal stage of consciousness, conventional ethics - if not actually in the process of being superseded (in the dominant culture it is not) by a later and higher stage, of appropriate new experience - ought to be superseded, since the moral/legal stage is 'now more part of the problem than its solution' (p.43). Again all 17 Elsewhere however (e.g. Naess 89 p.24) explains how values go beyond "facts". 18 Later Fox proceeds differently, with 'deep ecology ... described as ... a position within ... "foundational ethics'" (p.86). "Foundational ethics", another exceedingly illexplained notion, is ethics as 'concerned with "understanding ourselves"' (p.86, p.113), and so part of the egocentric self nexus; it is also said to be ethics as 'concerned with development of a state of being' (p.113), the being of selves no doubt. Does "foundational ethics" supply principles and some values? If not, how does it manage to be an ethic? If so, how does it escape Fox's objections to environmental ethics? In any case, "foundational ethics" which we are supposed to search for (along with "understanding ourselves"), is intended to be an environmental ethic! �51 decidedly questionable, both historically and systematically, particularly given the prospect of a plurality of integrated techniques. C*. Instead, a radically new ethic is designed. This is of course part of what deepgreen and other radical, not merely reformist, alternatives to prevailing ethics and nature philosophies are about. It was, once upon a time, an objective of deep ecology also; it apparently no longer invariably is. But just as there is no definite position offered by deep ecology on several critical issues (esp. in ecological politics), so there is now no definite position on the place of ethics (pace p.41), as the tentative classification serves to reveal. No doubt Fox had a particular message that he wanted to be drawn from the quotations and needed for his arguments - explicit rejection of an ethical approach in favour of experience in the shape of ecological consciousness (p.47) - but what he has supplied is an entertaining pot pourri of positions, countering or jamming the message. It is ironic that Western deep ecology should have tried to opt out of ethics, at exactly the time that ethics is making a major come back, when ethics are becoming again a significant force in business and the world. Or in terms of a different image, at the very time when the ship of ethics is returning to harbour after a long period on high rough seas, Fox and friends decide to jump overboard; we hope they are strong swimmers. With ethics returned, a renewed force, what we need is not no ethics but new ethics, not to concede the power of renewed ethics over to conservative power-holders or restrictive do-gooders, but to put ethics to expansive tolerant good environmental and social works. 5. Biospheric egalitarianism revisited. The notion is terminally ill, but I fear we shall keep revisiting it until it is buried under heavy concrete. So far, for all its problems, it lives on (with apologists, Fox included, shifting ground accordingly; similarly N aess, e.g. 85 p.6). It just keeps reappearing in strong unqualified form, for instance in Sessions (recently): 'one of the first clear statements' of ecosophy 'that all individuals, species (including humans), and ecosystems have EQUAL inherent value (the ecocentric position) was made by Arne Naess when he proposed the principle of BIOSPHERICAL (ECOLOGICAL) EGALITARIANISM ... ' (89, p.11). So represented it simply succumbs to all the previous criticism (in my Critique and indirectly in EE p.139 ff.). Interestingly then both Fox and Naess appeal to 'Sessions' interpretation of biocentric egalitarianism as "a statement of non-anthropocent ricism"' (p.39), to which Fox adds, in all seriousness, 'rather than as a formal environmental axiological position'. In a revealing passage, Sessions puts it rather differently, 'Biocentric egalitarianism is essentially a rejection of human chauvinistic ethical theory and the criteria �52 used to ascribe rights and value; it is a reductio ad absurdum of conventional ethics. Biocentric egalitarianism is essentially a statement of non-anthropocentricism' 19 . This statement does not hang together. For instance, non-anthropocentricism is weaker than rejection of human chauvinism, which on its own is not a reductio ad absurdum of all conventional ethics (because, first off, not an argument, and because, second, of the character of some "conventional" ethics such as intuitionism). Without the logically inadmissible loop through anti-human chauvinism (the deep-green position) the situation is worse still; for, on the contrary, rather conventional British utilitarianisms such as Smart's and Singer's are robustly nonanthropocentric. By so excessively eroding its egalitarian principles, deep ecology loses much depth. In a passage which Fox says 'greatly clarifies the confusion that has surrounded Naess's notion', Naess too, again over-influenced by his minders, takes a similar pathetic course. The principle had previously 'suggest[ed] a positive doctrine, and that is too much'! 'The importance of the intuition' contracts to 'its capacity to counteract' certain chauvinistic hubris. What Fox manages to draw out of these counteracting principles are, however, not principles at all, but an orientation to or general attitude of non-interference, "Letting be", etc. This is not just considerably removed from what N aess offers; it is pretty remote from egalitarianisms. For one can let inferiors, and what is of no inherent value, be, spare and preserve them, perhaps for later exploitation. But what Fox is really concerned to draw from his authorities is the concession (they do not make, nor did he himself formerly) that the principle of biospherical egalitarianism is not a principle, not a position at all (a curious thing to think it was), but something much less definite, less positive, less specific, less open to criticism, a more general attitude, no doubt underlying ethical practice, but definitely not part of an environmental axiology. Poor deluded critics like Sylvan who supposed that a principle is a principle have 'missed' 'the extremely important point' that for supporters of deep ecology a "principle" is but a general attitude. These supporters indeed feel that treating a principle as a principle can do more harm than good, 'and so have deliberately chosen not to take the environmental axiological route' (p.41). There ends Fox's diversion on biospheric egalitarianism. What it comes to is this:- Had the principle been a principle, within environmental axiology, the criticism made of the principle would at 19 Quoted by Fox in a quote that never ends (p.39). In this mismash, Session proceeds to draw upon our material against human chauvinism and conventional ethics, having first dismissed us, referring to EE p.139, as 'mistak[ing] what Naess is up to. Naess's position is not ... "an extension of conventional Western ethics"'. As it happens, we don't mention Naess at all either on p.139 or in our discussion of extensionalism: how do we mistake what Naess is up there to when we don't consider what he is up to? Back in the 70s deep ecology was, after all, not a significant position. �53 the very least constitute a powerful challenge (p.38); but fortunately it is not, "positive doctrines" are too open to criticism! It is only a general attitude concerning reluctance to harm other living beings (p.40). 20 Egalitarianism, of value as well as principle, has dropped out in this rather shallow evasion. 6. The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology and the condemned "environmental axiological route". Fox wants to distance deep ecology from value theory but is also aware, from time to time, that this is not really possible. As a result his position on the relation of deep ecology to value theory is decidedly ambiguous at best, and at worst inconsistent. The tensions appear within the space of a single page (e.g. p.85). We are told both that 'deep ecology is not [a] position within environmental axiology' and that 'it could be quite mistaken to think' that deep ecology 'stands outside ... value theory'. Whence inconsistency results, given that axiology has its normal technical sense. 21 But there is evidence that Fox intends significantly more by 'axiology' than normal - as well as adopting the normal sense: so that behind the initial inconsistency stands another inconsistency. What precisely Fox does intend remains however obscure, scandalously obscure. For one of Fox's main accusations against critics of deep ecology 22 , is that critics are committed to 'environmental axiological reductionism', they 'pursue environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental axiology', so they are blind to what 'deep ecology thinkers are really on about', which (negatively) consists in 'rejection of the "environmental axiological route"' (pp.51-53). Among these critics, mired in "ethical reductionism", blind to the new paradigmatic character of deep ecology which 20 Or presumably otherwise negatively interfere with other natural things - otherwise the reformulation, though apparently platitudinous, is too narrow, discriminating against some parts of nature. The harm reformulation is borrowed from Devall and Session, who try to make biospherical egalitarian and Self-realisation interpenetrate: 'Biocentric equality is intimately related to the all inclusive Self-realisation in the sense that if we harm the rest of Nature then we are harming ourselves' (p.56). Unfortunately in the ordinary sense of 'harm' the latter claim is entirely false; as I previously remarked, it is all too easy to harm parts of Nature without harming ourselves, with but negligible impact on ourselves. 21 The word 'axiology' does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But no doubt it means the investigation, study and theory of value or worth, and is thus tantamount to value theory, as contrasted however with deontology. What it means will soon become an issue: see below. 22 Yes, it remains an unduly adversial intellectual game, part of the long Britishscholastic history of philosophy. �54 has taken as a guiding star precisely avoidance of the "axiological route", is the hapless Sylvan; the tenacity with which he sticks to his indefensible account of deep ecology is largely explained through these features (p.52). For explanation of some of the operative abusive terminology we are referred elsewhere, to other writings of Fox. But the source is scarcely more informative, and indeed relevant parts of it have, in any case, been lifted for Fox's Response. 23 The promise of explanation is not fulfilled. 'Ethical reductionism' is, like its successor 'environmental axiological reductionism', explained by Fox on the run, which is to say it is not explained. Nor is the reductionist charge sustained. For what is offered, what 'the vast majority of environmental philosophers' are alleged to do, the pursuit of 'environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental ethics/axiology', may well reflect undue concentration, but it is not reductionism. Fox is decidedly adept in the fallacious business of sliding terms around (otherwise known as Humpty Dumptyism). 'Reductionism' and 'axiology' are not the only terms that suffer at his hands; so, relevant to our purposes, does 'ontology'. At least in the context of his "guiding stars" paper, parts of which are shunted into his Response, Fox uses 'ontology' to mean, not what it does mean, roughly 'the general study of what exists', but very differently, the 'underlying perception of the way things are', which, among other things, epistemologizes what was part of metaphysics. In those terms, 'deep ecology's guiding star ... [which] is (and should be) ... this attempt to shift the primary focus of environmental philosophical concern from ethics to ontology' becomes an epistemological diversion: a regressive attempt to move environmental philosophy to anthropic experiential concerns (Fox 84 p.204 rearranged). It is evident, by the way, who is attempting to do this shifting. If epistemologists focus their efforts on a tiny number of tiny epistemological problems, if logicians discuss only quantificational logic, they cannot be significantly accused of reductionism; they would have 23 While many sorts of recycling are of course commendable, reservations should be held about academic recycling of earlier papers, especially when no improvements are attempted. Fox does at least attempt some "improvements" to get around the obvious objection that deep ecology is itself a normative and hence ethical route; but the adjustments he infiltrates actually make other matters worse. For they consist of the replacement of 'ethical' by 'axiological' or 'environmental axiological' or similar. So now, for instance, the journal Environmental Ethics is charged with reflecting environmental axiological reductionism (p.106); but as examination quickly shows the journal carries much ethical material which is not axiological (e.g. on rights and obligations) - evidently it also carries much that is not reductionistic and even some that concerns philosophy of nature rather than ethics. Fox's charges are without proper foundation. �55 also to claim that is all there is to their enterprise, and to make some attempt to show how the apparent remainder comes down to that. These further necessary conditions are not fulfilled in the case of 'the vast majority of environmental philosophers'; apart from a small minority of philosophers associated with the "ethics without philosophy" idea here is nothing approaching a requisite reduction framework. No doubt there is an axiological reduction program, pursued by consequentalists of various brands, but that is predominantly a program within ethics. As well the long-running naturalistic reduction program grinds on unsuccessfully. But there is no recognisable environmental philosophy reduction program; nor could such a program hope to succeed. There are suitably many counter-instances to Fox's large accusations; among them, conveniently, is that main target, Sylvan, who does not take an "environmental axiological route". In print I have come out against reduction of deontic notions and normative discourse generally to axiological terms; and have, in any case, made it perfectly plain that environmental philosophy comprises much more than ethics, certainly including parts of politics, philosophy of nature, metaphysics and so on. 24 Thus Sylvan, so far from 'criticis[ing] deep ecology on the erroneous basis of it being a position or approach within environmental axiology' (p.101), does not himself take the alleged "environmental axiological route", as the record shows. Rather than rely on my record (a political expedient that should engender but little philosophical enthusiasm), I'm tempted to issue a countercharge: insofar as Sylvan is committed to an "environmental axiological route" so also is (authentic) deep ecology, as elaborated by Naess. Consider, for instance, Naess's elaboration of the deep ecological platform. But in sustaining this counter-charge (the detailed support involves a comparison, made in Bennett and Sylvan, of deep-green theory with authentic deep ecology), we come up once again against the problem of what is meant here by 'axiology'. Unremarkably Fox deploys the fallacious method of redefinition. By 'axiology' and its compounds, Fox both means what is normally meant and also means significantly more. Hardly necessary by now to add, he manages to slide from one to the other. In the normal way, axiology, or value theory, is the philosophical study of virtue and values, 'their meaning, characteristics, origins, types, criteria and epistemological status (p.100, quoting Angeles). 24 So far so good. But now for the first twist and slide. 'In the area of See EP, e.g . p.188, p.222, and several works in the Green series. In the early 70s when there was briefly some glimmer of hope that the Australian National University might interest itself in environmental philosophy, I sketched out a perspective of what it might comprise, which I reproduce as an Appendix (if I can find it!). �56 environmental ethics, the axiological concept of intrinsic value plays a fundamental role. 25 . . . On this understanding, environmental ethics is more accurately described as environmental axiology ... ' (p.100). This is a major non-sequitur. It would almost as well be said that because induction plays a fundamental role in philosophy of science, philosophy of science is more accurately described as induction-theory, and even amounts to induction-theory! Plainly it is quite inaccurately described as induction-theory, since there is much else to philosophy of science; what makes matters still worse is that there are schools which contend that induction drops out as a method and so as a problem. Rather similarly environmental ethics is much more inaccurately redescribed as environmental axiology because, but not only because, there is much more to ethics than axiology, the whole matter of proper conduct for example. For value only impacts on action and proper conduct by way of further principles which are not themselves part of value theory. It is obvious that value theory does not in general exclude what is not (without further ado) a part of it, such as deontic theory, moral epistemology, and so on; but the obvious gets lost sight of, as when Fox assumes that environmental axiology rules out experiential and empathetic procedures. Fox attempts rather more than adjustment and exclusion in his "redescription" of normal environmental ethics as environmental axiology; he has to if his charges against environmental axiology (on the face of it a harmless enough study), and the importance of avoiding it, are to begin to stand up. 25 Fox backs up this claim with themes drawn from Callicott and Regan, with which it is said 'most environmental philosophers would agree', (p.100). Maybe others do; but I doubt that they should, not without significant qualification. Regan states that 'the development of what can properly be called an environmental ethic requires that we postulate inherent value in nature'. Firstly, that is only one way to try to develop an environmental ethic (which may not be deep). There are other feasible starting points and primitives: rights, justice, respects, fairness, empathy, identification, utility, vandalism, evil, and so on, in terms of which value may (or may not) be subsequently be defined (e.g. along lines that tempted former philosophers: what it is fitting/right, for any rational being to prefer/desire). Secondly, the term 'postulate' at best grates, at worst gets the picture seriously wrong: value may not be self-evident, assumed without proof, imposed as a demand, ... . Callicott describes 'the problem of intrinsic value in nature ... as the most critical and most recalitrant theoretical problem of environmental ethics'. That already presupposes that an ethics starts out in Regan's sort of way. Even if a deep ethics does take value as primitive, that is but one problem among several, a problem blown up to critical exaggerated size, primarily by opponents of environmental ethics and infiltrators of the ranks. For other major problems for any ethics, and a more balanced view, see Broad's final chapter. �57 We can glean further information as to what is loaded into the terminology from what Fox tries to do. An environmental axiology is the same as a (formal) environmental axiological position, and that as a formal value theory (pp.40-41; the word 'formal' can be inserted or left out, in Fox it appears to function primarily as a con-term). Such theories, which are "theoretical" and "definite", contain as well as • a value theory, and perhaps also a rights theory (e.g. p.35), both • exact principles, offering specific positional guidance, which are • positively formulated • which apply to all situations, and • a code of conduct, no doubt made up from the principles. 26 Some of Fox's criticisms of environmental axiology turn on these further, and excessively exacting, features he has tried illegitimately to incorporate into axiology. At this stage, there are two main confusions:- first, as to the extent of ethics and moral theory that axiology comprehends, and secondly as to the character of the principles axiology (and, for that matter, deontology and praxis) is supposed to include. A value theory on it own yields neither a rights' theory nor a code of conduct. Even a highly and objectionably reductive theory such as consequentialism requires principles drawn from outside value theory, such as that one ought to act so as to maximize value or utility, in order to arrive at principles of conduct and actionable rights. A value theory may include principles but these are principles concerning value. Like other principles, like those of deontology, they may well not measure up to the excessive standards Fox tries to impose. In particular, the principles may be defeasible, may include or presuppose unspecified and unlistable exceptions; they may include ceteris paribus clauses; and so they may well not apply in all situations. They may fall far short of supplying necessary and/or sufficient conditions; they may not be positively formulated (prohibitions in such forms as 'Don't ... ' are commonplace in ethics); and so on. 26 As well, it seems to be assumed that an axiology, and indeed an Anglo-American ethics, must be atomistic and individualistic; they are but 'means of structuring the interactions of atomistic individuals' (p.112). Not so. It is worth remarking that deep-green theory assumes neither atomism nor individualism (see EP). Nor does it pursue or assume any of the following reductive practices: deontic to axiological, or vice versa; environmental philosophy to environmental ethics, or vice versa; axiological notions to a unique set of primitives, or the single primitive value. As there are several ways to disable a bulldozer, so there are many ways to enable an environmental philosophy: value is but one starting point. �58 7. The "case" against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological approach' (p.82). Among the 'serious problems' encountered are said to be those, now hoary, issues concerning intrinsic value, which Fox tosses up in a substantially shallow way. For most environmental ethicists, it is difficult to see how something can have value in itself (i.e. intrinsic value) if it isn't valuable to itself, and to be valuable to itself it must be able to matter to itself or, in other words, be sentient, by which is meant that it must possess the capacity to suffer (p.73)27_ This contention is at least dubious clause by clause, and overall profoundly mistaken. The critical transformation, for deep environmentalism, is centred on that of value in to valuable to (or of value to). It is difficult to see why any environmental thinker would accede to such a transformation, in itself and to itself being so very different in meaning (e.g. consider them coupled respectively with such terms as conspicuous, unusual, etc.) But, in any event, there are several sorts of evident counter-examples to such transformations. Firstly, there are examples from outside environmental territory such as works of art, intellectual theories, and transcendental metaphysical gems. A beautiful theory or a resplendent form can be intrinsically valuable without being of value to itself, without being able to matter to itself, etc. Secondly, there are examples like rare seed, embryonic valuables, and the like. Thirdly, there are sentient or conscious items of intrinsic value that are not valuable to themselves, and do not matter to themselves, such as great but utterly modest people. There is much else wrong in the connections Fox delivers up 28 , but we can bypass most of them (e.g. sentience does not mean a capacity to suffer, as shown by perceptually aware creatures who do not suffer because they have no pain receptors and the like; nor is sentience required, as consciousness will serve for mattering; and so on). 27 It is hard to credit that someone fronting up as a deep environmental thinker could present such stuff, but of course various reasons can be found. While the argument is very bad, there is no doubt, what is no excuse, that worse can be found. For instance, what is intrinsically valuable is valuable in itself, so it must have a self, so it must be sentient, etc. 28 Fox subsequently announces the 'link between something not mattering to itself ... and the conclusion that we can do as we will with it ... sacred in the Environmental Axiological Orthodox Church of Intrinsic Value' (p.80). It is a Church of his own fabrication, at which no respectable deep environmentalist would worship or even be found. �59 Fox runs straight on to an old paradigm assertion by Frankena, from whom he borrowed the argument, which he again proceeds to ascribe (without any evidence offered or, I suspect, any research basis)to most environmental ethicists 29 : 'I do not see, however, how anything can have intrinsic value except the activities, experiences, and lives of conscious sentient beings (persons, etc.)' (Frankena, quoted p.73). Frankena's assertion, as it stands utterly unsupported, 'is a powerful one', according to Fox, again displaying his shallow proclivities: 'What difference does it make how I treat something if it cannot matter to itself?' (p.78) Big differences, not merely to those in a region for whom it may matter, but in the region, if Fox dams the last wild river in the region, cuts down the last lowland rainforest. Fox tops his astounding move by dignifying this shallow rubbish by the title 'powerful argument'. Its power 'is evidenced by the fact that those who want to say rocks or trees have intrinsic value often do so by pure assertion rather than providing an argument for their view (140)' (p.78). That's no evidence, it's irrelevant; and I wouldn't pursue it, were not such a familiar utterly shallow complaint built into the alleged evidence, and were Sylvan not roped in again in a footnote as 'another case in point' (p.112 note 140). It may come as news to Fox (who seems to have read little of what I have written before he rushed out his Response), but I do provide arguments, including those built on examples like the Last Person and the Last Sentient Creatures, examples which have obtained a fair bit of exposure (for some of these, see e.g. EP pp.121-132; and in fact a general argument can be developed from the semantical analysis of value). The certainties of Frankena's dogmatic assertion can be whittled away, first by separating conscious from sentient (after all many people can now see that animals that are not conscious persons can have intrinsic value), second by assembling marginal cases and analogies in a now familiar way, then by counter-arguments, and so on. But, in any case, insofar as environmental ethicists (as distinct from conventional ethicists) continue to side with Frankena that reveals them as a rather reactionary lot, significantly lagging popular thinking. 30 As Naess and others report, many non-philosophers have no difficulty in recognising value-in-itself outside persons, in living creatures and natural objects. 29 There is evidence that these ascriptions are mere desk-chair speculation, in fact of little value; e.g. at the bottom of p.78 where Fox says, of Frankena's position, 'I think it represents the dominant position within ... environmental axiology'. I suspect that, once again, Fox is not duly separating environmental axiology from conventional axiology. 30 The chauvinism of traditional ethical systems is enough to explain the comparative lack of intellectual interest in such moribund systems, and the resulting much wider search for roots, ideas, etc. There is accordingly no serious puzzle as to the sources of deep environmentalism (pace Fox p.74). �60 In the course of trying to get his attack on the environmental axiological framework airborne Fox resorts to some extraordinary distortion and falsification. The looseleaf insert (page 79), where some disenchanted thinkers make an abrupt unexplained entry, affords a good illustration. First we are told that what those in the business (except no doubt some enlightened deep ecologists) 'typically fail to realise is that the environmental axiological framework of discourse so dominates the discussion of our relationship with the natural world that it is mistakenly taken to be the only possible approach' (p.79). This claim is, it seems to me, roundly refuted by the history of the discussion and some of the literature it encompasses. Among other approaches there are, for instance, extended rights (e.g. Stone), environmental justice (e.g. Wenz), extended interests (e.g. Johnson), and negatively ethical nihilism (e.g. Hinckfuss). Fox continues unabashed: 'In other words [!], the hegemony of the environmental axiological framework is such that it has led almost everybody involved in the ecophilosophical debate to think that we have an obligation to care for something if and only if it "has" intrinsic value' (p.79). There's some prime rubbish for you. The charge is manifestly false, seriously flawed, plucked from thin air, and unnecessary except for Fox's misguided mission. Even if an axiological approach were the only approach, no such obligation-to-care principles would follow, and certainly not principles as dubious or refutable as those given. The if -half of the unabashed claim is at, the very, least dubious and would be rejected on some popular positions: suppose, for instance that the intrinsic value of the thing is small, or that it is overridden by the intrinsic value of some competitor for our attention. The only-if-half (which wins Fox's italics, he is going to make much of it) would be rejected by almost everyone who thought about the matter, because of course obligations apply to what has merely instrumental value. If I have borrowed a friend's tools then I have an obligation to care for them though these tools have no intrinsic value. Differently, I am under obligations to behave generally in certain sorts of ways whether the things encountered have intrinsic value or not; accordingly I'm not entitled to treat them any old way (e.g. to vandalise them) or even as I will or, more ambiguously, as I 'see fit'. Combining the pernicious principles Fox has unearthed yields the following ridiculous result: if a thing has no value to itself, for instance has ceased to be of value to itself, then we have no obligation to care for it, we can do what we like with it. The applications of this result are remarkable. There is no doubt that Fox has thereby provided a simple - if appalling - solutions to such major social problems as those of drug and alcohol abuse; victims who are so far down the track that they have ceased to be of value to themselves, can simply be vanished, or dealt with in whatever other way we find convenient. Then too human slavery and sacrifice, never entirely vanquished, could be widely reinstated: Oh brave new world that Fox has lead us into! �61 Fox tries to make a lot out of these odious obligation-to-care principles he has attempted to foist upon environmental axiology. He suggests they indicate the need to abandon rather than broaden the notion of intrinsic value; he suggests they may 'reflect the inherent limitations of the environmental axiological approach' (p.79); he suggests that we need to find instead 'another framework of discourse that can articulate' our feelings about what we ought to care about. This alternative framework - from the many and various that might have been selected - is none other than the wider self identification framework. The obvious course, which should be pursued anyway, of seeking an obligation-to-care principle that does measure up better to our emotional presentations, does not seem to have occurred to Fox, so preoccupied is he with attacking what he sees as "the environmental axiological route" and getting to self immersion. Finally, Fox runs out some examples which are supposed to show the repugnant conclusions to which the axiological approach leads. Unfortunately for Fox's case, the arguments involved do not succeed without further assumptions beyond those Fox enumerates, assumptions smarter adherents of an axiological approach do not make. The examples involve comparisons of groups of individuals, which, it is alleged, exponents of intrinsic value cannot discriminate, though the group situations are very different. One example runs as follows: ' ... the loss, by human interference at least, of the last members of a species ... is somehow "worse" than the loss by human interference of an equivalent number from an abundant species ... . Yet, in terms of intrinsic value, those losses are equivalent since the same "amount" is lost in both cases' (p.80). Fox then argues against more holistic assignments of value on the basis of another dogmatic pronouncement from 'Frankena that communities (such as species ... ) do not "have intrinsic value over and above that contained in ... [their] members"' .31 But he goes on to assert that, irrespective of Frankena's position, 'the point ... applies generally to any atomistic environmental axiological position i.e. to any position that sees intrinsic value as exclusively adhering in or attaching to individual entities' (p.81). Fox is dead wrong. The case assumes, without warrant or mention, equality of the value adhering or assigned to individuals. Plainly the loss of the last members of the species is worse (where it is, e.g. the species is not a diabolical laboratory concoction) because the members of the species are individually more valuable than those of the abundant species. Consider, for comparison, the razing by fire of 31 Fox's second example actually contains the elements of an interesting argument (perhaps, to be uncharitable, the only example in his whole Response). This example, of monoculture vs diversity (p.81), does introduce, if not much of holism, at least relational features of the individuals assembled. There is no reason, of course, why axiology should not take account of those features. Contrary to Fox, there is no need to 'separately posit' that the principle of diversity is 'valuable in and of itself' (p.82). �62 two art galleries containing the same numbers of individual art works, one containing rare art works, the other containing selections from the abundant works of relatively indifferent crafters. The amount, assessed in monetary value even, lost in the first fire is much greater, and so the loss much worse, than in the second fire. Fox not only proceeds to state what his examples would show without due qualification. But he goes on, quite inadmissibly, to general claims which leave off even the qualifications he had earlier introduced (thus later on, p.82, he drops the essential restriction to atomistic positions). Environmental axiology accordingly emerges substantially unscathed; it does not need to be replaced by something else, such as wider identification, only rendered smarter, and supplemented or merged into a fuller environmental philosophy. 8. Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification. But Wes tern deep ecology is now bent upon replacement. Devall, for example, now maintains that 'the unique contribution that deep ecology makes to ecophilosophy is its emphasis on ecological self and affirmation. Subscribing to similar ideas Fox has suggested changing the label "deep ecology" to "transpersonal ecology".' Devall (in 89 again) has deep ecology as, above all, discovering 'an aspect of our self' which has been culturally neglected. Such a reorientation is significantly at variance with Naess's introduction and initial elaboration of deep ecology; for his original summary (in 73) of deep ecology, which is ecologically focussed, contains no allusion to self, ecological or other. It is also at variance with Devall and Sessions of but three years earlier, where nature, ecology and biological systems still appeared fundamental to deep ecology, these entering through the other ultimate norm (besides Self-realisation) of deep ecology, that of biocentric equality (see their p.66). As it happens, Devall, by contrast with Fox, vacillates between a more authentic deep ecology in the style ofNaess (chapter 1 of Devall 89) and the Western variant of transparent ecology (e.g. pp.39-57), which would displace the original theory. There is much speaking with many tongues, much inconsistency, in deep ecology. We have already witnessed such deep ecology doubletalk in the matter of value and the status of ethics. We see it again with transpersonal or expanded-self identification. We only enter 'the real territory of deep ecology' according to Fox (p.53ff.) with such expanded identification. Yet one can be a deep ecologist, much literature explains, without any identification efforts at all (for example by adopting the platform which does not mention identification). So one can be a deep ecologist without ever 'entering deep ecological territory'. Deep ecology without deep ecology - another wonder, or just more double talk? Like Fox's parting flourish: there are sketch maps for deep ecological territory (p.89), yet it is 'ultimately mapless' (see Devall 89 p.39). �63 Fox tries to explain "the search" of deep ecology 'for such things as "ecological consciousness" (Devall and Sessions) and "Self-realisation" (Naess)' through expanded identification. Most conveniently he can take ready-made from Devall and Sessions reductive explications:- 'Ecological consciousness is the result of a psychological expansion of the narrowly encapsulated sense of self as isolated ego, through identification with all humans (species chauvinism), to finally an awareness of the identification and interpenetration of self with ecosystem and biosphere' (Sessions, quoted pp.53-4). 'The essence of ecological consciousness ... [is] to overcome this illusory dichotomy [between Humans and N ature 32 ]' for which 'the important task is ... the psychological development from narrow egotistical "self' to identification with the whole' (Devall as quoted p.53). But, once again, it is one thing to have on authority such explication; it is quite another thing whether such reductions work. I submit that they do not, for the simple reason that ecological consciousness may be had or attained without any such self expansion developments. Consider, first, Professor Flatpan who is a devoted but unimaginative ecological field worker. All his practice, behaviour and so on, shows him as utterly committed to ecological causes, preservation of wilderness and so on, and fully conscious of its importance. But he makes no identification of himself with what he works with or for. It may be that he is some sort of empirical separatist; or it may not. Perhaps he even rejects identification suggestions when they are put to him, e.g. on grounds of hubris, nonsense, ... , or he simply doesn't identify, etc. In Professor Flatpan and his variants we seem to have a tribe of people with strong ecological consciousness and affiliations but without identification. Consider next, the interesting Wombat tribe, superb in their tribal treatment of their environment, who have not developed the notion of self or, for that matter, that of identification. The tribe exhibits a high ecological consciousness (in our ordinary understanding of that non-technical notion, in terms of a strong perception or awareness of environmental matters) but lacks even the conceptual apparatus for self expansion developments. Expanded identity or self developments may serve as useful or powerful tactics for raising ecological consciousness in people raised and hooked on a narrow self-interested self, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for explaining or understanding ecological consc10usness. Analogous points apply against the attempt to drag Self-realisation into the picture. 32 Naess, in a regressive move, now asserts that humans are unique (e.g. in 89), whence the dichotomy ceases to be illusory. More inconsistency. �64 There are in fact at least three separable notions which deep ecology has tended to fuse: ecological consciousness, widened identification and wider Self-realisation. Confusion is made so much the easier because those notions are, for the most part, not decently introduced. The whole deep ecological theory of expanded identification and Self remains exceedingly poorly explained (thus e.g. identification in Fox, esp. p.60; dimensions of Self, p.83). As ecological consciousness has already been distinguished, it remains to begin on unscrambling identification and self-realisation, and therewith the many senses of self In the first place, identification is independent of self, its manifestation or "realisation", at least to this extent: that discourse concerning identification can be explained and can proceed satisfactorily without any introduction of or notion of selves. A theory may well include identification, and even expanded identification with remote items, without selves or expanded selves. Early Taoism appears to illustrate the point well. Differently, an ontologically modest account of acting can afford a good example of how identification can operate without persona or selves. In fact, a case can be argued that such theories proceed better in this fashion, because they avoid problematic commitments to selves. It may look as if Fox, following Naess and Wilber, can escape these problems, and separation, simply by defining 'self' through identification (and perhaps conversely): 'succinctly: Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.54). There are serious obstacles to such a stratagem. d Elsewhere Fox makes quite a fuss about ontological commitments; on the matter of cluttering up the universe with Selves he is strangely silent. Yet there are rather a lot of these strange selves. Assuming selves do not reproduce themselves, in a universe where there are n objects, and so 2n -1 complexes, and m individuals with selves (with m << n), there are, at first estimate, m x (2n -1) larger selves. Of course some of these larger selves may be the same, nonetheless the number of selves is huge where n is large. Moreover, if a person can identify with nonexistent, with Sherlock Holmes or Pegasus or Satan if not with the form of the Good and the set of all sets, then the numbers shoot right up, into the big infinities. Yet nothing is more common in this arena than for people to identify with fictional objects, of books, TV and so on. Indeed the art of acting depends heavily upon it. A character actor works to identify with the character being portrayed; a good actor enjoys more success in this identification enterprise. d It does not in any case evade ontic issues, because the definition requires that which abstraction which a modest theory would not have generally available. d There are questions as to the adequacy of such an explicative definition of self: whether, for example, it answers duly to prevailing senses of 'self'. The proposal does not. Consider, to bring out just one deficiency, two different but closely integrated creatures, �65 Arthur and Martha say, who identify with the same class of items including themselves and each other. Then on the Naess-Fox definition, it follows, counter-intuitively, that Arthur's Self = Martha's Self, though Arthur @ Martha. Part of what has gone wrong is evident from recent philosophical investigations, namely that the first person point of view, crucial to such items as a self or a spirit or a soul or an ego, has got omitted; a widened self involves some sort of (concentric) expansion from, or focused upon, a first-person self. 33 Normally in religious settings, it is furthermore expansion outwards from an inner personal locus by restrictive identification or selective identification (as Wilber has it), not arbitrary identification. 9. Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the issue of evil. Restrictive practices can remove a serious problem for identification theory, the problem of evil identifications, but they raise an equally serious problem, how the re intrusion of value is to be avoided. Fox is vaguely aware that 'the concept of intrinsic worth' may intrude in discussions of Self-realisation. But he assumes, much too facilely, that it can be simply removed (p.56). Devall's later writings should have alerted him to the problems of those who identify with anti-environmental objects or causes, such as beach buggies, symbols of power like bulldozers or tanks , or sand mining opportunities. Identification is not always with the good, with good guys or good causes, as selective deep ecology examples invariably suggest (e.g. p.60, with sea turtles, tigers and gibbons). Spinoza, one of the progenitors of the theory, avoided the problem of evil attachments and causes by envisaging primarily identification with Nature or God, assumed ipso facto to be good. But Naess and Sessions allow for a much wider range of identifications, with the whole human race, which may overall be evil (for all that conventional ethics assert), or with undoubtedly evil human groups or organisations (e.g. the German S.S. or the Mafia). Such expanded identification is hardly to be recommended or encouraged. 33 The person touch is too narrow, unless animals are persons. For there appear to be no serious difficulties in ascribing selves to animals. Of course, if consciousness (or circularly self-consciousness) is written into the notion of self, as with some of the dictionary senses, then selves will be restricted to those animals that enjoy consciousness, a quite extensive class overlapping humans. In a different sense, tied to an original meaning of 'self as same, or one and the same used esp. prepositionally in referring back, there is no difficulty in ascribing selves much more widely. Thus we naturally say of a forest, 'It looks after itself', of an automata or even boomerang, 'It came back itself'. The broad philosophical sense (first part of sense 3 in OED) in terms of individual essences, what a thing really and intrinsically is, haecceity, certainly admits selves for forests! �66 There are criticisms, yet to be answered (though initiated in my Critique), that the "widened identification route" introduces virtually as many problems as it would resolve, and that it cannot proceed independently of what it is supposed to offer an alternative to (p.53), the pernicious "environmental axiological route". In a passage quoted from Seed part of the problem is glimpsed, though Fox who emphasizes the relevant passage fails to observe it: 'It is only by identification with the whole process that correct values will emerge' (p.63). Why? Because, as in Spinoza, "the whole process" is assumed Good, while anything less may not be; a distribution of value is presupposed. How furthermore does a disciple ensure that a proper totalising identification is made? By confirming that correct values do emerge. In brief, then, identification theory is no substitute for valuation theory, but an addition to it. Moreover, it is not an entirely essential addition, however psychologically useful. With the reintrusion of value or the like, the acclaimed superiority of the wider identification approach over the environmental axiological approach lapses. The claim, for which Fox offers initial but unpersuasive defence (p.77 on), is based on another mistake: the mistake, already observed, of thinking that value theory excludes identification. But it need not: selective identification can complement intrinsic value. Very selective identification reveals as well how a theory of heightened Self can be substantially independent of widened (unrestrictive) identification. In showing independence Hinduism, as sometimes presented (e.g. by Smith), affords an admirable example. Hinduism supposes a diminution or deepening of the self to the underlying Self, a route of self-abnegation; but that is taken to be equivalent, by inversion, to a unique expansion of self to approximate a God's eye viewpoint (of things sub specie aeternitas ). 34 34 Whereas Western approaches aim to enlarge the self - as with stock aggrandizement, or Western deep ecology expansion - Indian approaches are concerned primarily with contracting upon the self, to reduce individual expectations, aspirations, wants (to nothing on some accounts). For a resolution of life with disappointments, the (negative) suggestion is: 'if the ego were to have no expectations, there would then be nothing to disappoint' (Smith p.26). But interestingly, there is supposed to be a positive inversion of self abnegation which turns it into self expansion. Expand 'the interests of the self ... to the point of approximating a God's-eye view .. . . Seeing, thus, all things "under the aspect of eternity", would not one become completely objective towards oneself, accepting failure as being as natural an occurrence as success ... . How can defeat disappoint if one feels the joy of the victor as if it were one's own?' (p.26). 'Detachment from the finite self or attachment to reality as a whole ... positive or negative ... ' (p.27). One path to God, to oneness with the Godhead (Brahman), that through knowledge, jnana yoga, strikingly resembles Western deep ecology in some of its features and terminology. The 'Yoga of knowledge is said to be the shortest path to divine realisation (to God). It is also the steepest' (p.35). For intellectuals, introverts and the like 'Hinduism proposes a series of meditations and logical demonstrations �67 While Hinduism does also make room for expansions of selves through time, so as to 'rise above the present and even above present lifespans' (p.28) these expansions are tied to lifelines of single creatures (perhaps as reincarnated). There is no technical provision for unlimited wider identification, for instance identification with inanimate items, with a motorcycle or nuclear reactor. Thus Hinduism can serve to show the independence of unrestrictive expanded identification from self-Self theories. Evidently, too, variations on self-Self (e.g. with more ascetic theories of big Self) can strengthen this result. designed to convince the thinker that there is more to him than his finite self; ... [to] shift his central concern to the deeper reaches of his being ... the larger self that lies behind ... ' (p.33). One 'must pierce and dissolve the innumerable layers of manifest personality until all strata of the mask [all roles of the persona] are at length cut through, [to] arrive finally at the anonymous and strangely unconcerned actor [Atman] who stands beneath. The distinction between self and Self can come through another image' (p.34) however than that of the removal of roles and personae; thus there is the image of the game of life upon a chess-board and the image of the charioteer. Through exercise with such images and such practices it is claimed that a practitioner can 'build up a lively sense of an abiding Self that underlies his phenomenal personality' (p.34). The further 'step consists in shifting his self-identification from the passing to the eternal part of his being. The most direct way of doing this ... is simply to [contemplate] one's identity with the Eternal Spirit ... ' (p.35). Of course analogous self-improvement, self-abnegation and self-expansive elements feature in other religions than Indian, where they were especially early and conspicuous. In Zen, for instance, 'the dualisms of self and object, of self and other, are transcended' (p.134). In Christianity too, the circle of self can be broken, and release experienced from the cramping confines of ego (Smith again, p.280). Analogous elements made their way into Western philosophies, such as that of Spinoza, early romanticism (e.g. Schegel), German idealism and T.H. Green, and directly or indirectly into Western deep ecology (Fox, p.57). As Marxism is sometimes seen, crudely, as obtained by upending Hegelianism and replacing God by Man, so transpersonal ecology can be regarded as similarly varying elements of Hinduism, replacing God by Nature (rather than identifying them as in Spinoza). Ideological tradition does not however point uniformly in one direction, with self elevation as invariant. According to Buddhism, here too more enlightened than alternatives, that is a wrong direction. 'Strong emotions, however lofty [including those of ecological consciousness], tend to emphasize and strengthen the fatal illusion of the ego, which it is the whole aim and purpose of religion to transcend'. For the 'idea of a Self is at the root of every evil passion (and through its action Salvation becomes impossible)' (both quoted in Perrett, p.72). Instead Buddhism offers the tantalizing doctrine of "no self', which at least denies the existence of a substantial self. Further there is allusion to "'the two kinds of non-self': that means there is no ego in humans and no Self in Nature'. �68 Features of Hinduism also show up deficiencies in the Western Enlightenmentsponsored objective of Self-realisation. These include the already remarked problem of evil, which afflicts unrestricted Self-realisation in much the way it plagues closely related hedonism (often a main goal of Self-realisation, and out of an adjacent intellectual stable). To avoid promotion of evil and the like, ethical or similar controls need to be inserted. It should be realisation of an ethical Self, just as elsewhere it should be ethical happiness and ethical profit, not happiness and profit at the expense of other creatures or the Earth. There is worse to come. For there is a scurrilous bigger-is-better element to big Self expansion and realisation, and to often announced, but thoroughly dubious, goals of maximization. Without ethical constraints, the supreme goal of ecosophy, of maximizing Self-realisation, can be decidedly anti-environmental, as too many maximizers proceed to aggrandize themselves, maximize their consumption, or their identification with false chauvinistic Gods, or their dominance, and so on. Such maximal Self-realisation is evidently antithetical to deep environmentalism, which like high-path Hinduism and Taoism, is opposed to selfelevation and self-aggrandizement, especially in material consumption, and favours some self-restraint, self-effacement, self-domination, even selflessness and self-abnegation. But such unconstrained maximization is also in conflict with other features of ecosophy, such as simplicity of, and restraint in, material means, implying a certain Self-contraction. In brief, unrefined ecosophy is liable to be inconsistent. 10. Deconstruction and reselection of self. The problems run deeper however. The theory of expanded self and Self-realisation has ecologically defective starting points: it takes as given what should be investigated and rejected. For instance, Naess simply assumes that the process of heightened Self-realisation starts with the 'development of the narrow ego of the small [Western] child into the comprehensive structure of a Self which comprises all human beings' (quoted p.55; egoism is also assumed p.64 ). Of course deep ecology aims to induce a further development, beyond the anthropic limitations of standard trans personal psychology, 'a deep identification of individuals with all of life' (p.55 again). 35 While it is plain enough that ego is a theoretical notion, elaborated especially by Freud, it is less plain that self too is a folk-theoretic term of certain folk cultures, and it is quite insufficiently appreciated that narrow egos and individual selves are not culturally independent items (artifacts some would now say), but are acquired concepts, 35 Both developments parallel ascents in Hinduism, of upward path of "renunciation", to third (service to human communities) and fourth life-objectives. �69 chauvinistically learnt early in civilised life. Perhaps because individual selves are so deeply entrenched, especially in Westerners' impressions of themselves, a clever practical and ideological course is no doubt the encouragement of expanded egoism, self stretching exercises and empathy. But a deeper philosophical approach would investigate the notions of ego and selftheir history, development, entrenchment, arbitrariness, and dispensibility - rather than take them substantially for granted. In dissolving egoism, it is wise not to concede it at the outset. It, and the intertwined notions of self-interest, and self-ish-ness, should be taken apart to begin with, both analytically and historically. There are of course two parts to the unmasking and dethroning of self-interest: dealing with interest and dealing with self A historical investigation of the rise of the modern theory of self, done in the style of Foucault, might serve to show how arbitrary in crucial respects the notion now rigorously adhered to in social theory happens to be, and how developments could have been different. But even if such an investigation should run aground (e.g. because the notion, although not present in all tribal peoples, reaches back to prehistory), a systematic investigation need not get stuck. The notion of self-interest, and also expanded self interest in the form of group or class interest, has already been taken apart, from the angle of interest, and found wanting as an ethical starting point (see esp. our 79). A complementary investigation of self, standard theories of which should certainly not be conceded, is now required. 36 Some realisation of the problematic character of the notion of self is in fact disclosed in Naess's much earlier investigations, but he does not apply it to the familiar Enlightenment ideal of self-realisation which he takes over as foundation of his own ecosophy, and so of deep ecology as he conceives it. Instead of requisite critical and de( con)structive investigation of the notion of self, resulting in its demotion, what we are witnessing in too much deeper environmental philosophy, is an elevation of the notion and an attempt to focus and found much theory upon it (as esp. in Fox). It is reminiscent of, and related to, the earlier failed attempt to found much theory, including ethics (or a replacement for it), on the notion of person.3 7 36 My impression is that several such investigations are now under way. For discussion and elaboration of earlier investigations, which glimpse some of the requisite points, see Perrett. Our own previous investigations, particularly of the interests and needs of oneself and their interrelations and overlap with those of others (and accordingly the falseness of the egoism-altruism contrast) in 79 and EP, go some small way along the requisite path. 37 Thus, for instance, Strawson in metaphysics, and Benn in moral sciences, both elaborating on Kantian illusions. �70 Indeed those routes are significantly interlinked and offer similar beginnings; for instance, a personality comprises certain roles into which a self, oneself, is cast. In important respects, self amounts to person somewhat deanthropocized. It also suffers similar defects. Neither is sufficiently explained (e.g. what are the existence conditions, the identity conditions, the distinctive properties); neither is up to carrying the heavy theoretical load aficionados have attempted to impose upon them. In particular, neither enables an independent characterisation of central axiologic or deontic notions or other notions bound up with the regulation of conduct which they would somehow displace and to some extent provide new foundations for. Furthermore it appears that the notion of self is not, and cannot be, sufficiently deanthropicized, short of distributing selves around in woods, springs and mountains in the way pagan religions did with spirits (and then letting them be good and evil, and so forth). Undue concentration upon selves has the unfortunate and retrograde effect of swinging environmental philosophy away from deepened ecology and back to agents and actors, the live active subcomponents within ecologies. unacknowledged return to shallower waters. It signals an Because self, however dispensible in environmental philosophy, is integral to Wes tern deep ecology, it behoves us to say something about it, something more than deep ecology has said. Self is a folk-theoretic object of philosophical cast, though no doubt an item with experiential linkage, for instance as a permanent substratum of a certain range of successive (internal) states and experiences, or, without a substance, as a bundle or stringing together of a succession of 'personal' experiences. 38 It is an item, almost an objectification, whose features (which may vary with underlying theory) are primarily supplied through a culturally-dependent theory or the like (e.g. a religious or cult theory). In this regard it is like other typically psychological items of philosophical importance, such as soul (with which it is sometimes identified), spirit, mental substance, mind, psyche, person, personal essence, ego, life force, conatus, etc. In due course a now standard range of philosophical theories gets invoked to account for, or discount, such items: realisms, constructivisms, nominalisms, etc., with dominant scientific ideology committed to a dismissive nominalism. A fashionable humanist opposition has, by contrast, become enamoured of a flamboyant constructivism: selves are made, fabricated, and the like. By contrast again Western deep ecology appears committed to realism, and therewith an 38 While the experiences, such as surges of desire or apprehension, are subjectively empirical enough, the substratum or self-substance may not be. To put it in Humean terms, when I look within I don't find a self just like that (how a sceptical Hume managed to still eludes me). Self itself, like cause, though empirically grounded, is not an "empirical" concept. �71 incredible ontology of selves (already castigated). None of these standard mass-produced positions impresses as at all satisfactory (for reasons elaborated in JB ). For example, scientific nominalism inexcusably leaves out lots of experience, life-forms, and much richness (whereas for its own "legitimate" theoretical purposes it is prepared to introduce all sorts of strange objects). For constructivism there are so far unsurmounted difficulties in getting beyond the analogy: exhibiting the materials and explaining just how they are assembled. While not averse to phrases like 'the fabrication of self', it needs to be remembered that the fabrications are more like those of fiction. Insensitive realism is different; there is sound reason to remain entirely sceptical about an intuitive ontology of selves, especially when a good empathesizer may have numerous different existent selves. I can see little excuse for (being taken in by) such ontological blow outs. Item-theory offers an appealing alternative to these standard positions generally, and therewith very different prospects for self. An item-theoretic account of self will resemble that already offered for mind (in MX); analogous item-theoretic accounts can no doubt be given for spirit, psyche and ego (and also spook, shade, spectre, ghost, etc.). Minds are fairly satisfactory folk-theoretic items which do not exist; ghosts, whether in machines or not, are decidedly less satisfactory inexistential items. Selves are different inexistential items again, with different features; many subjects which do not have minds may have selves. The difficult part of the business consists in explaining whic~ items selves are, a business that is complicated because there are several somewhat different but interconnected notions of self in circulation. Fortunately these can all be accounted for as restrictions in one way or another- temporal, cultural, subject-discipline - of a total self. The total self of a subject abstracts from the total set of features which contribute to the self or personality of that subject, from everything that makes it selfwise what it is (whether supplied by local cultures or not, both supplied internally and not), over the life-span of the subject. For some subjects with richer psychic lives, these features will include states of consciousness (and then the total self will properly include ego, the conscious self). Thus a total self is, if you like, what distinguishes a subject, makes it what it is and so gives its abiding essence (and id-entity), and so resolves issues of personal identity over times. 39 What the relevant features are will become clearer as we come to the usual restrictions. A first set of restrictions are temporal restrictions, a second set aspect restrictions. These are combined in the OED sense 39 This account sharpens and much elaborates the senses which the dictionaries list as philosophical, e.g. OED sense 3. The inexistential account offered shares common ground with the Buddhist "no self' theory when presented as denying the real existence of a self. �72 '4.a. What one is at a particular time or in a particular aspect or relation; one's nature, character, or (sometimes) physical constitution or appearance, considered as different at different times. Chiefly with qualifying adj.' So, for example, Dobbin's total self restricted to time period t1 differs from his total self restricted to t2 at which period he is old and mentally decrepit. A main aspect restriction, very commonly imposed, is to psychically-relevant features, excluding merely bodily features. Differently, a total self, especially a total psychic self, of a subject may be partitioned into such selves, whence sense 4 b of OED. '4. b. An assemblage of characteristics and dispositions which may be conceived as constituting one of various conflicting personalities within a human being. Better self: the better part of one's nature.' Among the topic, or subject-discipline, restricted selves those of economics and social sciences are nowadays particularly prominent. A broad economic self, for instance, is a psychic self confined to an individual and restricted to its locus of wants, preferences, desires, interests, needs, aspirations, goals, etc. (Of course some of the volitional features can be explained in terms of others; in older faculty discourse, it coincides with the individual will.) With a narrow economic self, that of mainstream economics, the broad economic self is narrowed considerably to remove all volitional features stretching beyond those of a present human. Thus interests, for instance, are restricted to selfish interests, those of the human concerned, to exclude both altruistic interests (those of relevance to other items and typically against a creature's own selfish interests) and, more important, other-directed and higher-order interests (such as a's interest is that Ws interest be fulfilled, a's concern for~' etc.) 40 This narrow self tightens up a further dictionary sense, namely OED '5. One's personal welfare and interests as an object of concern; chiefly in a bad sense, selfish or self-interested motives ... '. The tightened-up restrictive notion lies at the base of most modern social science. It is characteristically coupled with the Hobbesian theme, according to which all motivation reduces to that of narrow economic selves, effectively self-interest. Such psychological egoism, that nothing can move a creature to action or decision except interests and like experiences of its own self, was assumed by Spinoza, who proposed absorbing this 40 These points are much further explained in 79 and EP. Other selves, such as altruistic selves and self-effacing selves, deploy quite different obverse restrictions, eliminating local selfish interests. �73 excessively narrow self in a generous Nature (p.57). Deep ecology has attempted to expand this sorry route (p.54), which starts out from a dominant paradigm mistake. 41 11. More troubles with Self as foundation. The big trouble is that an expanded Hobbesian picture, with expanded-self interest as the only fundamental motive, presupposes the essential correctness of Hobbes' crude theme - all that Hobbes really got wrong was the 'size' of one's self - but that is a fundamental mistake. It is a mistake as fundamental as the conflicting crude motivational theme that the only basic motive of business enterpreneurs is [self-]profit. It is a mistake of the same cast as the pervasive idea that conventional ethics can be rendered environmentally adequate just by expansion of those it applies to (expansion of the "community", or of a suitable base class of parties with interests, sentience, etc.) - what is often now called 'moral extensionism' 42 . As empirical evidence tells, prima facie decisively, against intertwined Hobbesian and entrepreneurial economic motivational theory - an extraordinarily convenient, and not "rationally" abandoned, theory for contemporary power elites - two substantially successful theory-saving strategies swing into action: • a sustained propaganda campaign to align people's motives with the theory, conducted through advertising, education and other mass channels of persuasion; • a sustained reduction campaign by subservient intellectuals to show that all apparently exceptional motives actually conform to the motivational theory. At the same time, minorities (such as pre-industrial peoples) whose motives do not conform to the established/ment theory are of course discounted. This seriously flawed anti-environmental theory should be resisted and replaced, not just extended. For the only basic and legitimate motives and interests are not merely those of self (whether expanded in a futile attempt to encapture other or not). One distinct motive is, to put it in old-fashioned Kantian terms though the example is not Kantian, that of duty, duty for instance to this Earth, duty which is neither self-regarding or necessarily Self-regarding or, in any ordinary sense, otherregarding. 41 The chauvinistic expansion of self and person is sometimes carried to remarkable lengths, as revealed by Shepard: 'we must affirm that the world is being a part of our own body'. 42 For further explanation and criticism of this expansion, see EP. At least Fox does Sylvan the "favour" of distancing him from the most famous exponent of such extensionism, Leopold, whom he tries to push into the wider identification and wider Self fold (p.64). �74 A third complementary strategy renders the theory normative: while agents may act, or appear to act, on non-self-interested motives, it is only rational to act according to one's ongoing self-interest. (While we shall focus upon a strong version of the normative egoistic theme, that it is only rational to act in one's own self-interest, including one's future self, much of what is said counts against weaker forms of the theme according to which it is in some way preeminently reasonable to act in one's own on-going self-interest.) This normative assumption depends crucially however upon a specially-tailored theory of self- a substantial underlying self that suitably integrates all one's interests and concerns, past, present and future. Without such an account the peculiar self-evidence normative egoism is presented as enjoying, and upon which it depends as an unargued rest position, begins to fall away. Suppose instead a self or person is represented as a sequence of causally connected experiential moments (e.g. momentary selves, of a person). Unfortunately then, for normative egoism, it ceases to be evident to many presently placed selves that there are special specially-valid reasons for only being concerned with future elements of one particular sequence rather than another, to which one's present self may not belong; for promoting the interests of this future momentary self rather than some other more congenial one, perhaps in another sequence. 43 Indeed it is evident that reasons for action are not confined to those intermalised to the interests of one future self rather than another, one my or thou or it (say) rather than another; that reasons can and do operate beyond interests, as when directed at the futures of forests or fens, and beyond selves and their extensions and variants such as I's and Thou's and You's, as when arguing for deep environmental action. Nor is there cogent reason for trying to curtail reasons to what answers to a bad, if deeply incalcated, theory, a pernicious and damaging, if widely promoted, theory and sense of self joined to chauvinistic bodily consumption and advancement. A more generous itemtheoretic theory of total self can expose this theoretical fraud, allowing for a full flowering of reasons for action; it thus diffuses the narrow greedy self of Hobbesian theory. Expanded Hobbesian is assumed in deep ecological Ego-tripping (pp. 65-66) and in 'the theme of ecological resistance as Self-defence', that resisting ecological depredation is defending oneSelf, because the whales or forests are me; it is me that is being injured (p.61). Such expanded Hobbesian is even less plausible than Hobbesianism itself - among other things because you can go on, to become other You's even after You as the forest has been destroyed. Be sure I do not deplore, but welcome worthwhile ecological resistance 43 On all these points see further Perrett, esp. p.72. Perrett explains how the regularly assumed opposition between egoism and altruism depends on particular assumptions about the nature of self, and breaks down when, as in buddhist ethics with its doctrine of no-self, these assumptions get removed. �75 whether conducted as Self-defence, or not; good works, even if undertaken for self-ish or distorted or ridiculous motives, are not to be disparaged. Nor similarly should the help of campaigners whose motives have been distorted by propaganda systems be disparaged because those campaigners are engaged on dubious or bizarre bases, such as that they are defending themselves rather than something else that deserves their care, concern and respect. What should be resisted are the twin ideas that these are the wholesome motives or the only [rational] motives, and that quality of motivation does not affect goodness of act. The main trouble then with the wild Western approach so advanced under Self-interest is that, like Hobbesianism but on an expanded scale, it would reduce or suppress all other motivation. In many ways, it has not really got beyond bad "old paradigm" thinking, but merely bizarrely extended it. 12. Liquidating Fox's "deep ecological territory". The success Fox imagines expanded-Self is going to have in the environmental struggle arena, a success far surpassing that environmental ethics is likely to have (p.84), is premissed on this faulty expanded Hobbesianism theory. It is not based on monitored field experience. In the action field, where some Western deep ecologists are seldom seen, identification techniques, far from admirably shifting the onus of proof (a dubious claim also advanced on p.84 ), are likely to be greeted with amazement and disbelief: what is this crap? It is not very long ago that people who thought they were tigers or trees were locked away, or else regarded, like the man who identified his wife as a hat, as figures of fun not to be taken seriously. Such motivation is likely to be taken, and presented, by a hostile and backwards opposition as crazy. Furthermore, such defences can back-fire. Identification with a rainforest, for instance, because symmetrical, does not guarantee defence of its needs as one's own, as against one's own needs as its. A powerful bunch of developers and bureaucrats who identify with the forest may take their needs, for timber profits and tourist revenues, as its, and interfere with it accordingly. Identification, on its own, admits disastrous reversal. Expanded Selves can be dubious allies in environmental struggles. It is fortunate then that for almost all environmental purposes, including those of deep environmental philosophy, the notion of self can drop out; selves are inessential. While �76 decent theories of self and self-Self can presumably be worked out44 , and Self tried out as sole primitive, the theory so far, and with it (Western) deep ecological theory in present form remains both a shambles and an embarrassment. It is bad news then, given the abysmal shape of the deep ecological theory of self, that deep ecology should contract, at least on Fox's continuing vision, to a theory of self (see also 89). On this presentation much of authentic deep ecology is thrown away. The deep ecological framework comes down to 'two basic hypotheses and on ultimate norm', all of which revolve around Self (pp.86-7): it is Self, Self and Self, nothing but Self. And it has nothing essentially to do with the environment. For Self does not provide the great new (or shabby old) starting point to environmental philosophy that Fox imagines. To elaborate:One "hypothesis", already criticised, is that 'Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.86, the pluralisation is interesting, e.g. a vintage car club has a group Self which includes their cars and perhaps others they covet); the other, not previously encountered, is that 'the self can and does grow/develop/mature ... over time' (p.17). That hypothesis is presumably false; for selves, like plants, may decline, wither or die. Or don't ecological selves wither and die? 'The norm is that the ideal state of being is one that sustains the evident (and deepest) possible identification and, hence, sense of Self'. It seems to be assumed that the ideal state, identified in the "norm", ought to be striven for (though it is hard to see why: it involves much unpleasant, embarrassing or boring identification work, etc.). There are accordingly covert principles of conduct, such as striving towards the norm and undertaking the "real spiritual work" of deep ecology, and covert values, such as that of the (so-called) ideal state, lurking at the bottom of Wes tern deep ecology; it too hides, even in its reduced form, a condemned "axiology" and ethics. But not environmental ones; the norm could have issued from a deviant Hinduism, without environmental commitments, concerned above all with introverted cultivation of self. Although Fox says the 'ideal state of being is referred to ... as "ecological consciousness" by Devall and Sessions' (p.87), such reference does not make it so; ecological consciousness involves rather awareness of and commitment to certain things and matters ecological, not widest identification, which involves much that is unecological, such 44 Perhaps following through suggestions sketched earlier, perhaps elaborating, in less anthropocentric style, T.H. Green, whose theory appears to anticipate much of wild Western deep ecology. Green took self-awareness as a guide to the nature of things and self-realisation as each person's goal. He held that the developed self is the end which defines the good, and that all ethical terms may be formed, so far as required, to that end. Of course he also spoke against atomism and individualism, and in favour of holism and organicism. �77 as traffic with occult and transfinite, or antiecological, such as identification with developers ripping down rainforest and heritage works. While Fox does claim that consequences for the natural (not the built) environment do follow from his framework, the claim is mistaken. According to him, 'it follows ... that when we harm or limit the flow of nature then we are harming or limiting that with which we ... identify and so diminishing our ... Self' (p.87). No such consequence follows as regards widest possible identification; all that destruction of an ecosystem does is to put the ecosystem in a possible world, with which identification is sustained, and bring up a different and perhaps humanly improved world (e.g. a wild river is dammed to save villages). The remote Self is unperturbed by such commerce of actuality. Even if Fox should try to save the show by again restricting awkward or uncomfortable identification feats, his intended consequences do not follow. For we may well increase that with which we identify by "limiting the flow of nature", for instance by varying or enriching parts of extensive monotonous natural systems. 45 Fox's deep ecological-framew ork, Self-indulgence of a deep spiritual cast, is no framework for an environmental anything. Luckily it is not needed, but can be despatched with other deep ecological rubbish. 13. Justifying "extreme interpretations" of and "extreme reactions" to wild West deep ecology. Fox exhibits full dominant paradigm outrage at what he refers to as my 'extreme interpretations' and 'extreme reactions' (boldface headings for sections 3 and 4, p.13 and p.19). While I am quite accustomed to being called or accounted an extremist, it is generally done by those far on the shallow side of the environmental divide. I trust such terms as 'extreme' carry no more weight with readers than they do with me. It is a fashionable, but methodologically quite unsound, ploy to try to dismiss those who depart far from some lately received position as extremists. Nowadays even 'Thomas Aquinas, for example, is depicted as an 'extremist' (by Hart) and dismissed because the views he expressed do not accord with what "all lawyers think" (Dworkin)' ;46 one is in good company. The Earth will in the longer term be helped by deep environmental extremists 45 That Fox's theory (already epicycling, into dimensions) admits such cases is evident from "the extinction example" (pp. 82-3). Because they are sufficiently evident, I have not recorded difficulties regarding this example, which attempts to discriminate different sorts of environmental losses by their differential effects on Selves (if there are any ecological ones left that is: Last Self arguments retain their bite and smile). 46 According to H. Miles in a curious letter to the ANU Reporter 1989. �78 who serve to shift various balances in environmental directions - the balances to be achieved, for example, in discussions, in time allowed in decision making, and so on. But what Fox also says he means, under the emotive overlay, is that 'Sylvan's arguments show a tendency to push the claims of those he criticises to extremes' through application of the following reduction-of-relations principles: S 1. 'if two concepts/ideas are linked, then they must be completely similar (equivalent [identical])'; S2. 'if they are contrasted then they must be completely different (i.e. non-intersecting) as well as completely exhaustive (i.e. covering all cases/examples of the set in question)' (p.13 and earlier). All these principles (S2 breaks down into a pair straightaway) are evidently fallacious, and only hold in very special cases. Now I claim to be well aware of this, and to have illustrated this awareness sufficiently in my work (esp. investigation of the history of the attempt to remove or suppress relations, investigation of very special cases, such as "classical relevant logics", where a connections of the form, "where Rab then a = b" does hold; see JB and RLR respectively). Indeed I discuss an example of this 'crude fallacy' in one of the sectors that particularly excites Fox (Cp.27). But in any case, the principles are substantially irrelevant to Fox's discussion of 'extreme interpretations' and 'extreme reactions' (in his sections 3 and 4)! For, as we shall see, what really bothers Fox, and also N aess, has little that is not superficial (merely terminological) to do with extremes; what troubles them rather is that I take their claims seriously, and not as forever 'preliminary', or at 'a superficial level', or 'metaphorical' or the like (see e.g. p.13, p.49). 47 Firstly, I introduced the quasi-technical term 'extreme holism' ('extreme' was italicised to indicate its introduction and quasi-technical character, not to emphasize my extremism) as contrasted with 'moderate holism' .48 That is obviously not an extreme claim, it is not pressing a claim to extremes; it is simply using a piece of terminology, and does nothing for Fox's cause. I take seriously Naess's holistic claim, repeated by incautious deep ecologists, that his conception 'dissolves ... the very notion of the world as composed of discrete, compact, separate "things"', which I describe as 'extreme holism'. 47 One day I should really like some non-preliminary formulations from Naess. Quite separately from that standing request, I do regard it as pretty ridiculous to insist that ordinary discourse about chairs and desks, fems and wombats is 'talking at a superficial or preliminary level of communication'. Perhaps we have to expect this sort of twaddle from hard-wired physicalists, not from deep thinkers. 48 It is a contrast previously discussed, in more detail but in different terms, in EP, p.222ff. �79 Fox's response to my reporting of Naess's claim, in the style of Dr. Johnson (no separate things, so no wildernesses!, no forests!), his only response it seems, is '(Does Sylvan) sincerely think that anybody could be that silly?' (p.14). The answer is of course: Yes, damned right he does; for example, too many influenced by Hegelianism. It 1s unremarkable that Fox and Naess are trying to backtrack without appearing to do so. 49 Where, then, is the (non-quotational) extreme interpretation? Fox makes two connected moves, neither of which duly involve principles Sl and S2. Firstly, he introduces a distinction, not previously in the ballpark, between relative and absolute autonomy of "things in the world" (p.14). As commonplace in Fox's practice, the apparent distinction is introduced and put to work without proper explanation. Then Fox announces that 'it is clear from his interpretation that he [Sylvan] takes Naess and myself to be denying even relative autonomy ... whereas it should be clear ... that what is being denied is absolute autonomy'; and he has the audacity to go on, ' ... there is really no excuse for Sylvan's extreme interpretation' (p.14). Well, you can take my word for it that Sylvan did not take N aess and Fox that way; the distinction in question had not been introduced in the literature under discussion. For similar reasons, that there is no basis for it, there is no extreme interpretation, and nothing to underwrite Fox's captious moralising. Secondly, Fox proceeds quite scurrilously to make it look as if I am attributing certain themes I nowhere allude to him and Naess (but in fact attacked in Wilber's book). ' ... Sylvan's extreme interpretation ... would have Naess and myself reduce all diversity and multiplicity to something like "uniform, homogeneous, and unchanging mush" or to "uniform, all-prevading, featureless but divine goo"'. The quotations, which may well look as if they were drawn from my criticism, bear no resemblance to anything I attributed to Naess or Fox; they are in fact drawn from Wilber's fashionable Eye to Eye. Similarly that 'extreme interpretation' is not to be found in Sylvan; it is a fabrication on the part of Fox. Nothing I made critical use of tells against Naess's total-field exhibiting various features, such as some internal differentiation. The Flux of late nineteenth century philosophy was both non-uniform and non-homogeneous, with 'eddies, ripples and whirlpools in a stream ("unity in process")' (p.15), without being composed of separate individuals. The other example Fox includes in his section in extreme interpretations, the matter of internal relations, will also require, to begin with, some grimy textual exegesis, including further inspection of Fox's practice of tactical misquotation (or quotation out of context), 49 Their behaviour is reminiscent of Parmenides and Zeno at the races, as delightfully related by Bouwsma. �80 rather than real philosophical work. 50 But here no attempt is made to exhibit an 'extreme interpretation' (nor again do principles Sl and S2 enter). Fox's first (and final) point is that subscription to a doctrine of internal relations 'does not necessarily render one an idealist' (p.17). Whereupon, by way of counterexample, Fox trots out his own admirable philosophical pedigree, and reveals a doctrine of internal relations inherited from the neutral monism of Spinoza and the process philosophy of Whitehead, both well known for their doctrines of internal relations. N aess does at least make it evident that he is adopting or adapting the received theory of internal relations. As it happens, I did not commit myself to the proposition that a doctrine of internal relations (however characteristic of idealism) entails idealism; naturally there appears to be more to idealism than that (such as a total-field doctrine). Only by a misreading or misquotation does Fox obtain his necessarily linkage to idealism. Firstly he represents me as ascribing to him 'this "idealist theory of internal relations"' (p.15), when what I actually wrote was that a certain 'form of argument ... commandeers elements of the idealist theory of internal relations' (p.27 emphasis added). Later he congratulates himself upon 'discrediting Sylvan's claims that deep ecology subscribes ... to his characterisation of the theory of internal relations, which he describes (p.28) as "a terminal form of idealism newly warmed up"' (p.18). To credit to me 'a characterisation of the theory of internal relations' is certainly a gross overstatement, though it may be convenient in trying to exonerate the doctrine of deep ecology from evident criticism. But the immediate salient point is that what I say 'looks like a terminal form of idealism ... ' (C p.28 emphasis added) is not the theory of internal relations but 'what Fox describes as "the central intuition of deep ecology"'. The second, of Fox's three points as to my comments on the deep ecological doctrine of internal relations, is a bit more philosophically substantive, and concerns the character of the necessity ascribed to connections. But textual exegesis is again unavoidable. Fox contends that 'Naess's definition of internal relations ... flatly contradicts Sylvan's claim that this view point renders "all connections necessary" in the ... sense Sy Ivan intends' (p.16; Fox has the term 'strong' where dots are inserted; we'll look at what Fox is trying to hang on me shortly). 51 On Naess's explanation, an internal 'relation between two things A and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic constituents of A and B, so that without the relation, A and Bare no longer the same things' (see p.15). Consider any 50 By and large, deep ecology involves disturbingly little real philosophical work. So much of it is name dropping, rank pulling, unacknowledged borrowing - all the old stuff some of us hoped to be rid of with a "new environmental paradigm". 51 In fact I had been arguing from Fox's theme that "all entities are constituted by their relations" (see C pp.27-8), but Fox diverts the issue to Naess. �81 internal connection R between A and B (indeed on the standard theory where all relations of objects are internal, any connection). Then ARB holds by virtue of definitional or constitutional features of A and B. But what so holds, holds as a matter of necessity (is 'necessarily constitutive' in Fox's lingo, Fox trying again for a resolving distinction); whence the connection holds of necessity. A flat contradiction? Now to the 'strong sense' Fox has located and is spreading abroad that I intend (once again he did not consult me as to what I intended). 'Sylvan is claiming', according to him (though I have never advanced such a claim, and am still not clear what it means, 'exact nature of' being Fox's terminology), 'that the exact nature of all those relationships is also necessary' (p.16). Now in trying to show that Naess's story conflicts with this claim he has hung on me, Fox proceeds to run Naess into deep trouble (though Naess is blithely oblivious; see note (22)). For, so Fox says,5 2 'Naess explicitly acknowledges that A and B can exist "without" the relation"', meaning "'in a different relationship" or "in the absence of that specific relation"' (p.16). Suppose such a different relation is S (at worst S is the absence of R). So apparently ASB and not-ARB; whence A, for instance, has inconsistent properties, namely both ... RB which is constitutive and not- ... RB by acknowledgement . To be sure, the difficulty can be avoided, by insisting (as N aess did and as Fox also has him say) that 'without the relationship, A and B are no longer the same things', so what we have is A'SB' and not- A'RB' for some counterparts A' and B' of A and B. Some such line is taken by the standard theory. But Fox seeks a connection between A and B for Naess which is in some respects contingent. Certainly that is possible, but it goes beyond the bounds of the standard theory by admitting external relations, for which it is not required that A and B are no longer the same without the relation. And, in a straightforward sense, it fails the constituting claim: entities have relations, external ones, which are not constituting (to deal with Fox-past), or alternatively (to refute Fox-present, p.17) it is false that 'all relationships are necessarily constitutive' because some, external ones, are not. My wombat example, to come to Fox's third point, was designed to indicate just that, that a wombat stands in various relationships which are not (necessarily) constitutive and which are merely contingent. Suppose wombat A passed by hollow stringbark B on its foraging route (say once only, and accidentally, because it had wandered out of its territory). Then "A passed by B" is a relation between A and B, a true relation, which furthermore is merely contingent, because it might not have transpired. Moreover, the relation is not constitutive, for instance of A, because it makes no difference to the nature or 52 The claim attributed to Naess does not appear in his original 1973 paper where the relational total field image was presented, and from which the other Naess' quotes were drawn. �82 constitution of wombat A. What I mean by term 'constitute' (and likewise 'constitutive') Fox professes unclarity about this (p.17) - is what is ordinarily meant by the term in such contexts, namely what makes a thing what it is, what determines it (see OED), what gives a definite nature or character to (see Concise English). 53 Wombat A, one and the same A, a creature with exactly the same make-up as A, not some counterpart or surrogate A', might not have passed by B. So "passed by B" is not constitutive of A; and again not all relations are constitutive. Despite the general paucity and poorness of argument in much revealed deep ecology literature, the general downgrading of rational and analytic methods 54 , and the emphasis on experiential and empathetic approaches, the status of argument turns out to be a sensitive issue too. Fox beats up an issue on this topic, on route to the grander issue of intellectual rubbish, by his standard practice of misattribution. He proceeds stealthily to amend my aside, '(argument often not being considered in the proper style of such a nonanalytical enterprise as deep ecology)', which I believe I can sustain, to the assertion 'that argument is not in the "proper style" of deep ecology' (p.20), which I did not make (for all Fox's kind attribution) and would not want to defend. I wish decent argument and careful reasoning were more often considered in the proper sty le of deep ecology, and more often practised. Then I should be more enthusiastic about it, writing much less critical of it, and castigating less as rubbish. Fox, I am afraid, has done little to convince me that 'closely measured intellectual argument is thoroughly in keeping with the style of deep ecology' (p.20) or that it is much of a priority. He offers but two examples: he stands on his own record as attested in his Response (how can I say anything unfavourable about that), and he appeals, forgetting I said 'often ... considered', to an exceedingly loose talk by Devall on the Stone/Sky path, which mentions 'logical analyses of ideas, premises, systems of thought' and 'formal statements of definitions of key terms, explication of relationships', but deliberately avoids any such work, preferring instead, in characteristic deep ecological style, 'a steeper ... path that requires ... the "real work"', consciousness elevation, jnana yoga or psychedelic drugs maybe (pp.21-2). 14. Transpersonal logic and methodology. 53 It is proponents of the dubious doctrine of internal relations - a doctrine quite inessential to and external to deep environmentalism - who are forced into assigning an extraordinary meaning to constitute. 54 The Counter-Enlightenment antipathy to analytic and rational methods resurfaces in Western deep ecology. For an example in Fox's Response, consider his remarks on the 'blunt tools of logical analysis' when applied to the 'real world of communication' (p.11), which could almost have come from the late eighteenth century. �83 The quaint relation-reduc tion principles, S 1 and S2, do show up with the first premisses of what Fox dignifies with the misleading titles of "false equivalence argument" and "false contrast argument". The second title is particularly misleading, because there is a recognised traditional fallacy of "false contrast" or "false dichotomy" (arising as regards classifications), which differs from Fox's defective "false contrast argument". Fox has proceeded to latch onto my legitimate use of traditional logic, as when I say (rightly or wrongly) that Devall and Sessions are operating with a false contrast (p.11), in order to saddle me with a defective argument of his own concoction which I do not apply. But to show that these defective arguments, which Fox accuses me of heavily and repeatedly applying (p.6, p.11 ), are not deployed by me in the way Fox alleges, we shall need to look at the arguments. To avoid further confusion with tradition, let us relabel the arguments, replacing 'false' by 'foxy'. Let A and B be terms (Fox has 'concept/idea'); let a be a person or group whose views are under criticism. Then the foxy equivalence argument, set down pretty much in Fox's way, runs as follows Key Premiss. When a links A with B (i.e. maintains that ARB for some relation R), claim a holds that A=B. Subargument. Show there are cases where A without B or B without A, whence A;;:: B. Conclusion according to Fox: ' the "argument" (i.e. the claim that A = B) is "false" or that it "fails"' (p.6). An immediate observation is that Fox has not succeeded in setting down what he is after with much success. The conclusion, which does not make use of the key premiss, is a mess. As he hasn't located an argument, in 'the claim that A = B', he has perhaps felt obliged to put critical terms in italics, or perhaps he imagines he is quoting me - what is going on is unclear. He might have concluded, though a level up, that the "false equivalence argument" itself fails, a conclusion he doesn't explicitly draw, but then he would be left without a conclusion at all for the foxy equivalence argument. There is a valid traditional argument, filling out the subargument that is buried in the foxy argument as intended. In a standard logical format, with A( c) symbolising that c is or has A or that A applies to c, it runs as follows:!. A= B hypothesized claim (imposed on a) 2. A( c) iff B(c) for every case c 3. A(c) & ~B(c) for some case c standard case expansion of 1 further data 4. ~2 from 3 5. ~(A= B) from 4 6. ~(A= B) reductio, discharging the hypothetical argument �84 Thus the claim, that A= B, is indeed false, as its negation is categorically established, given the data. But again the argument, now valid, makes no use of the key premiss. A proper fuller version of the argument would replace 3 by the disjunction, A(ci) & -B(ci) V. -A(c2) & B(c2) for some cases ci and c2, and consider each disjunct. But the result would be the same, namely 6 categorically. The preceding represents the valid core of the foxy equivalence argument. What of the key premiss however? That part also can be rendered correct, but upon assumption of the quite defective S 1. To convert this part of the argument into available logical form, let us replace holding or maintaining functors by a correspondin g asserting or (more satisfactorily) commitment to asserting functor. (Should you imagine a fast one is being pulled just read 't-a' as 'a holds that'). Then the key dubious premiss becomes, at first approximation. KP. from a is committed to asserting A is related to B, i.e. ARB, infer that a is committed to asserting that A= B (or A= B). Expressed in symbols in implicational form it looks as follows: KP➔ . .,_a ARB ➔ . t-a A= B. This form makes it easy to see how the key premiss derives from relation-reduction S 1, i.e. ARB ➔ A = B, namely by a standard distribution of the committed-to -asserting functor, .,_a, or specifically by the rule x ➔ y / t-a x ➔ t-a y. S1 is the way to arrive at KP. Moreover without S 1, there is little basis for KP. Now the arguments can be put together. We argue to KP➔, e.g. from Sl. We run out the subargument to ~(A= B), from which we conclude a is wrong or mistaken in asserting A = B. Then we proceed back across KP➔ (using what results from it by distribution of the mistake functor W, namely W t-a A= B ➔. W t-a ARB), to conclude that our friends a were wrong in maintaining, as they did, that A is linked to B. Exposure of that part of the argument involving KP➔ is enough to at least suggest that I am unlikely to rely on it heavily, since it is manifestly defective when so exposed, relying upon the already jettisoned S 1. Fox, for all his assertions, does nothing to show that I do rely on it heavily; indeed he does not show that I rely upon it at all. For all his effort in eliciting these arguments (shoddy though his work may be), he fails entirely to follow through and show how they apply. Consider his "example" of the foxy argument at work, and supposedly scrutinized, where the terms involved are life and value (p.7). Fox's conclusion does not appear, no conclusion is reached. Moreover the key premiss is not instantiated, nor is any evidence of its use advanced; it is knocked down to the claim, deriving from certain deeper positions, that life= value. Whence the sort of argument that I am alleged to be employing 'in a totally �85 fallacious manner' comes down to the valid traditional subargument. Fox's complaint is not about an argument at all, it is about the premiss. As Fox concedes 'this argument is fine, it's just that the original claim is false' (p.7)! Let's take time out from the argument to consider the original claim. What Fox reports that 'Sylvan ... claims, [namely] that (U.S.) "West Coast deep ecology" equates life (A) and value (B)', differs significantly from what Sylvan did write, namely 'the impression comes through from much West Coast deep ecology (from certain insufficiently penetrating intermediate positions) that what is important is ... life and nothing but life' (Cp.16). No universal claim, no equation, no falsehood. Naturally there are some commitments, but Fox hasn't taken much care with those, or got them right either. For example, Sylvan does not offer a definition (of his own or of any sort) of 'biospherical' (which does not mean 'earth-centered') or of 'biocentric', but relies on standard meanings (accordingly, too, he cannot 'refute his own ... definition'). The position with the foxy contrast argument is very similar to that already dealt with, a similar shambles. The argument is exactly the same except that equality or (strong) equivalence,= , is replaced throughout by a dual notion, exclusive disjunction, symbolised V. But Fox does not dualise properly; instead of the dual conclusion, "the argument (i.e. the claim that A V B) is "false" or that it fails", he misleadingly introduces the traditional fallacy terms, as if they were new terms without a predetermined sense. He has it that we 'conclude that the contrast in question is a "false contrast" or a "false dichotomy'" (p.8). Once again, a properly developed illustration of the argument is not offered, and in the very sketchy "example" given the argument drops out. It turns into a question - an interesting question - of the use, point, and merit of the shallow/deep distinction. Let's take time out to consider the issues raised, as some are important. But first some trivia. Fox, in effect, charges me with presenting a straw-person, as no one (but me) takes the shallow/deep distinction as exhaustive of environmental positions. Well, he has led a sheltered life; I've met too many activists who do. Fox implies that I 'want to assign the shallow/deep terminology to the "historical scrap-heap"' (p.9). Here, and elsewhere, Fox apparently joins the activists who conflate the shallow/deep distinction with the shallow ecology/deep ecology distinction. It is only deep ecology that I have contemplated for the scrap heap, not the shallow/deep distinction. More important is the status of such illdefined items as deep ecology. Fox now assumes that shallow and deep ecology, however imperfect, are "ideal types", the merit of which is to be assessed pragmatically, through their usefulness, heuristic roles, etc. Some scepticism is warranted. Ideal types such as protestant and middle class might be defensible in sociological investigations where there are plenty of protestants or middle class people to survey, but what is supposed to correspond with deep ecology? The comparison has serious problems. Western deep �86 ecologists have yet to get their theoretical slum in order, to rectify their classifications, clean up the objects of these, and so forth. 15. More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science. Along with a substantial upgrading of the calibre of argumentation in deep ecology should go extensive removal of rubbish, such as the unnecessary doctrine of internal relations. The image of philosophers removing the rubbish, which comes from Locke, is much favoured in Australia, and has been deployed by both Armstrong and Passmore. 55 It tends to accompany the picture of real philosophy 'as tough, practical, rational and secular', which Sessions deplores, in the case of environmental ethics, as 'neither desirable nor necessary, and perhaps not possible'. 56 While such an approach is hardly necessary it is certainly possible: it is a divisive issue whether it is desirable. As is increasingly appreciated these days, there are various sorts of rubbish, which can be separated; so too in philosophy there is more than one sort of rubbish. Not all of it is nonsense or quite unintelligible (pace p.23). Considerable parts of prevailing religions have been dismissed as rubbish (see OED examples); but while some parts, such as the doctrine of Trinity, may be accounted unintelligible, most parts would not. They are regarded rather as substantially false as well as seriously flawed in important respects, and perhaps also as pernicious or largely worthless (and likely as unnecessary). Evidently, then, there are several distinguishable components to rubbish; and, as dictionary senses reveal (e.g. OED: 'worthless, ridiculous, nonsensical ideas, discourse, or writing'), there may be quite a variety of ideological and intellectual rubbish. Rubbish, of all sorts, is hard to escape these days; unfortunately it is easily encountered in both deep ecology and popular science. Many environmental philosophers, Fox is one, do seem to be highly attracted by a very fashionable cutting edge, along with a semi-respectable crank end, of recent diverting popular science. It is almost enough to look at the cast of witnesses Fox pulls in for defence of his unstated theme that there is no 55 According to Locke, 'it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of knowledge'. Contrary to the impression Fox tries to convey, here and elsewhere, it wasn't so much a matter of 'following Passmore' (except in a dilute temporal sense, in which I always follow Aquinas when I agree with him), as of following a larger tradition. 56 This part of Session's essay is quoted approvingly in Fox's Response, p.44. Sessions should be rapped over the knuckles for his sexist citations (which Fox too does little to rectify). �87 rubbish in deep or transpersonal ecology (the theme is enthymematically Self-refuting, so to say). The cast includes Capra, Davies, Bohm, Wilber, Gribbin, Pegals, Zukav, Prigogine, d'Espagnat, Sheldrake, Pribram, Comfort and Walsh. There is ample rubbish littering the works of some of these authors, some of which finds its way into Western deep ecology (e.g. Fox's Section 4, and also e.g. pp. 58-9). It is instructive to look at a couple of examples of prime rubbish early in the work of Gribbin cited:- First 'Isaac Newton invented physics, and all of science depends on physics' (p.7). Observe that this conjoint claim, which luckily does not drift into deep ecology, is intelligible, but it is ridiculous 57 ; and observe, furthermore, that there is no straightforward way of recycling such intellectual rubbish. Second, 'what quantum mechanics says is that nothing is real and that we cannot say anything about what things are doing when we are not looking at them' (p.2). As Gribbin presents quantum mechanics as true, we can detach to achieve his shocking headlines and like assertions; so for instance, 'Nothing is real unless it is observed' (p.3), naive phenomenalism. Remarkably, Gribbin is hardly obliged to generate the amount of striking rubbish he does (but then he is a scientific journalist), because of his later proclivity towards a "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which affords one neat way of halting production of this type of idealist rubbish. Fox, eager to retain an idealistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics for his nefarious metaphysical purposes, fails to take account of Gribbin's later turnabout which effectively repeals the earlier headlines, and actually appeals to Gribbin's "authority" (in note 41) in trying to dispose of the many worlds interpretation! Fortunately we do not have to put up philosophically with the rubbish produced by popular elaborations of the Copenhagen interpretation, which Fox and other avant-garde thinkers would foist upon us. One reason is that micro-features of quantum behaviour very rarely impinge upon macro-phenomena. They thus make little or no real difference to issues of environmental philosophy (only problems tangential to it, such as determinism). Another and major reason is that there are significant alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation, which at least shed most of the rubbish. And the 'range of choice' is far more extensive than Fox would allow 'if Sylvan did follow his appeal through' (p.27) - yet another example of "false choice". It happens that Sylvan had followed through on some of the further options Fox does not consider, namely 57 If physics and science are the sorts of things that can significantly be invented, then there are plenty of candidates for the claims both before and after Newton, e.g. Einstein if we wish to be really extravagant. As for the extravagant reduction claim, well it is refuted along with physicalism and associated Australian primitivism; see e.g. J.W. Smith and JB . �88 • alternative logic approaches. There are many interesting possibilities here, but few of which physicists have had time or inclination to investigate. My own, rather preliminary, investigations have concerned a uniform relevant logic approach (see uu § 13, on ultramodal quantum logic) and, differently, paraconsistent approaches (see OP p.157ff.) • a neutral worlds interpretation (see my 85). What this amounts to is an ontic neutralisation of many-worlds interpretation. Because of the neutralisation, the 'metaphysical baggage' and unparsimoniousness that Fox complains about are removed. Of course too, since the interpretation corresponds, through the mathematical formalism deployed, to other standard interpretations, it as just as falsifiable (pace note 41 ), and accordingly hardly 'desperate', a mere "just-so" story. These observations, duly elaborated (as attempted, in part, in work alluded to), indicate 'how Sylvan would describe the ontological implications of the "new (ie. post-1920s) physics?"' (p.23 reordered). Briefly, there are many hitherto unknown physical objects at the sub-atomic level whose behaviour is classically anomalous, being partly wavelike and partly particlelike, for which a new and interpretationally difficult theory has been devised. But the positivism and related idealism of early interpretations can be removed by a warranted change of interpretation. And then the ontic implications for ecology and most of environmental philosophy are much less remarkable than Wes tern deep ecology has imagined. Given apparently viable options as to interpretation, all the rubbish Walsh and Fox add to the already problematic Copenhagen interpretation can be packed off (if you can find a way to recycle it, good luck to you). For those who like picking through rubbish (I occasionally collect stuff from the local dump myself), Fox's page 26 is particularly rewarding. But two examples only :- 'What can be known is ... never the independent properties of the observed alone'. So it cannot be known that the wounded wombat (somehow) observed is female, pregnant, and so on. Such astonishing epistemological results are not delivered by the Copenhagen interpretation, which only tells us that knowledge as to quantum happenings is limited by exclusion principles. Similarly for 'the known universe is inextricably linked with consciousness rather than being separable into consciousness and objects of consciousness'. The standard formalism of quantum theory discloses nothing about observers; and while observers do feature in the Copenhagen interpretation these can be simply more measuring or witnessing devices: consciousness does not figure. Even if it did, that would only apply to quantum objects, and would scarcely warrant the grand extrapolations Fox and Walsh wish to make. Furthermore, the Copenhagen interpretation as elaborated is obliged to set quantum domains within wider classical settings always (by contrast with multiple-world interpretations there is no wave function for the universe, etc.); so in the larger setting classical assumptions concerning independence, separability, and so on, are not overthrown, but confirmed. �89 In fact my passing reference to rubbish in Fox's presentations was directed not at Walsh, who was not pretending to tell us what deep ecology is about, but at Fox's reproduction of this material 'in advancing the "unity of process" metaphysics of deep ecology' (p.19). Fox's presentation of the issues (in section 4), with himself as some sort of interested third party in a dispute between Sylvan and Walsh, is substantially misleading; I was not attempting (what is overdue) a critique of transpersonal psychology. What is taken to be known, furthermore, affords little comfort or support for the list of 'ontological implications' that Fox and Walsh wish to draw from the "new physics". Consider some representative exhibits, mostly compressed one-worders, from 'the fundamental ontology now being revealed', with which Fox tells us deep ecology is not merely 'in accord with' but 'throws its full weight behind' (see p.18):- Impermanen t? Some of the newly discovered sub-atomic objects are extraordinarily durable and have experimentally assessed lifetimes of millions of years. Fluid? This attribute of macrosystems does not extend significantly even down to the molecular level; it makes no sense to say that wavicles (or even atoms) flow, they are the wrong sorts of things. Whereas the attribution of impermanence makes straightforward sense (but is substantially false), that of fluidity does not. Empty? Some of the newly located astrophysical objects are extraordinarily dense, packed with matter. Infinitely over-determined? How does this sit with quantum indeterminacy and under-determination? Or with another speculative exhibit from the list: Self-consistent? At least questions of the consistency of the "new physics" and its parts are proper and reasonable. But we are far from being in a position to assert that the theory is consistent. On the contrary, inconsistencies keep emerging in the developing theory, to which often ad hoc repairs are proposed (e.g. with the Dirac o function, renormalization etc.; cf OP). Given the inadequate ramshackle character of the present quantum theory, it is a fair bet that it remains inconsistent. It is a widespread opinion among researchers that the present theory is something of a mess and in much need of improvement. Even so practicing scientists are not hoping for foundations, which tend to be frowned upon these days. However, foundations, such as an extension of von Neumann's axiomatisatio n of part of quantum theory, would help in effecting improvements, and something of the sort is a prerequisite for establishing consistency, if it can be done. Foundationless? What is meant is, apparently, not foundations for the theory, such as axiomatic foundations, nor really basic (atomic) components for what the theory is about. In this sense, Newtonian physics had as foundational elements corpuscles, or particles of certain sorts. It is sometimes said that quantum physics afford no such ultimate building blocks, each apparent stopping point fragmenting into new substructures, most recently quarks. But this idea, which so far appears to lack a satisfactory physical modelling, diverges from the still entrenched paradigm of particle physics which, for all the talk about "new paradigms" in physics, still consists in analytical reduction to ultimates. �90 Such objectual foundations leave open, of course, the question as to whether, and to what extent, new phenomena may emerge, at "higher levels", as the building blocks are variously put together and structured. As with elements, so with microphysical particles, while the zoo of known items has expanded apace, the hope remains that there is a simple underlying explanation in terms of very small ultimates, such as contemporary quarks. Those who looked forward to a quite new outlook emerging from particle physics are bound - if they look at what really goes on nowadays (esp. all the hightech dominant social paradigm aspects) as distinct from what some popular science entrepreneurs say - to be very disappointed. Walsh's "explanation" of what 'foundationle ss' means is something else: 'the universe appears to be ... foundationless and self-consistent in that, since all components and mechanisms are interconnected and interdependent, none are ultimately more fundamental than any other- hence the universe is inexplicable in terms of a limited number of fundamental mechanisms' (p.23, quoting Walsh p.180). This is Fox's example of how 'Walsh provides clear and intelligible meanings to each and every one of the items on the list'! The truth is that Walsh offers nothing of substance on some terms in his list (e.g. 'self-consistent'), and much of what he does offer is like that quoted, garbage. Granted we can make something of some of it, something extravagantly false. Even on Newtonian physics everything is connected, through forces such as gravitation 58 , but some objects are fundamental building blocks. So it is too on the 'new physics', protons for instance are more fundamental than molecules, quarks (if recent theory succeeds and proves consistent) than protons. Some objects are certainly more fundamental than others. And in the "new physics" it is widely assumed that the universe is explicable in terms of a very few principles of mechanist character (e.g. the rashly promised single equation T-shirt). But Walsh's hence clause would not follow, as simple models indicate, even if his premiss had requisite physical cogency. It does deep ecology no credit to include conspicuous rubbish. Nor is there any good reason why it should; the rubbish is not essential to deep ecology. It is not part of the platform for instance, and it is relatively easily removed from (authentic) deep ecology. So much should be evident from my original Critique (as published), and the accompanying 58 Such forces as gravitation offer, of course, nonlocal connections, and delineate fields what are said to be at 'the nub of what these emerging ideas ... of cross-disciplinary parallels ... have in common' (p.23, insert from p.23 and p.21). This confirms the impression that Fox lacks a solid grasp on what is new in the "new physics" and other "new sciences" such as they are, and thereby contributes towards answers to further of Fox's questions (p.23), by undermining their presuppositions. �I 91 sketch of deep green theory, intended to function as a relatively rubbish-free relative of deep ecology. It is some measure of the intellectual sloppiness of some of these engaged in presenting and promoting deep ecology that in a recent major text from Naess (Naess 89), the editor and translator, Rothenberg, asserts that my 'critique of deep ecological philosophy ... labels all of deep ecology literature "inconsistent rubbish"' (p.19), somehow achieving a fallacious transition from some to all. But apparently Rothenberg's acquaintance with my Critique was extraordinarily casual, since I didn't use the label 'inconsistent rubbish' (and wouldn't as anyone who had read much of my work, esp. OP, would realise), and since I certainly did not make a universal claim (and wouldn't for reasons already given, which should have been evident). 'The interpretation of the whole thing as rubbish', Rothenberg continues (p.19), 'comes only if you concentrate too much on rereading some of the sketchy formulations of deep ecology philosophies ... '. While endorsing the point about sketchy formulations, no rereading of many deep ecological productions is required to produce rubbish, no projection; several offerings - such as items lifted from trans personal psychology, idealist physics and other esoteric deep ecological sources, and such as Fox's 'sketch map of deep ecological territory' (p.89) - contain notable rubbish of themselves. Unfortunately Rothenberg proceeds, without even a pause, to repeat Fox's regressive conclusion, which would return deep ecology to human psychology, the very fate of earlier establishment-cha llenging ethics, such as (group) egoism and utilitarianism. 'One should steer clear of "environmental axiology" - that is, looking for values in nature', indeed one almost feels, from looking directly at nature at all. Instead, one should seek to change one's whole way of sensing oneself and the world in the direction of identification and Self-realisation .... Fox summarises [this debacle]: The appropriate framework of discourse for describing and presenting deep ecology is not one that is fundamentally to do with the value of the non-human world, but rather one that is fundamentally to do with the nature and possibilities of the Self, or, we might say, the question of who we are, can become, and should become in the larger scheme of things (Rothenberg p.19, quoting Fox p.85). It is a sad fate for a promising philosophy of nature; degeneration into human psychology. While that can no doubt be edifying enough, in the style of uplifting anthropocentric religions, it is hardly the sought new ecological paradigm (p. 71) and only a warped fragment of the sort of philosophy the whole Earth needs. REFERENCES Bennett, D and Sylvan, R., Damn Greenies: Australian perspectives on environmental ethics, a UNESCO project, typescript, Canberra 1989; revised text 1990. �f I 92 Bouwsma, O.K., 'Philosophical essays', University Nebraska, Lincoln, 1965, 24-25. Bradford, G. 1987 'How deep is deep ecology?', Fifth Estate 22(3)(1987) 3-30. Broad, C.D., Five Types of Ethical Theory, Kegan Paul & Others, London, 1944. Devall, B. and Sessions G, Deep Ecology, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1985. Devall, B., Simple in Means, Rich in Ends. Practicing Deep Ecology, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1988. Drengson, A. "Review of Devall and Sessions, Deep Ecology", Environmental Ethics vol 10, nl, 1988. Edwards, J.C., Ethics without Philosophy, University Presses of Florida, Tampa, 1982. Fox, W., Approaching Deep Ecology: A Response to Richard Sylvan's Critique of Deep Ecology, Environmental Studies Occasional Paper 20, University of Tasmania, 1986: unless otherwise indicated all references to Fox are to this study. Fox, W., 'The meanings of "deep ecology"', Island Magazine 32(1989) 32-5; reprinted in The Trumpeter 7(1990) 48-50. Hinckfuss, I., The Moral Society: its structure and effects, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #16, RSSS, Australian National University, 1987. Johnson,L.E., A Morally Deep World, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #17, RSSS, Australian National University, 1987. Mannison, D. and others (eds.), Environmental Philosophy, RSSS Australian National University, 1979; referred to as EP. Naess, A., 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement. A summary', Inquiry, 16(1973) 95-100. Naess, A., 'Deep ecology disentangled?', typescript, Canberra, 1984. Naess, A., 'Notes on Professor's Sylvan's Critique of the Deep Ecology Movement', typescript, Canberra, 1985. Naess, A. and Rothenberg, D., Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, 1989. Nettleship, R.L. (ed.) Work of Thomas Hill Green, three volumes, Longman, Green & Co, London, 1889. Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1971; referred to as OED. Perrett, R.W., 'Egoism, altruism and intentionalism in Buddhist Ethics', Journal of Indian Philosophy 15(1987) 71-85. Priest, G. and Routley, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in logic and Metaphysics #1, RSSS, Australian National University, 1984; referred to as OP. Rolston, H. R. IV, Philosophy Gone Wild: Essays in Environmental Ethics, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1986. �93 Routley, R., 'The semantical metamorphosis of metaphysics', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1974. Routley, Rand V., The Fight for the Forests, Third edition, RSSS, Australian National University, 1975. Routley, R. and V., 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism', Ethics and Problems of the 21 st Century , (ed. K.E. Goodpaster and K.M. Sayre), University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, 36-59. Routley, Rand V., 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in EP; referred to EE. Routley, R., 'Ultralogic as universal?', represented in JB; referred to as uu. Routley, R, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, RSSS, Australian National University, 1980; referred to as JB. Routley, R. and Others, Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982. Session, G., 'Ecocentrism, wilderness, and global ecosystem protection', in The Wilderness Condition (ed. M. Oelschlaeger), 1989; to appear. Shepard, P., 'Introduction - ecology and man - a viewpoint' in The Subversive Science (ed. P. Shepard & D McKinley), Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969, 1-10. Smith, H., The Religions of Man, Harper, New York, 1958. Smith, J.W., Reductionism and Cultural Being, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1984. Stone, C.D., Should Trees Have Standing? - Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects, revised edition, Avon Books, New York, 1975. Sylvan, R., 'Windows on Science III, Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, #2, RSSS Australian National University, 1985. Sylvan, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #12, RSSS 1985; referred to as c. Sylvan, R., 'Mind and its misplacement in nature', typescript, Canberra, 1988; referred to asMX. Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, completed typescript 1990. Walsh, R.N., 'Emerging cross-disciplinary parallels: suggestions from the neurosciences', Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 11(1979) 175-184. Wenz, P.W., Environmental Justice, State University of New York Press, Albany N.Y., 1988. Wilber, K., Eye to Eye: The quest for the new paradigm, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City N.Y., 1983. �ECOLOGICAL ETHICS and ECOLOGICAL POLITICS: turning John MCCioskey's challenge This essay comes first because it offers an advanced introduction to parts of environmental ethics, and to certain significant issues in environmental politics. It is hung, not altogether incidentally, on MCCloskey's little text on the topics, because that is a convenient vehicle for organising the material (it is also a text, written in haste, that deserves more criticism than it has received). Fortunately no one need attempt the onerous business of reading MCCioskey in order to follow the essay, should it succeed. Rather, for the purposes of this essay, MCCioskey and likewise his little work can both be regarded as characters in this piece of intellectual fiction; neither need ever have existed. 1. Conservative, reformative, and radical responses to the impacts of ecology on ethics. There are three broad kinds of responses to the impact of ecology on ethics according to MCCloskey's account, which adapts a standard political classification: radical or revolutionary, reformist, and conservative. Of course there are responses which lie outside this classification, not by disputing the impacts of escalating environmental problems (or the new awareness of nature and its fragility), but by questioning the relevance of the other end of the relation: ethics. Those responses target ethics, its role in evaluating and regulating conduct, or differently, its place in environmental philosophy (see other essays herein). As we too aspire to MCCloskey's elevated view of the importance, potential power, and effective ineliminability of ethics in rational evaluation and conduct, we set aside these gutter responses (which we have argued against elsewhere). Otherwise, the responses are these: Radical. A fundamentally new ethic is required, a non-human-centred nature-centred (or nonanthropocentric ecocentric) ethic and morality, a deeper environmental ethic, what MCCioskey and others call an ecological ethic. According to MCCioskey - who adopts the usual double standard, requiring conspicuously higher standards for new challenging theories than entrenched ones - no one 'has yet succeeded in stating or defending [an ecological ethic] in a systematic way' (p.29). Nonetheless it will turn out, quite remarkably, that MCCioskey himself, if he is at all successful, does, given but a small twist to what he does. �2 There are two standard components to any such ethic: meta-ethical and normative. According to Mccloskey, both components are 'more commonly alluded to than set out and defended in a developed, worked-out form' (p.29). There are, accordingly, two broad problems for an ecological ethics: devising a new meta-ethic, and furnishing a new normative ethic (p.30). Meta-ethics, as well as comprising the study of ethics or ethical systems, includes the logic and analysis of key ethical terms. For the new ethics a critical meta-ethical task is to 'explain valuation, and hence values, without reference to human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like' (p.30). Normative ethics involves the organisation, design and structure of systems themselves, their values, principles, constraints and the like. For the new ethics critical normative tasks include explaining and justifying the assignments of value made, especially to natural items independently of species Homo sapiens, and the principles adopted, especially concerning treatment of more natural environments, wilderness, and endangered species of plants and animals. Since all these requirements have been met, to some considerable extent (e.g. in works such as EE), the issue becomes one of adequacy. How adequately have these things been done, in particular in what is now called deep-green theory, and what of significance has been left undone? These are central questions in the on-going dialogue with MCCioskey; they will direct the questions discussed when shortly we get down to the real business of MCCloskey's more substantive objections. Reformist. Instead of a "new" ethic, standard ethical theories are reformed, modifying them or adjusting them at the periphery, 'so as to acknowledge new, specifically ecological values and duties' (p.30). Characteristically the adjustment is to the margins of normative theory, with standard meta-ethics left substantially intact. Animal rights theories which simply adjust utilitarianism to take account of the suffering of other sentient creatures than humanoids, afford a stock example of significant reformism. By contrast, differently designed and defended theories of animal rights may be radical in character. The classification is thus pretty rough and ready; given the comparative vagueness of "newness" and "standardness" as regards ethical theories, the divisions between responses is likewise blunt. Evidently too, the classification only overlaps other classifications of ethics with some vogue, for instance that into shallow, intermediate, and deep (used elsewhere e.g. TE). Thus while reformist utilitarianisms are typically intermediate, a reformist ethic (or even a revolutionary one, such as Nietzsche's has been taken to be) may be substantially shallow. The converse linkages are tighter: only an ethic which merely purports to be conservative can really be intermediate, as MCCloskey's intuitionism is, or deep, as "supplementation" of such intuitionism could �3 be. Conservative. No input from ecology warrants even so much as reform, let alone revolution, in standard ethical theory; all that is required is 'a more informed, more accurate thinking out of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29). MCCioskey claims to defend the stock conservative view that ecological considerations and 'findings ... do not necessitate a basic revolution in ethics but supply a more informed, more accurate thinking out, of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29, similarly p.31). Rather than looking hard at the conspicuous difficulties and inadequacies of prevailing ethics, unresolved after thousands of years of investigation, MCCioskey proceeds immediately to try to shift the onus of proof: ' ... no moral philosopher has yet succeeded in either stating or defending it ... a new ecological ethic ... in a systemic way' (p.29, insertion from same page). He alleges, to elaborate on a previous charge, that 'the problem of [a radical] ecological ethics is that of devising a a new meta-ethics, one that explains valuation, and hence values, without reference to human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like, and a a new normative ethics that explains both • the value of natural phenomena prior to man's existence and after the extinction of the species Homo sapiens and • why it is morally wrong for man to damage wilderness and endanger or render extinct natural species of plants and animals' (p.30, display inserted). As it happens, all these things have been attempted, as was said and as will become evident - though perhaps in too sketchy and too technical a way so far (it is still early days). For example, why it is wrong to damage pristine wilderness is, at bottom, because such wilderness possesses high intrinsic value - something MCCioskey does not really dispute. How then does he sustain his allegations? For the most part, despite the repeated rhetoric about "arguing" this and that, he doesn't. He simply assumes that 'concern for human well-being' must dominate, that it always has, well almost always has, priority (e.g. p.52). 2. A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism. Furthermore, MCCioskey, although he claims to be defending this conservative 'third view', does not state matters as clearly as he should: he only rules out the 'need for a specifically ecological ethic', not reformism. This constitutes one part of what amounts �4 to substantial cheating in MCCloskey's "conservatism" . 1 A further part consists in adopting an extremely unfashionable ethical theory, an intuitionism supplementing a now little known theory of the kind developed by Ross, as his "standard" ethical theory. Like the rare "ideal utilitarianism", such intuitionism can be much closer to proposed new ecological ethics, given appropriate ideals and intuitions, than standard "standard" ethics (indeed, given a deep tum, they can be tantamount to ecological ethics). But the most important dodge is incorporated in the "supplementation" MCCioskey makes of his "standard" ethic, which far exceeds what it is said to be: Ross 'supplemented by an account of the moral rights of persons' (p.31). For he also concedes himself such objectives as an open-ended 'promotion of good' and coupled 'prima facie obligations to ... promote good' (p.33 and p.31). Moreover, such promotion of good elsewhere expands to a promotion of good, beauty and knowledge (p.36), and to include promotion and preservation of what is intrinsically valuable (p.36); among 'recognised ethical values' is 'the securing of the intrinsically valuable' (p.8). Moreover, among what is intrinsically valuable are some (but not all) natural species, some wilderness (p.36), and other valuable natural items such as 'forests, lakes, rivers, seas' (p.31). Such critical "supplementations" mean that MCCioskey can proceed to argue for the preservation of wilderness or natural species in just the ways that most deep environmentalists do; for example, along the lines that an area of wilderness has not merely instrumental value, but evident intrinsic value, which can be felt or intuited (e.g. p.61 bottom). Such supplementations thus lift MCCioskey right out of the normal conservative camp in which he has misleadingly located himself: for that shallow camp does not recognise irreducible values in nature. What he is covertly assuming, in his considerable supplementation of an unusual noncognitive ethic, is at least a significant reform of standard ethics. MCCloskey's ethic is not 'perfectly familiar' historically; more, his insistence (ascribable not to modesty but to political purposes) that it is not 1 There is analogous, if less outrageous, covert cheating in another leading Australian conservative, with whom McCloskey aligns himself: Passmore. For example, Passmore helps himself to a notion of vandalism (deep vandalism involving depreciation or destruction of what has intrinsic value) to which his theory does not entitle him. It has not been much appreciated that Passmore, too, for all his apparently tough conservatism (early on) on ethics, also (characteristically) hedges his claims. A much-quoted passage, endorsed by McCloskey (p.37 italics added), begins: 'what it [the West] needs,for the most part, is not so much a "new ethic" as a more general adherence to a perfectly familiar ethic'. What that familiar ethic is, and how it is to be reformed, Passmore never really tells us. In any case the main conservative theme looks less and less plausible. It is increasingly dubious that better adherence to established ethical and political forms will prove adequate, especially to environmental problems unforeseen by these chauvinistic theories. �5 new is nowhere demonstrated, simply asserted. (In fact the claim is somewhat empty in the absence of sharpened criteria for newness.) How far removed MCCloskey's supplemented intuitionism is from its 'perfectly familiar' source is readily shown by a comparison of MCCioskey with Ross on intrinsic goodness. Ross contends (on the basis of reflection and using an interesting little argument from a then 'widely accepted classification of elements in the life of the soul') that four things, and basically only four things, 'seem to be intrinsically good', all of which are 'ideal states of the mind' (p.140). How far things ethical have moved since the nineteen thirties is also shown by the little argument Ross runs out, as if it was quite decisive, to refute people like MCCioskey who imagine they find intrinsic value beyond states of mind - in wilderness, forests and other material items. 'It might of course be objected that there are or may be intrinsic goods that are not states of mind or relations between states of mind at all, but in this suggestion I find no plausibility. Contemplate any imaginary universe from which you suppose mind entirely absent, and you will fail to find anything in it that you can call good in itself' (p.140). Ross no doubt reflects the conventional ethical wisdom, a narrow wisdom, of his time and place (essentially British ethics of the first half of the twentieth century). But many before Ross, and many more since, have not so failed in finding items of intrinsic worth in the absence of states of mind, in the Earth itself and its natural features for example. Such comparatively successful arguments as those concerning the Last Sentient (in EE), and the world before the rise of mental life, were designed to expose and reinforce such common findings. So much Mccloskey is sufficiently clear about (thereby shortening subsequent argument for a new ethics): 'The negative part of the Routley's argument, that traditional [Western] ethics and contemporary morality are human-centered, is substantially well based. The ecological moral intuitions they seek to explain and justify find no justification in terms of such ethics' (p.58). But in MCCloskey's ethics they do find some confirmation, or rather conformation, in the intrinsic ecological values discerned. Moreover, with but a turn in the intuitions admitted that intuitionistic ethics itself becomes properly deep - just allow the (over-malleable) intuitions to coincide with those of deep ecological consciousness: then deepened MCCioskey is deep ecology. MCCioskey even puts effort into explaining how conventional theories are 'heavily human centered', without appreciating how far it removes him from the 'perfectly familiar' ethic of Ross, and from his own professed conservatism. As a result too, those making too superficial a survey of MCCloskey's complex ethical position, especially if they came at it with preconceptions of what it amounted to, have been seriously misled. Goodin is one reviewer who is undone. By quoting MCCloskey's effort on conventional ethics right out of context, Goodin manages to �6 attribute to Mccloskey the very negation of what he advances, namely 'that all talk of intrinsic value must nevertheless be human-centered' (Goodin p.345). The same applies to what Goodin takes to be 'the punchline' of MCCloskey's position, 'that the environment per se has no independent moral claims upon it. All our duties to protect it must be derived from human-centered concerns' (p.344). Nor does such a punch line emerge from the admittedly convoluted passage quoted in support; for the passage makes the promotion of goodness, which includes promotion of intrinsic value independent of humans, a prima f acie obligation. But Goodin does have excuses. For not merely is MCCloskey's position hard to fathom, but it exhibits confusion and is internally inconsistent. For example, Mccloskey typically presents himself as having, and frequently operates as if he had, an entirely conservative position, when his position is in important respects at least reformist, making allowance for intrinsic values of natural items including wilderness, plants and animals (pp. 52-3); his position is both different, with new elements, and not different, with no new elements. Part of the problem can be traced back to a confusion about intrinsic value (likewise intrinsic goodness), which is both intrinsic, valuable in itself, and not intrinsic, because valuable for something else, typically beauty or human knowledge in the case of natural items. The confusion is manifest in the many intuitive judgements of intrinsic value of natural items advanced simply on the strength of judgements of beauty or ugliness, and appears in such themes as that 'a moral duty to preserve species and wilderness ... is ... based on ... the securing of the intrinsically valuable objects of knowledge and the beautiful' (p.110). It is no longer just 'the securing of the intrinsically valuable' as is earlier said (e.g. p.8); those "intrinsic values" somehow now reduce or answer instrumentally to supposedly human evaluations, i.e. are not "intrinsic" after all, whereupon MCCloskey's seriously damaged position reverts to the shallow conservative position it is often been taken to be. The main features brought out make MCCloskey's ethic, confusions apart, at least a reformist one, not a conservative one. Briefly, MCCloskey's "supplementation " of Ross's theory is so great as to make for a difference of kind. The features also render it what is called an intermediate position. For it admits values in nature, it assigns intrinsic value to some natural objects, while not however allowing values of natural things to sometimes override those of humans. The point is fundamental. 'However, as the theory developed here implies, ultimately, when there is a clear clash between human welfare and human rights on the one hand and the preservation of wilderness and of plant and animal species on the other, human welfare and respect for human rights must prevail ... ' (p.36). Why so? Why preserve this ancient ethical prejudice? Despite the assertion the theory sketched out, the supplemented Ross ethic, does not imply human �7 ethical supremacy. But even if the theory did imply this greater value assumption, the appeal to it in defence of the assumption would be indecently circular. It is no proper defence of proposition p that Shifty's theory implies p, unless Shifty's theory is shown to have independent merit, such as correctness, robustness (i.e. continuing to yield p under reasonable variations), etc. None of the requisite demonstration is attempted. The radically reformed Ross ethic is just assumed. In fact MCCioskey has adduced no decent case for this crucial assumption, which colours much of his text. For it is his repeated insistence on the supreme importance of things human, of Man over the rest of nature, that gives his work its undoubted antienvironmental appearance, which is obnoxiously exhibited at many places in the text. One revolting example concerns venomous snakes: 'today they are a nuisance and a danger to human life and health, concern for which dictates that individuals be accorded the freedom to kill such snakes, to rid their properties of these pests even at the risk of rendering them endangered species. (Sufficient specimens could be retained in zoos throughout the world, where they survive well ... )', perhaps along with dangerous subspecies of humans (p.116). MCCioskey is particularly concerned to put down arguments 'for the preservation of species and wilderness at the cost of human interests, human concerns .. ', even though these arguments 'appear to be correct about the intuitive insights of those who live in different countries in affluence. 2 Nonetheless it will be my concern in this work to reject this approach and the moral intuitions on which it rests' (p.36, italics added). Unfortunately the strongly proclaimed rejection is not backed up with requisite argument. MCCioskey, in a familiar intuitionistic predicament, is stranded without argument. Nor, in this case, could the rejection be so easily supported. For one thing MCCioskey feels obliged, almost immediately, to qualify his human supremacy claim: human interest 'must prevail, unless what it is proposed to preserve has great intrinsic value' (p.36 italics added). For another reason, the human interests involved often cannot justify preeminence; they are too often trivial, or unworthy, or just plain ordinary. So the ancient (unethical) prejudice in favour of humans can, and should be relinquished (as argued in much more detail in other places, e.g. EE). But then there is nothing to stop MCCloskey's intuitionism sliding to real depth, the ethic moving from reformist to radical. Call the resulting theory, MCCloskey's stripped 2 But the impression of McCloskey as a fighter for the under-privileged among humans, one who of course along with developers and colonizers makes human interests paramount, is deceptive. �8 of anthropic prejudice so to say, deepened intuitionism, intuitionism informed, again if you like, by deep ecological consciousness. The beauty of deepened intuitionism is that it answers, in MCCloskey's own terms, MCCloskey's challenge to radically new ecological ethics. A now evident "adjustment" to MCCloskey's own theory will serve. The trouble, of course, with this answer is the trouble with intuitionism in ethics generally; that, for instance, it is built on the shifting sands of intuition. That is why a direct response to Mccloskey will be offered, in terms of deep-green theory. 3. On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics, esp. that deep-green upstart. Part of MCCloskey's complaint is that the new environmental ethics demanded back in the early seventies, have not been presented sufficiently 'clearly and fully' as to admit proper examination and assessment (p.60). It is easy to level such charges at new proposals; and such charges did carry some force, and still do, though less as the new theories develop, among other things, to meet criticism. But MCCioskey would like to make a much grander charge, the sort of charge (discussed below) that Thompson recently did level: that such 'a new ethic ... is logically impossible to set out' (p.59 reordered). But Mccloskey, by contrast with Thompson who can slip into still fashionable noncognitivism, is poorly placed to press such a charge. For he considers that noncognitivism, which would logically tie all valuation to aspects of human (or creature) cognition and so would be bad news for deep environmentalism, is bound to fail. MCCioskey tries instead to push through an eliminative argument, relying upon the limited range of cognitivist (meta-)ethics 'developed to date'. He claims to eliminate all but intuitionism: 'Of the known, plausible, meta-ethical theories, the only one available to such ecologist ethicists is the ethical realism of intuitionism' (p.59), which regrettably they decline. But the elimination argument is radically defective, as MCCioskey is very far from exhausting the initially plausible options open to environmentalism. In addition, more satisfactory options will aim to discard not merely intuitionism but also both the ethical realism and objectivism that regularly (and to its intellectual cost) accompany it, but need not. While it would hardly be surprising should the quite limited range of ethical theories that have achieved much development to date prove inadequate to new environmental objectives, the situation is by no means as desperate as MCCioskey implies. Firstly, the options MCCioskey does offer, deviously pruned down (not 'ideal observer ethic' but 'Humean ideal observer ethic', not 'natural law ethic' but 'Thomistic natural law ethic'), are not all restricted in the way portrayed: 'All make human nature or personhood or features thereof basic to ethics' (p.59). Not so; the contention certainly does not hold for all the types of theory listed, e.g. naturalism or relativism, and insofar �9 as it does, it is sometimes easily avoided, as with natural law (e.g. set within pantheism). Secondly, there is a range of recognised ethical types, such as those distinguished by Broad, which affords scope for the elaboration of ecological ethics. Obvious candidates within naturalism include biological and evolutionary naturalism - typical examples of which 'are the following: "To be virtuous means to perform the specific activities of the species to which you belong efficiently" (Spinoza). "Better conduct means conduct that comes later in the course of evolution and is more complex than earlier conduct of the same kind" (Herbert Spencer)' (Broad p.259). No doubt such proposals exhibit deficiencies, but not per se of a human chauvinistic sort; and they admit of improvement, which they are beginning to obtain within the tradition of American naturalism (thus e.g. Rolston's work). More promising, however, are "non-naturalistic" theories, of which objectivistic realistic intuitionism such as Mccloskey is keen to offer and promote is but one kind. For there are other less demanding types of intuitionism (see, e.g. Broad p.270), including various "deep intuitionisms", which may be neither objectivistic nor realistic (in the sense of labouring under heavy ontological commitments). In particular, as Elliot explains (p.502), what entirely escapes MCCloskey is the feasibility of a meta-ethic which is nonjective, that is, not objective, like transcendental intuitionism, but not implausibly subjective either. Then there are moral sense theories and their more plausible variations including mixtures with rationalism. Further, there are analogous mixtures coherently building upon emotional presentation. Such a rational reconstuction, varying the Austrian theory of values as elaborated empirically and logically by Meinong, is in fact the ethical way taken by deep-green theory (for detail see TE and DG). And so on. There is logical scope, then, for quite a variety of ecological meta-ethics, and definitely scope for significant improvements upon those 'developed to date'. As much to the point, there have already been significant developments of some forms of ecological meta-ethics, notably of that theory in effect under criticism, deepgreen theory, which is already better articulated than most conventional ethics. There are several connected parts to this elaboration because it brings into meta-ethics new logical technology, especially world-semantics. The parts, furthermore, have not been duly separated because of a pervasive verificationism living on in Anglo-American ethical theory, which proceeds to equate semantic with epistemic, meaning with method of coming to know, and the like. A first step then in meta-ethical analysis is some proper separation of the parts, such as meaning, epistemic confirmation, and rational justification. Naturally the parts fit together into a larger whole, into the meta-ethical edifice, but simplistic positivistic equations do not satisfactorily explain the integration. �10 As to meaning, deep-green theory can already stand on its record of proferred semantical analyses. 3 Semantics both for axiological terms such as value and bettemess and for deontic terms such as obligation and wrongness have been provided through world semantics (see sv, MD). The deontic theory developed in the process (in MD) offers a considerable improvement over Ross's theory (which supplies no semantics), because it enables the theory-saving artifice of prima facie obligations to be removed and natural language discourse concerning obligations to be recovered. While such semantical advances do not pretend to offer a full account of meaning, as much more remains to be done within pragmatics, they do offer straightforward resolutions both of long-standing ethical puzzles and paradoxes and of several complaints about environmentally deep ethics. A major early problem for a genuinely nonchauvinistic ethics was to give a satisfactory account of ethical terms without reference to favoured biological species, above all to humans. On deep-green theory this was accomplished by a combination of an "annular theory", offering an ethically relevant typology of doers and receivers, with the semantical analyses (see EE and AP for details). By these means, deep-green theory proceeded to remove humans from an essential role in ethics. Humans enter importantly, of course, but only contingently, as certain sorts of valuers and agents, which sorts depending upon their relevant capacities. For example, humans do not inevitably enter, as too many had previously supposed, into every ethical picture, because there were no value judgements without valuers, and all valuers were humans. Both parts of this linkage fail. Most important, values are not tied to valuers or actual valuing. But possible valuers and therewith their valuing can always be dummied in logically. The reason is at bottom that any coherent distribution of values can be regarded as the values of certain possible valuers. Furthermore, contrary to MCCloskey's unsupported charge against such semantical analyses, this does not expose the theory 'to difficulties parallel to those encountered by phenomenalism ... ' (p.60). For phenomenalism attempts a reduction; the semantical theory makes no such attempt. The meta-ethic is non-reductionist; nor is it obliged to rely upon tricks like supervenience. Deep-green theory already had more up on the meta-ethical scoreboard in the early eighties than Ross's theory upon which MCCioskey purportedly proposed to reply. MCCloskey's criticism of ecological ethics as meta-ethically inadequate lapses. As to normative theory, the other prong of his attack, his demands are excessive. Few ethical theories have been stated 'fully and clearly' and 'developed in a systematic, detailed 3 Standing on records is hardly a practice I embrace with much enthusiasm, but sometimes it is inevitable if excess repetition is to be avoided. �11 form' such as Mccloskey appears to expect (e.g. p.60). To take some grand comparisons: Those that are detailed such as Confusianism are not particular systematic, those that are detailed and systematic such as Spinoza's ethic are hardly clear and are likely inconsistent, those that are fairly full and moderately clear such as Sidgwick's utilitarianism are also rather clearly defective; and in the twentieth century, nothing much, ecological or not, matches these grand examples. But to indicate a few details of what is accomplished normatively in deep-green theory:- Non-interference and like principles are defended (cf EE p.174); these afford a basis for integrating standard social justice principles (including obligations to the future), duly amended, with environmental principles. In this way, making use of the annular theory, much of prevailing social ethics, of a radical kind, can be subsumed. In an attempt to be helpful, Mccloskey quite erroneously suggests that 'the normative ethic appears to be base[d] on ... intuitive insights into what is intrinsically valuable and what is intrinsically obligatory, where what is intrinsically obligatory need not be tied to intrinsic value' (p.60, rearranged). What is obligatory, like what is right, does answer back to what is intrinsically valuable, though in more complex fashion than elementary ethical courses care to contemplate (see TE and MD). But what is intrinsically valuable is often not discerned through intuitive insights. The idea that is is part of what lies at the back of the expectation that instant answers can and should be given to any question as to what is intrinsically valuable or the like. Rather what is intrinsically valuable is arrived at through a process of reasoning and coherence-assessment, based at bottom on emotional presentation (for more detail see TE). We offered, furthermore, many examples of items - not only individuals, but species, such as the blue whale, complexes, and ecosystems - that are intrinsically valuable, valuable in and for themselves and not on other counts (such as some of MCCloskey's "intrinsic values" which vanish into economic or aesthetic values). Accordingly, the charge (p.60), 'Nor are the relevant values or principles explained or discussed', loses its force. As to the specific difficulties for an ecological ethic of deep-green kind that MCCioskey alleges, many of these are only encountered upon importing assumptions that the ethics do not include and should not supply. So it is with the assumption that an ecological ethic should assign intrinsic value to all species, even equally to each species, given that it does to some. MCCloskey's own intermediate ethic does not do this, why should an ecological ethic? Some-to-all arguments do not suddenly become valid in deep space. Deep-green theory, in particular, unlike deep ecology, makes no assumptions as to biospecies equality; rather it requires a certain interspecies impartiality. The extent of intrinsic value of a species is assessed in principle, through a multiple factor procedure incorporating value-making features of the species (cf. EE p.168). Mccloskey wheels �12 out the already exhausted examples of disease organisms and parasites, and offers his intuition, a strong human prejudice, that 'there seems to be no intrinsic value in the existence of such species and organisms' (p.61). No doubt such species and organisms do not exhibit intrinsic value in the way or to the extent that conspicuous species near the tops of food chains do. Their biological role and value is different. Their importance, consists, in part, in control, in regulation of the character and the numbers of more valuable species; their biological value is, to stretch a term, primarily facilitative, but often nonetheless, under present ecological arrangements, apparently essential. One reason why MCCioskey fails to observe how easy it is to shift the difficulties he finds so pressing is, of course, that he is trying to make a case against deep positions. Another reason is that he is operating with far too coarse a mesh, both ecologically and socially. Intrinsic value does not come in big indiscriminable unsieved lumps: all species if any, all pleasure if any, all knowledge if any. The need for discrimination becomes evident if added to MCCloskey's list of intrinsic valuables (e.g. p.108) are such standard goals as wealth and power (itself often linked to knowledge). Like wealth and power, human pleasure and knowledge4, for example, are far from invariable goods. Often, like much entrepreneurial information transmitted through expensive systems, they are trivial; sometimes they are positively evil, as pleasure in extensive torture, or practical knowledge of the means of excruciating torture. 5 A finer mesh is needed, and available, a mesh that can be usefully applied in the ecological domain to remove standard "difficulties", as it was applied by Mill, though in a failed attempt to repair utilitarianism. 4. Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics. Ecological politics is a structure grafted onto ecological ethics, in much the way that political theory more generally is supposedly built upon (or alongside) ethics. Politics is essentially concerned with groups, societies and certain social institutions; ethics, so it is said, with individuals. But the distinction is not quite so simple; ethics too concerns groups and interrelations of individuals, normatively. In fact, the exact 4 For these often shoddy goals McCloskey indecently contemplates destruction of the Rottnest quokka, a species McCloskey provocatively presents as 'useless' and 'ugly' (p.61). Judgements of aesthetic and utility are notoriously ideological systemdependent, and here McCloskey flouts his commitment to an old, damaging, and fortunately disappearing, ideology. 5 In any event, Western ethics and ideology much overrate knowledge and information; largely defunct Eastern theories, such as Taoism, have a better appreciation of the importance, and nonimportance, of different kinds of knowledge (cf. Sylvan and Bennett on Taoism). �13 interrelation of politics with ethics, though an issue under investigation since Aristotle sought to settle the matter, remains unclear. Judicious borrowing from logic can help a bit in clarification, in both the general and the ecologically restricted cases. With ethics and politics, or ecological ethics and ecological politics (of given sorts, e.g. utilitarian, deep-green), both considered as theories, the relation is that of extension: the latter extends the former, in fact extends it substantially. For comparison, logical examples of extensions are afforded by the relation of quantification logic to sentential logic, or set theory to quantification logic, or, a little nearer the mark in terms of complexity, classical mathematics to set theory. Ecological politics is not merely - or as regards the pure theory at all - an application of ecological ethics. It requires a considerable amount of further apparatus (typically primitives and defined terms in the extended theory) that does not enter into ethics proper, such as states, leaders, corporations, unions, organisers, and moreover (what correspond to axiomatic constraints) the manifold interconnections of these political items. What kind of extension politics is, or ought to be, of ethics is a more vexed question. In particular (depending on the matching of the politics to the presumed ethics it extends) the extension may not be conservative. For example, theoretical allowance has to be made for the Machiavellian idea that certain political components may be exempt from given ethical constraints, an idea that has proved unacceptable to most philosophers from Aristotle through Mccloskey. The prevailing conservative extension theme is forcefully presented, if in too shallow and individualistic form, by Nozick: Moral philosophy sets the background for, and the boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do [politically] through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus. The moral prohibitions it is permissible to enforce are the source of whatever legitimacy the state's fundamental coercive power has (Nagel p.199, endorsing Nozick). In short, should conservative extension be abandoned, rational justification becomes a serious, indeed insuperable, problem. As it happens, the way in which ecological politics proceeds to extend ecological politics (when done conservatively) is admirably illustrated by MCCloskey's practice and development of issues. In virtually every case, the approach adopted as regards the politics of the issue builds directly upon the results reached in the ethical investigation of that issue. However, in the political theory advanced, Mccloskey does not take full and proper advantage of his supplemented ethics, but lapses back into an old-fashioned chauvinism. (He thus resembles a logician, actual exemplars shall go unnamed, who �14 with all the underlying logical technology available to avoid the paradoxes and anomalies of classical set theory, lapses back into these when he makes the extension to set theory.) Once again this abysmal outcome is primarily a result of his tenacious adherence to that ancient greater value prejudice, which vastly overrates humans, their attitudes, freedoms and products, and undervalues natural things, even to the extent of undercutting previously granted intrinsic value (cf. p.111). Mccloskey proceeds to play humans off against environments, assuming of course that humans ought to win hands-down. The resulting theory is ecological only in addressing - in a decidedly unsympathetical way ecologically - ecological problems. Ecologically then, the proferred ecological politics proves exceedingly disappointing; politically, things are little better. A political theory is bound to add to an ethical theory further organisational structure, comprising further structural units (corporations, states, etc.), institutional arrangements (property, markets, etc.), and so on. There are a great many, still illclassified and largely untried, types of options here: options as to what gets added, and how it is adjoined. Among the enormous range of choice McCloskey opts, without much argument, for unimaginative arrangements like those prevailing in the West and North, for a statist and developmental status quo (for which he serves very much as an apologist). He opts for what he is pleased to call 'liberal democratic states' - though the veneer of democracy is thin (control typically being vested with a ruling minority) and liberality is sharply hedged (true-blue liberalism conflicting with statism, in ways thorough-going libertarianism has exposed). Practically, as we know from experience, it is a jerry-built structure; theoretically, as is insufficiently realised, it remains a house of cards. The status quo choice of "liberal democracy" gets confirmed, so Mccloskey imagines, by disposing of but two sorts of alternatives: primitivism, which he regards as substantially self-refuting in presently highly civilized highly warlike times; and totalitarianism, which he regards as the main and menacing alternative. It is a simplistic scheme, leaving out significant alternatives; but such a picture is remarkably widespread, even among academics. While, like most urbanised intellectuals, Mccloskey cannot resist sounding off about any proposed 'return to primitivism', to 'rural communities of the political imagination' (p.109), he does in fact confine his consideration of alternative political arrangements to totalitarian alternatives which would sharply increase the restrictiveness of present statist arrangements. Against totalitarian alternatives, even present inadequate arrangements no doubt look good; but against certain other political alternatives (e.g. decentralised organisation using advanced technology as appropriate), these arrangements look more like a recipe for on-going ecological trouble. Such other alternatives, Mccloskey does not really consider. He has sighted the far ecological right, �15 ecofascism as it is sometimes dubbed, and fires almost all his guns at it. However there is an ecological left, with a longer tradition than the right, which passes unnoticed; yet it offers a vision of new ecological communities in which liberal principles, on the face of it MCCloskey's main concern, are maintained or even enhanced. But, for all its shortcomings, MCCloskey's attempt to get to grips with ecological politics deserves a somewhat fuller discussion than indicated by Goodin's cavalier dismissal: 'The politics discussion just amounts to a bash at the authoritarianism of some of the more rabid ecological doomsayers, propositions which are quite sufficient reductios in and of themselves' (p.344). For one thing, that was how much of the field looked when MCCioskey was helping to put ecological politics on the philosophical agenda. Ecological politics still remained an unfashionable, and in some places dangerous, field at the time MCCioskey was writing. Liberal philosophers with respectable academic positions in North America tended to keep out of the field, which accordingly got left to practical environmentalists, over-enthusiastic in their appeals to the state for tough control and regulation, and to authoritarian academics keen to strengthen totalitarian and isolationist tendencies of states. As MCCioskey emphasizes, Much ecological political writing exhibits two disturbing features that undermine its value. The one feature relates to the readiness of many political theorists on the basis of the flimsiest evidence to waive lightly man's claim to recognition of his human rights on the ground that the ecological crisis is so grave and critical that only the most drastic, desperate measures will succeed. The other feature is the very great confidence in the capacity of states to take whatever action is necessary to avoid the ecological crisis. In fact, the states of the world today greatly contribute to various of the ecologically based problems that confront mankind. They are unworthy of the great faith and trust that many ecological reformers appear to have in them or in the state in the abstract.(p.108). Bravo! But rather than considering carefully dismantling states, in favour of alternative organisational arrangements, MCCioskey leaps immediately in the opposite direction, to the orthodox position that 'a major part of the ecological political problem is that of ensuring that states carry out their ecological responsibilities' - whatever those may be (states do not regard themselves as morally bound, and typically their constitutions are incredibly weak and unspecific, and sometimes evasive on such matters). Indeed he goes further: 'The nation-state needs to be not superseded but complimented by a world political authority' (p .107). Again there is little argument, and no due concern that such an Authority would be yet a further developmental agency operating with tanks and bulldozers. �16 For another, MCCioskey tried to open up or advance several issues in ecological politics (and would have, if his book had existentially impacted and had not been largely bypassed or dismissed). These issues include not merely the standard issues of overpopulation, pollution and unethical technology; more notably, they also include the issue, which has recently received much airing, as to whether environmental demands and regulations interfere damagingly with individual freedoms and other aspects of liberal principles. There are other facets to this that deserve further examination (do it decently, someone!): the extent to which liberal states do and can deliver on environmental matters, as well as the extent of interference with liberties (much turns then on how it is all done). MCCioskey has overestimated the abilities of states to deliver liberal ideals and guarantee liberal principles, such as individual freedom (in fact, to note some lesser infringements, they characteristically coerce citizens in many respects, forcing them into a money economy, to pay taxes and obtain licences, even to serve on juries, to vote, to fight, etc.). If the state promises liberties with one hand, it is busy actually taking liberties away with the other. While we may be stuck with states for the present, as an unpleasant political reality, it is not too difficult to see that there are better unrealised alternatives even from a traditional liberal angle, alternatives that pass unconsidered. And MCCioskey has grossly underestimated the severity of ecological problems states should be trying to solve. In some of his findings, MCCioskey is so wildly astray that his judgement on factual issues and his credibility has to fall under real suspicion. For example: ' ... it is evident that over the whole period of his existence man has only been one relatively minor factor bearing on species survival rates' (p.47)! ' ... man is simply adding more hazards to those created by nature itself for some species' (p.47 continuing). For the next example, by contrast with the previous, MCCioskey might seek refuge in the fact that he was writing back in 1982: 'Few suggest that man can or will destroy the ecosystem of the earth' (p.49). Even so, the news on nuclear winter had broken, and the Greenhouse effect was already worrying some scientists. "Man" appears able to do little that is very wrong; MCCioskey can only bring himself to engage in the mildest of censure: ' ... man could have used DDT to better effect' (p.50). No doubt he could have refrained from using it to significantly better effect. A due adaptation of that Old Testament idea that humans are characteristically radically flawed, regularly and perhaps inevitably sinning in their treatment of the Earth, does not break through in MCCloskey's approach. In fact anti-ecological themes strongly pushed by MCCioskey will break through again and again in what follows. �17 Nor did Mccloskey anticipate the rapid march of ecological history at all well. With his operational assumption that ecological reforms 'would not be popular' (e.g. p.156), he appears to have been swiftly refuted by history. There has been much popular movement in favour of ecological causes. The main resistance to far-reaching reforms has not been popular, but establishment resistance, together with that from business, wealth and privilege, and their hired economic men and thugs. Similarly with his assumptions that reform, or change, would not occur unless the ecological problems were believed 'to be real problems' (p.157) - which of course MCCloskey himself believed they were not by and large, something he deluded himself that he had shown. But popular beliefs have changed rapidly, taking MCCloskey's assumptions under along with old beliefs. In any case, MCCloskey's argument to unpopularity lacks cogency. It is that ecological measures 'may necessitate less convenient, changed lifestyles, many controls and restrictions, increased costs, additional taxes, basic interference with what now are seen as being matters of basic rights .... democratic legislators [cannot] hope to bring about the reforms ... and still retain office' (p.157). Whence, again ecological reformers may look to totalitarian political solutions. So far as I am aware, there have been no such proposals by ecological groups in Australasia. In small measure too, Mccloskey begins to meet his own argument. For measures of the type Mccloskey rightly finds distasteful, have already been run through in contemporary representative democracies; consider security and surveillance, foreign control and surveillance, nuclear power and surveillance, urban restructuring and surveillance opportunities, and so on. Secondly, there are important trade-offs; if these often minor inconveniences are not experienced now, much more drastic and dislocating changes will probably have to be undertaken subsequently. Thirdly, of course, if they are not undertaken now much of immense value will be lost. More direct democracies than we have today, where peoplegovernance and control of established elites is tenuous, would stand a better chance of limiting these losses; properly pluralistic systems would presumably manage better still. But Mccloskey does not address such issues as ecologically improved democracies. Instead he assumes, quite wrongly, that solutions to ecological difficulties will require strong and authoritarian central governments (perhaps both of states and of the world), but that such institutions run directly counter to liberal concerns: 'the enjoyments of many rights and liberties and opportunities to rectify grave injustices' (p.25). So he tears off to address the difficulties of ecological totalitarianism (pp.158-9), well-known difficulties (as Goodin observed) confronting Antipodean non-starters among political alternatives. �18 Without examining other alternatives than certain totalitarian ones, Mccloskey manages to conclude (to his own satisfaction) that 'the only realistic, feasible avenue to ecological political reform is through the political institutions of an open society that respects human rights', what he appears to think is offered by contemporary 'liberal democratic states' (p.159). Naturally deep environmentalists seek open societies that respect rights, including decently discerned human rights. The big trouble is that on these matters, as with environmental matters, contemporary liberal democratic states have performed decidedly sublimenally, i.e. well below adequacy threshold. 6 It is not unreasonable to contemplate alternative political arrangements that perform more satisfactorily. But it is perhaps unrealistic to expect such improved organisational structure to be got into place at all easily or at all. For liberal democratic states retain regional monopolies on violence and other critical control, which, for all the palavering about respecting rights, they do not hesitate to deploy when their power and security are threatened. Nor is Mccloskey, by contrast with libertarians, at all averse to regulations and restrictions and limitations on liberty - except when these put environmental things ahead of humans. For humans, if not animals, things material are supposed to be pretty good in MCCloskey's liberal democratic mixed capitalistic setting. Environmental constraints are not to impose upon or reduce human living 'standards or levels of enjoyment' (p.134) - unless that enjoyment should be profligate, for instance involving conspicuous consumption and waste. Certainly such constraints are not to interfere with morally acceptable human freedoms: such is one side of the proferred dilute liberalism. But unnecessary waste is another thing, and should be curbed, through state guidance and regulation; liberalism here parts company with libertarianism. 'The switch from a resource-profligate society to a resource-liberal one would involve an acceptance of much more state action, more state interference by way of incentives, disincentives, regulations, restrictive laws, and over all planning than now prevails. However, it would not require the loss of basic freedom ... ' (p.134)! Such double-talk certainly makes the heavy liberal case MCCloskey tries to mount against decent environmental concerns - as against decent human concerns - look thin and flawed. Because such regulation does make serious inroads upon capitalistic freedoms, much hangs on the term 'basic', which is not however explained in this context. If, being freedom-loving Europeans, we burn down an empty freeway at speeds in excess of wasteful consumption limitations and we are accordingly locked away for months, then the effect 6 Sublimenal is a satisizing analogue of the maximization ideology's suboptimal. �19 on our basic freedom to life at large is serious. The paternalistic states MCCioskey offers, in significant respects more paternal than those we already have in the West, do not sit so easily with liberalism; patently they are incompatible with libertarianism, which does not brook such restrictive regulation. The critical point is however this: what is permissible in rectifying a resource-profligate society is similarly permissible in reorganising an environmentally-profligate society. Again there need be no loss of basic freedom, where basic is now characterised in terms of whats ethically acceptable. Only the ethics is now a deep environmental ethics. 5. Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved classification of environmental problems. Environmental ethics and politics are regularly said to be engendered by environmental problems, increasingly severe and encroaching problems. Yet in MCCloskey's text, as in that of his main model, Passmore's establishment text, there is no well-organised classification of environmental problems, only a rather ramshackle list. We can however reach towards an improved classification by considering environmental impact in a dynamic setting (cf. the beginning of section 1). An impact of something is something which comes from somewhere, sources, into something, sinks, parts of environments. In a process diagram, it looks like this: impacts processes sources sinks types of environments participants distinguished agents of impacts recipients of impacts Expanding upon the elements of this process diagram will deliver the sought after improved classification. Firstly, given distinguished background experience, especially with environmental impact equations, a further two-way classification is suggested: in terms of • sorts of impacts, and • types of environments. The latter framework is wide enough (in obvious respects too wide for a tight classification) to include both special concentrated sources such as mines, power stations, factories, and the like, and special sinks such as rubbish dumps, sewerage outflows, and the like. But the framework is not quite wide enough; it is important to factor into types of environments, expected inhabitants of those environments, which are the recipients of impacts (impactees). These will include not only present inhabitants of �20 environments: animals, plants, native humans, for land-surface environments, but also expected future inhabitants, whose likelihood or very existence may be impaired. There are two ways of incorporating these sorts of elements in the general scheme: either expanding environmental components, by having zones and habitats with kinds of expected inhabitants; or distinguishing participants in the impacts, givers and receivers. Here the latter course is preferred; we distinguish also then • kinds of recipients, and as well of course • kinds of impactors. While the kinds of impactors is diverse, including such superagents and nonagents as Nature, Chance, God (as in "acts of God"), and so forth, as well as animals, the main impactors of interest are, presently, humans. Accordingly let us run out the standard environmental impact equation for humans in a region, though it applies to any class of impactors through any kind of impact: EI. Environmental impact (of ... through ... ) = Population size (of ... ) X Resource use per member (of ... ) x Impact (through ... ) per unit of resource use e.g. of humans in USA through atmospheric pollution. Such an impact breakdown leads directly to three major categories of environmental problems, namely a Population a Consumption and use a Technology and waste. Those components act in concert, and, despite well-publicized attempts to load problems onto just one component, evidently all are sometimes important. A more sophisticated environmental impact equation would reduce the aggregation of the equation, EI = P x C x T (in brief, and functional, form), by introducing distributional features, which indicated where and when impact really mattered. Suppose, for example, there are n sufficiently independent regions, as in the following regionalized impact equation: n EI = Pi X Ci X Ti i=l Suppose, for instance, we are investigating the environmental impact of present humans l through industrialization, i.e. EI (present humans through industrialization). Then, on an obvious regional breakdown, the impact is overwhelmingly dominated by three regions: North America, Europe, and North Asia (primarily Japan). If it were not that the rest of the world were locked into this system (and its humans encouraged to applaud �21 and emulate it), supplying much of the raw materials, taking too much of the expensive products and waste, and suffering the pollution effects that spill outside the offending regions, main problems of industrialisation could be isolated in the high latitude N orthem hemisphere. The regionalized environmental impact equation will also serve to better organise widespread assumptions as to how those impacts that are taken seriously can be eroded. Not only is there the illusory prospect of reducing impact to "acceptable levels" by variation of just one parameter - Ci is that invariably favoured by socially-oriented shallower environmentalists; Ti, in the shape of wizard technology, by economists and technocrats (but such technology is likely to have its own impact and thereby to add to environmental problems). There is also the possibility of moving further afield to new regions, where impacts are lower. There are familiar frontier practices ( and a corresponding frontier ethics), which can be seen as reapplied to elements such as industrialisation and its components, pollution and waste. Of course such frontier practices are impoverishing, and too often destructive of further environments and many of their inhabitants; but in any case they are now seriously limited by biospheric limitations of the whole Earth. Many significant types of environment obtain little or no consideration in MCCloskey's survey; e.g. deserts (too many the product of past human activity), urban regions, polar regions, atmospheric zones, and so on. To stay within reasonable bounds, however, not even all the areas of concern that Mccloskey does look at will be examined in what follows. For to try to track Mccloskey in all the areas he does delve into would require an extensive treatise, as he raises many fundamental issues in political theory: to mention two remarkable examples, a brief discussion of 'the right to private property' is tucked away under 'Family Rights and Rights to Reproduce', and of the 'right for education' under 'The Right to Respect as a Person' (p.75ff.) Instead a more detailed treatment of a few of the areas he addresses will be offered (in fact some of the other areas have been investigated elsewhere, in Green Series discussions, or will be). 6. Population impact: the fact of human overpopulation. A major and very conspicuous impact of humans upon the Earth comes through their sheer numbers, which, though already huge, are still growing rapidly, and are overwhelming environmental and social bases for reasonable support in many parts of the globe. MCCloskey's first thesis, which sets the agenda for his entire population discussion, is this (pp 146-7,p.97): that there is no world population crisis, indeed further, NP. The world is not threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future. �22 But instead of coming out directly and cleanly with this preposterous thesis, MCCioskey approaches the business in a typical oblique way, designed to shift the onus of proof, claiming that he has 'argued that a tenable, plausible case had not been made out for believing that the world is threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future' (p.146). It is fair to wonder about his experiential basis, whether, for instance, he has travelled through India or visited the vast urban slums of many third-world countries. It is fair to wonder what would make a "tenable plausible case" - proper theoretical business for philosophers, which philosophers have generally steadfastly avoided - or, of immediate relevance, what would constitute a "population crisis", and what counts as "overpopulation". On the last at least we do have a proposal from MCCioskey, 'to use overpopulation to refer to population sizes that exceed a country's or the world's capacity to feed adequately and to make it possible for all to enjoy their basic rights' (p.97). While the proposal is no doubt very convenient for the argumentative route MCCioskey will try to take, a route it already signposts, it is a decidedly chauvinistic and exceedingly shallow suggestion, which is ecologically entirely unacceptable. First, it takes no due account of future humans, or other creatures. But present capacity is achieved, so far as it is, too often through running down present biological and other systems, thereby jeopardising future capacity; decent sustainability is required even by shallow ecological positions. Secondly, the proposal is indecently chauvinistic; it takes account of naught but humans, their basic rights and their feeding. It thus violates the framework MCCioskey elsewhere professes to have adopted. For instance, high populations, which are not MCCioskey overpopulations, may lead, and are leading, to promotion of evil and to gross reductions in intrinsic value, including types of value MCCioskey earlier (somewhat reluctantly) acknowledged. But like all the political applications of the potentially generous ethical basis, that on population takes an ugly anti-ecological tum. It is all humans and humans, humans first, last and only, though humans at brute food subsistence levels or less as it turns out, and is turning out in many regions. Now really the proposal should be relativised, to 'overpopulation of a region', as the awkward disjunction, between country or world, makes evident. Many regions and countries are already seriously overpopulated (even by MCCloskey's slack standards), as he goes on to say. However, so he immediately asserts, 'the world as a whole is not overpopulated' (p.97). Whatever the case for this claim - a defective and disreputable case as will soon appear - plainly some large assumptions go into the proposition that a whole or summation can enjoy certain distribution properties when many of its parts do not: assumptions about the role of international trade, regionalism and self-sustainability on the one side and about summative features on the other. If clothes, for example, are �23 dirty or shabby in many parts, so are they as a whole. Suppose some parts are overpopulated because of constant infringements of basic human rights, infringements presumably traceable back to excess population sizes (though the connection is not made clear enough). Then the whole can hardly but be overpopulated, as it stands, whatever the future prospects for redistribution, reorganisation, and so forth. To evade such problems and to scramble to his conclusion Mccloskey firstly weakens 'basic rights' to 'basic needs' (but rights normally demand more than need satisfaction), and then drops 'basic needs' out altogether. Thus what he finally gets down to is the bare food issue, all else set aside: of whether 'if the food actually produced were distributed and used to the best advantage of all persons in the world' every human could be fed. But, so he claims, 'it is widely accepted' that all can be amply fed (pp 97-8). It is evident that, even if what is so "widely accepted" were true, the outcome would be insufficient to show no Mccloskey overpopulation. Suppose the world has the capacity (and will) to redistribute food to the most advantage. Still, basic food is no assurance of basic rights. Further argument, not supplied, is essential; argument to showing that regional overpopulation, stayed however by bread (but not circuses), does not lead to basic rights infringement, through such media as unemployment, poverty, inequity and so on. Furthermore it is very doubtful that this can be established, for the simple reason that there are connections between these human conditions (however difficult they may be to push into quantifiable or law-like form). Humans do not survive or depend upon food alone. To keep many of them even partly contented, so inflated have their wants and needs become under ideological pressures, will require a very large and very environmentally destructive pie. Humans are now an extraordinarily greedy and destructive species. Though one animal species among thousands, and one biological species among tens of millions, they have taken over most of the Earth and most of its products, so far as they can, for their own uses and purposes. More than 80% of the fruits of photosynthesis, for example, now flow to this one species. Yet perhaps 10% of the world's human population are malnourished, and many millions at least lack other subsistence needs. Even the bare food claim, upon which MCCloskey's whole case depends at bottom, is no longer so widely accepted, since the shock of the North American and other droughts; it was being questioned as MCCloskey wrote. Now however we have available the Brown University study of world food supply in relation to human �24 population. 7 The study is based on the 1986 harvest, which was a world record. The findings were that, with this supply, assuming perfect and equal redistribution, 6 billion humans would be fed a vegetarian diet. Thus by the end of the century, present record supplies will not be able to sustain the world's human population even at vegetarian levels. If the somewhat better South American style diet, with 15% meat, is considered, then only 4 billion humans can be fed; that is, less than the present world population. While if a rather better Australian style diet is contemplated, the number that can be fed declines to 2.5 billion, that is half the present world population. So much for ample feeding. It might reasonably be anticipated that the rest of the argument to NP, no foreseeable population crisis, is hopeless. And it is. All we are offered are, firstly, some reasons, of very variable quality, 'to suspect the most confident, brash predictions' (p.99) - suspicions which seem to include NP within their scope, along with MCCloskey's next speculative thesis. Secondly we are offered the speculative thesis that world food production will grow at least sufficiently to match world population growth. It is a thesis floated largely on technological optimism, a thesis that should be regarded with heavy suspicion given recent serious declines in biological capital: fisheries, soils, forests, and so on, and given apparently increasing climatic instability. To give him his small due, MCCioskey does assert, repeatedly, that there is little ground 'for complacency and inaction in respect of the world's population growth' (e.g. p.99 ); and as well as firing moral shots at 'alarmist predictions ... based on the flimsiest premisses' countering NP (for no problem), he makes heavy moral noises about morally assessing the situation. In any case, he needs to say something like this in order to pull off convincingly his big discussion of the ins and outs of, ethics and politics of, human sexuality and population control. 7. On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations. Hitherto received opinion, in modem Wes tern civilization, has taken the line that culling animal species is perfectly alright, but that culling humans is not, because humans have an unalienable right to life (a right regularly neglected however in times of war, in regressive criminal justice systems, and now questioned as regards poachers of significant animals). Received opinion, which MCCioskey tries to shore up, is now being challenged. Alternative methods of controlling populations of wild animals, to 7 The study is regularly cited by Ehrlich in his talks, lectures and works: see reference. �25 previous technologically primitive ones, are being seriously considered. Another gulf between humans and other sizeable intelligent animals is beginning to close. Unlike some dangerous Christian thinkers, Mccloskey does not cede to humans an unlimited right to procreation. As he says, 'there is no recognised moral, social or legal right for consenting parties to reproduce at will', but 'few philosophers today would seek philosophically to justify prevailing recognised ... restrictions on procreation' (p.150). Mccloskey wishes to impose a restriction as regards adequate provision for offspring; there is no right to reproduction where a requirement of reasonable prospects of adequate provision is not met. This bears heavily, as he realises, and perhaps also inequitably, on impoverished parents in poor communities; the issue is not really resolved (see p.101). But otherwise, in richer countries, the duties of those who would undertake human parenthood are presented as slight. Individuals, acting on their own, have otherwise no duties to restrict the size of their families (for the unMCCloskeyian consequentialist reason that it will have limited practical significance and achieve little). Where overpopulation is an issue, political, not individual, action is what is required. Where overpopulation threatens, individuals 'adequately fulfil their duty if they have only that number of children for which they can adequately care and [very differently, and with major political implications] if they foster and support world action to stabilize the world population and [confirming a right previously hedged] to ensure that all persons enjoy the right, equally with themselves, to have offspring if they so choose' (p.104 ). Otherwise the issue is dumped in the (too hard) political basket, for states and world organisations to try to handle. All this is decidedly unsatisfactory. Most important, there is no right to production of children without limit, even given that they can be "provided for". One reason is that new children produce impacts, and children in quantity seriously interfere with others; so result in significant violations of liberal principles regarding noninterference with others. In rough analogical terms, as the Macs' new building interferes with their neighbours' views, so their new children interfere with the neighbours' freedom and lifestyles and environments, beginning with local noise and crowding and continuing, much further, through taxes for family allowances, for schools and so on, through crowded and polluted parks and beaches and so on. Those assuming (conditional) rights, to reproduce for instance, tend to forget that rights require justifications (they cannot just be pulled out of thin air). But here any straightforward justificatory pattern is upset, because of a very familiar neglect of relations: namely, impacts of new people on environments, and interference of new people with in-place people. A change in attitudes and practices is accordingly warranted. Parties producing larger numbers of children should be regarded as socially and ecologically irresponsible; they should no longer gain special financial support, but �26 perhaps should, on the contrary, be duly penalized. These themes run counter to the main thrust of MCCloskey's discourse on population control, an extensive discussion premised on what he takes to be the improbable hypothesis that a world population crisis eventuates (pp.147-155). It ought to be enough to pull the plug on that discussion, sending intellectual babies with soiled bath water. That voluntary methods of limiting human births 'will not succeed' is MCCloskey's prime thesis (p.147). The support offered for it is characteristic and characteristically inadequate. First the thesis is weakened, and then some restricted and contestable empirical evidence is advanced as suggestive. 'That voluntary methods of checking birth rates are unlikely to be adequate is suggested by the relatively limited success of family planning projects even where [well] backed ... ' (p.147). On the contrary, voluntary methods of checking birth rates, mostly independent of family planning projects, have been substantially successful in many better educated, less impoverished communities. Some of these might even count as spectacularly successful, and more would be if they achieved some real, and sensitive, state support. But there are many powerful interests, especially those emanating from organised religions, operating against delivery of support designed for success. There is a conspicuous difference, again connected with ancient prejudices, between the attitude shown to human populations and the approach MCCloskeyians take to animal populations. Humans have the right, but socially constrained, to continue on their expansive and environmentally degrading course; animals have no such right, because, among other things, they have no rights. 8. On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof. The argument to the conservative result, that animals cannot enjoy (moral) rights, attempts to trade off an argument on which great emphasis is put, that 'there is a vast gap between rights and interests' (p.66). But that attempt depends on a confusion between what rights are - certainly not interests - and what can hold rights significantly - perhaps only items with interests. With that confusion out of the way, MCCioskey still has two main arguments to his shrill conclusion, that 'animals do not, cannot possess moral rights' (p.66 and several other places): a tight redefinition argument, and an environmental chaos otherwise argument. The tight redefinition argument proceeds, by appealing to special features of rights, to tighten up the notion of right so that unwanted (if commonly recognised) classes of right-holders are excluded. Such an argument, widely deployed against animal liberation, takes two main forms: less plausibly, that rights require interests, which �27 animals are alleged to lack, and, more plausibly, that rights have to be suitably exercisable and claimable, feats beyond animals abilities and capacities to perform. Though formerly among the ageing afficiandos of the less plausible Cartesian nointerests approach, MCCioskey now pursues the more plausible form. He appeals first to typical features of rights (though really some combination of these must form an invariant cluster for a decisive argument), such as their being 'foregone, insisted upon, exercised in or contrary to one's interests. For possession of a moral right to be meaningful, the possessor or his/her representative must be able to claim it, exercise it, or the like' (p.66, italics added). Unfortunately for his argument, MCCioskey proceeds, at crucial points, to leave out the representative alternative. Thus while an animal may not be able to claim its rights, a representative can; whereupon talk of claiming a right is not empty (pace p.66). Thus the argument so far is broken-backed. Having recanted on his earlier contention that animals cannot have interests (see p.65), MCCioskey is no longer in a position to preclude the attribution of rights on that ground, that interests are a necessary condition. 8 'We can plausibly claim to have some idea of what is in the interests of an animal. We can have no knowledge concerning how it would exercise its moral rights, if it had any' (p.66). Surely we can. A wombat can exercise its right to proceed along a way in the same way that a human can, namely by proceeding along it, setting aside obstructions, and so on. But MCCioskey proceeds, in a way characteristic of high redefinition strategies, to heighten the requirements. He appeals to features of what he takes to be 'paradigm cases of the possessors of rights, persons, rational, morally autonomous beings' which he couples with the characteristic exercise of rights (p.66). There are, however, other paradigm examples of right holders, such as small children, senile humans, imbeciles, etc. Despite the suggestions, rationality and a high level of autonomy are not required for the possession or exercise of rights. MCCioskey asserts that 'it is capacity for moral autonomy, for moral selfdirection and self-determination, that is basic to the possibility of possessing a right' (p.66). That is a high redefinition, substantially exceeding the requirements normally expected, especially where guardians or representatives are appointed or envisaged. MCCioskey-rights are a quite proper subclass of rights as ordinarily conceived. Even so it may well be that animals can hold them; it all depends upon how much gets pumped into the elusive term 'moral'. Wombats, for example, are not human, do not read and write, are not much given to calculus, do not enter into contracts, and so on; nor do 8 Elliot is quite mistaken in saying that McCloskey's views have not changed since those espoused in 1979 (p.503). Admitting animal interests represents a major change. That animals do, of course, have interests is argued in detail in my 81. �28 many primitive peoples, though humans, engage in any of these activities (though some of them perhaps could with education). But wombats are, by and large, decidedly autonomous, self-determining and self-directed; they exhibit much more independence than most modern humans. Similarly with whales. Despite such familiar findings, MCCioskey takes the following proposition as decisive: 'Consider how we should respond if it were to be determined that a whale or dolphin possessed moral autonomy' (p.66). He does not address the issues raised in this queer pronouncement, but immediately leaps to his sought conclusion against animal rights. Given that moral autonomy is not to the point, except for MCCioskey-rights, the proposition is irrelevant to and not supportive of the conclusion. Without the elusive term 'moral', the proposition is, furthermore, decidedly not a discussion stopper. Most dolphins exhibit a high degree of autonomy, the exceptions being primarily those (improperly) held in captivity, injured in fishing activities, sickened by pollution, and so on. The trouble with the infiltration of morality is that it normally (if wrongly) suggests human activities and human communities - whence what small force MCCloskey's proposition enjoys, as whales as agents fall outside that setting. The argument to environmental chaos, to entirely untoward environmental implications, if rights were ceded to animals, comprises several facets. They are facets that have been seen before, with every legitimate struggle for extensions of rights, such as, most memorably, allocation of rights to enslaved humans. That latter certainly brought some desirable dislocation to social arrangements; so will legitimating animal rights. But it need bring nothing like the complication and aggravations of social and environmental problems that MCCioskey fearfully envisages (p.69, p.122). A first facet concerns conflict of rights. There are of course conflicts of rights between humans and groups of humans, but MCCioskey fears the situation with animals would not merely be more complicated (as it would with much greater numbers) but that 'the difficulty and complexity of this rights calculus' would make it unworkable (p.67). But again he fails to show anything like this. Indeed he immediately weakens his position of apparent strength by looking to an 'easier calculus' where 'man simply protects animals from human violations of animal rights' (p.67). That would be a fine start, though politically virtually all nations and peoples would have to advance a long way to achieve it (Sweden less than most others). While the "easier calculus" does not mean that animals have lesser rights than humans, as MCCioskey implies, what is suggested is important in escaping from difficulties MCCioskey tries to amass. For not all right-holders are on a par, much as not all types of creatures are equal in abilities or capacities. In particular, to get to critical and divisive issues straightaway: it does not follow then from the fact that animals have �29 rights that some of them, domestic ones, cannot be kept, or used - any more than it follows from the fact that humans have rights that some cannot be kept, or employed, for instance as servants. Nor does it follow that dead animals (or humans) cannot be eaten. Nor, most controversially, is it incompatible with animals having rights, that some are killed. For not all rights stand or fall together; a right for continued existence is very different from a right to a decent life or treatment while alive. Furthermore, MCCloskey's invalid arguments to ecological chaos succeed in turning animal liberation into animal libertinism. They do this by familiar slide strategies from some to more to all, from some rights, to many other rights, to the same rights as fully-competent persons. The strategy is coupled with that of assigning to humans more rights than they have, or should hold. Examples include the right to be absolutely where they like or to breed at will. But one human does not have the right to be in any other human's house or bed or space.9 No more do animals, like feral animals or 'disease-carrying pests such as rats and mice'. So, for example, the major conflict MCCioskey alleges with human rights to health dissolves; it depends upon granting excessive rights to rats and mice. With a sensible calculus of rights humans need not be overwhelmed by either animals or other humans; given due constraints on human populations (more than any other animal populations), interference by others could be stabilized at a low level. A further large facet of MCCloskey's argument to chaos doggedly pursues practical and ecological costs of vegetarianism, costs which he considerably exaggerates. But whether he is right about these costs, or not, is a separate issue - irrelevant to the main issue of animal rights. For admitting or stressing animal rights most emphatically does not 'dictate acceptance of vegetarianism as a moral position or practice' (p.68). There is no valid route from rights for animals to vegetarianism, for reasons that have already been very briefly indicated above. 10 MCCioskey has linked the question of animal rights much too closely with positions like that of Singer (an evident target on pp.68-9 of the text). But many more ordinary people and even some philosophers, 11 both before and after Singer, have assigned rights to animals, without commitment thereby to vegetarianism, and without evident (or any) fallacy. As a result or this flawed linkage, 9 While writing this I heard a local airforce contingent claiming its right-to the freedom of Canberra. Plainly it only has a right-to the freedom of only certain cities, and to quite limited things within those cities. 10 A much more detailed case, along with counter-models, can be extracted from my previous work, esp. the Green Series, number 13, i.e.TE (essay 3), and number 2. 11 A neglected early philosopher is Maclver; see esp. his remarks on p.69. �30 MCCioskey makes another interesting mistake: namely 'that the two movements, animal rights on the one hand (the view that some animals possess moral rights) and conservation and preservation on the other', so far from being 'complementary, mutually supportive positions', 'in fact are fundamentally opposed and are such as to be calculated to lead to many major clashes' (p.69, rearranged). While there are major clashes, for example, between moral extensionisms, such as the expanded utilitarianisms of Bentham, Sidgwick and Singer on the one side, and deep environmentalism on the other, there are no clashes of an animal rights position with deep environmentalism . For, very simply, such deep positions accord animals rights. As elsewhere, so with animal rights, errors in the ethical treatment intrude into the supposed political implications. Unremarkably then MCCioskey sees 'the ecological state' as committed to ecological chaos, all of which 'would very seriously curtail human liberty in many ways' and 'create massive theoretical and practical political problems' (p.122). No doubt decent treatment for animals, codified in rights, would restrict human liberty somewhat, as abolition of public spectacles such as hangings, floggings or throwing Christians to hungry lions, curtailed spectator opportunities and freedoms. But the desirable elimination of factory-farmed fast foods and animal-tested cosmetics, or the curtailment of circuses and reformation of zoos, are hardly very serious restrictions on human liberty, or what MCCioskey is thinking of really. He is again thinking of his house full of rats and his garden full of copulating animals, of vegetarianism and protection of rabbits made legally obligatory, and so on (for many such fantasies see p.122). But no such consequences, ensue, without repetition of the errors already exposed in the ethical treatment: inferences from some rights to excessive rights, and so on. Because side-tracked by his own production, by this pantomime of absolutely unconstrained, rampaging, warring and rapidly-multiplyin g animals (i.e. like some humans when ideological controls are lifted, not like most animals), MCCioskey does not address at all the very serious abuses in prevailing present treatment of animals, abuses on farms and in laboratories, at home and in the wild, abuses that should be politically addressed from ethical bases, issues well addressed through rights. An institutionalisation of animal rights would not produce the big problems MCCioskey envisages; after all most people are now represented by professionals in many of their dealings concerning legal rights, a professional paternalism increasingly operates, which �31 subsumes many professionals themselves. On the contrary, such institutionalisation of animal rights, properly done could make for very desirable changes. 12 9. Two other critical features of dominant political ways: the shibboleths of extensive private property and high technology. The orthodox assumption, which McCloskey makes, is that a liberal democratic state will have a mixed (or marginally socially constrained) market capitalist economy. Under the simplistic equations that tend to distort much modem political discussion, even the inadequate qualifications occasionally inserted are forgotten: a liberal democratic state is often equated with institution of market capitalism, indeed too often market arrangements get equated with capitalism. Evidently, however, these equations fall apart under but slight disturbance. Logically they come apart entirely. There are severe logical problems with the very idea of a liberal democracy, which is a dialectical union of individual liberal with social welfare and democratic ideals. For a democratic state, especially should it take popular majoritarian form, can seriously curtail the freedom of minorities (the well-known "tyranny of the majority"). Liberal ends may be better served by a benign dictatorship than by democratic arrangements. Liberality and democracy part company. Similarly individual liberty and statist social welfare. And so on. Certainly liberality, which is the most free ranging of the five big political league players being disentangled, 13 does imply some significant limitations on arrangements, but they may not favour democracy, or capitalism. Fully liberal arrangements should enable a community to opt for democratic organisation, should it wish; but similarly these arrangements should allow the community to choose otherwise, should it want. Also liberal arrangements of a social cast (with decent freedom of the servants) would mean winding back of capitalism. Despite the immense damage illregulated capitalism and market structures can, and do, separately inflict upon ecological and social systems, there is practically no discussion of such matters in MCCloskey, and again little investigation of improved structures or regulation. 14 12 For one thing, it challenges factory farming, as infringing animal rights, in an obvious way. McCloskey avoids the issue when it arises (p.140). 13 In fact four of the five substantially independent players we are reflecting upon market, social welfare, capitalistic, democratic, and liberal arrangements - do not receive an index listing in Mccloskey, while the fifth, liberal, collects many citations and much discussion. 14 A major contemporary myth is that markets and capitalism can flourish without regulation, indeed that they flourish best in a fully deregulated setting. Both �32 As with liberal democracy, so with market capitalism, the components separate. Markets can flourish without capitalism, where for instance agents have sharply limited and bounded budgets and capitalistic accumulation cannot operate. Markets require no liberty in other parts of social life than those involving exchange of certain material goods; they certainly do not require a democratic framework. Capitalism can function without a vibrant free market system; indeed in advanced capitalist states it increasingly does so, with oligopolistic arrangements in place of competitive output markets, vertical integration and contract delivery replacing former input markets, and so on. Capitalism too requires neither democracy nor liberty, indeed too much of either could seriously undermine it. It does however depend upon property, for control and as a store for capital accumulated. In principle, of course, a very limited capitalism could work without private ownership of land and resources, so long as some exchangeable stable form of wealth, such as a sound currency or gold, was available for accumulation and payment of labour. But smart capitalists would rightly feel excessively vulnerable under such arrangements; for they could be wiped out by an outside devaluation of the currency or outside increases in rents on resources and land. In any case, many capitalists (virtually all people of substantial wealth in Australia), and a large array of parasitic middle parties, agents and hangers-on, would be duly despatched along with free-for-all property markets. Having glimpsed MCCloskey's unquestioned commitment to mixed capitalism, it is piquant to behold him begining upon undermining an institution fundamental to historic capitalism, namely private property. Most of MCCloskey's brief discussion of rights to private property (pp. 78-80) focusses upon the labour theory of property, descended from Locke and others, upon which he effects a full demolition job. In fact he severely weakens the case for a substantially unfettered ("free") institution of private property, upon which however the type of liberalism he advances depends. For strong property rights and guarantees are basic to present liberal democratic arrangements, as they are to proposed libertarian alternatives. MCCioskey even tries to close off discussion of the 'political desirability of allowing property rights by way of patent rights to discoveries' in plant and animal breeding, particularly through genetic engineering, on the pretext that these 'cannot reasonably be objected to without the whole private-property system of institutions depend for their operation and for their very survival on regulation, on an appropriate enforceable legal setting. Otherwise, in communities where a certain egalitarianism counted for something for instance, a capitalist would be rash to bank upon holding onto substantial surplus wealth for long. �33 liberal democratic states being questioned' (p.139). Now peripheral cases do not generally threaten the centre, unless, perchance, it is already in some doubt. The extent and character of property is a quite critical, indeed a watershed, issue for environmental politics. For excessive propertarian rights and powers constitute a very serious impediment to sound environmental practice. The reason is simple: the proprietor may be less than well disposed to the environment, and may well permit or enact unsound practices. Yet propertarians often now appeal to a purported need to strengthen and expand the institution of private property - rather that to let it naturally contract - in order to combat environmental problems. Thus such dubious proposals as saleable rights to pollute environments, dump wastes, etc. - licences which look even to the uninitiated like ways of extending, not contracting, pollution and like environmental problems, and which look to the more cynical as ways of circumventing costs and limits environmental constraints impose upon economic activity. 15 The liberal democratic structure to which MCCioskey commits himself to, with its uncritical approach to population and consumption - like market capitalism, with its commitments to expanding populations to ensure growth and profit, expanding markets, enhanced consumption, and cheap labour resources - forces an unduly heavy dependence on technological wizardry. In particular, it requires a technology that will facilitate greatly increased cheap food supplies, without however too rapidly depleting "biological capital". Given recent experience it demands a faith in technology, and the smart science that underwrites it, that is increasingly difficult to justify. Like all too many academics, MCCioskey has that faith. Science should be given entirely free reign, and technology pushed to the hilt. There is a naive optimism in MCCloskey's attitude to science. 'It is not improbable that ultimately, through the investigations of the sciences, we will come ... to have a full understanding of the earth's weather and climatic patterns. Man will be able to use this 15 Such saleable rights also appear to get another foot-in-the-door for bargaining utilitarians, who claim to want no absolute prohibitions, but want to put the whole environment up for negotiation - and ultimately for sale. What are not up for negotiation are the underlying propertarian and utility maximization principles, the insufficiently examined sources of many of the problems. In any case, the evidence now coming in shows that market approaches to pollution, such as saleable rights and pricing controls (like company fines), do not work at all well. Making directors of polluting firms directly responsible, and putting offenders in jail, apparently does. �34 knowledge for his and the earth's best advantage' (p.137). We, the total managers, will know what is "best" for the earth! Despite the 'dangers of misuse', major disasters, global warfare, climatic destablisation, and so on, 'this fact constitutes no reason for holding back the pursuit of knowledge ... ' (p.137). Maximum speed ahead in the glorious pursuit of science, with full anarchistic enthusiasm there. There is, as well, 'no reason ... for entrusting rulers with the control of science' (p.137); science at least is utterly free in MCCloskey's liberal democracy. While Mccloskey wants the state kept out of science (except as a money pump presumably), he wants it actively intervening in technology, not to limit it, but 'acting to ensure that new technologies be developed and used and their benefits widely enjoyed' (p.138). The liberal state is to be actively and heavily involved in technology promotion and delivery - which puts into serious question its presumed neutral regulatory function. Also espoused is a quite insufficiently discriminating attitude to technology. Like most apologists, Mccloskey emphasizes the possible - but generally unrealised - benefits of technology, that technology 'can release persons from much mindless, degrading work. Hence some, even many persons may never need to work' (p.138). For all the talk about the possible benefits of technology, many alleged benefits seldom or never accrue, for instance to shorten substantially people's working hours and give them more worthwhile leisure; and benefits that do accrue are often not well used. Rather technology is primarily funded to maintain or increase market share and profits (which too often end up in conspicuous consumption and waste), thereby inducing cycles of production and waste, more technology to help control the waste, and so on and up. Technology itself is merely of instrumental worth, with many of its instruments and techniques defective, destructive or dangerous, either directly or through eventual side-effects. While some technology is no doubt instrumentally good, much is not. And the balance of good over bad has been systematically exaggerated in Wes tern culture, where more technology is now looked to or required to rectify gross economic and social mismanagement in liberal democratic states. Technology is however no universal panancea. Both on its record, and in terms of its theoretical prospects, the faith being put in it, to "deliver us from evil", is misplaced But, as remarked, MCCloskey has the faith (such episodes as the Green Revolution are seen as unmitigated successes), and enthusiastically expects great things from technology ('genetic engineering ... constitutes a dramatic, exciting breakthrough of major proportions, one that opens up vastly wider possibilities for developing new plant and animal organisms', p.139). Naturally he concentrates on the sunny side of technology, scarcely touching upon the darker aspects. We merely glimpse one darker side of genetic engineering (for which perhaps no further engineering is needed), the edifying spectacle of mass-production of human drones for �35 industrial slavery (p. 139). As to the big problems with this engineering, we are fobbed off with an evasive throw-away, of the kind more typical of politicians, as to 'the need for relevant controls and checks', and no doubt balances, presumably determined by state masters behind closed doors. Instead Mccloskey tries to divert attention by yet another attack on the hypothetical totalitarian ecological state, and the threat of its coercive methods, not those of your normal corrupt intimidatory democratic state, to human liberties. But the smokescreen quickly subsides, our factional text degenerates into notes: 'Relevant point here include ... ' (p.139). Mccloskey would have us locked into state systems that are delivering increasingly negative results for increasing numbers of humans and disastrous outputs for nonhumans and natural environments. By changing political directions significantly, environmental and human affairs could again have an opportunity to flourish. But for much of the environment at least, there is not a lot of time left. REFERENCES D. Bennett and R. Sylvan, Damn Greenies: Australian Perspectives on Environmental Ethics, typescript, Canberra, 1989; referred to as AP. C.D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, Kegan Paul and Others, London, 1944. R. Elliott, Critical Notice of MCCloskey's Ecological Ethics and Politics, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 63(1985) 499-504. P.R. and A.H. Ehrlich, The Population Explosion, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990. R. E. Goodin, Review of MCCloskey's Ecological Ethics and Politics, Ethics 94(1984) 344-5. A.M. Maciver, 'Ethics and the beetle', Analysis 8(1948) 65-70. H.J. MCCioskey, Ecological Ethics and Politics, Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa N.J., 1983; all page references not otherwise indicated are to this work. T. Nagel, 'Libertarianism without foundations', in Reading Nozick (ed. J.Paul), Blackwell, Oxford, 1981. W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good, Clarendon, Oxford, 1930. H. Rolston III, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1988. R. Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals', Inquiry 24(1981) 387-417. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions', now in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1989; referred to as MD. �36 R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', Nous 17(1973) 441-456; referred to as sv. R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', in Environmental Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian National University, 1979; referred to as EE. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, 'Tao and deep ecology', The Ecologist 18(4/5) (1988) 148159. R. Sylvan, Three essayes upon deeper environmental ethics, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, (Green Series) #13, Australian National University 1987; referred to as TE. R. Sylvan, 'On the value core of deep-green theory', typescript, Canberra, 1988; referred to as DG. �DEEP ECOLOGY AND DEEP-GREEN THEORY. Deep-green theory is a deep pluralistic environmental position, underwritten by a deep metaphysical theory. It is intended as an alternative, less fraught with problems, to deep ecology. Deep-green theory has developed, in significant part, through fruitful interreaction with deep ecology. Many of its leading ideas can thus be more rapidly introduced by contructing and comparing them with ideas of deep ecology which are already widely diffused (if often in a muddy or muddled way). As a spin-off then, this outline will offer a simple exposition of central ideas of deep ecology, and further criticism of many of them. In any practical showdown, however, deep ecology and deep-green theory are not antagenistic positions but close allies, both deep positions within a wider environmental alliance. Though the rudiments of deep-green theory go back about as far as deep ecology (to around 1973), it remained unnamed until the early 80's (and only achieved initial investigation in Bennett 86). Moreover, it has not hitherto attained in any fuller platform and slogan formulation, such as deep ecology has benefitted (and suffered) from almost since its inception. The term 'deep ecology' was coined by the Norwegian intellectual, Ame Naess, to label an emerging environmental movement. But, despite Naess's commitment to pluralism, it was from the outset constrained to a certain style of environmental position. The notion has since been elaborated and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several Northamericans, particularly Bill Devall and George Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with Naess (their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end). The notion has caught on outside narrow academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in contrast to Wes tern Europe, significant areas of natural environment remain and are becoming of increasing public concern. Deep ecology is a radical environmenta l position, which goes far beyond resource conservation positions (which are typically concerned with the management and stewardship of resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to prevailing attitudes and practices (of the dominent social paradigm), especially those which concern more or less natural environments. (Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several sources; e.g. Rodman.) �2 Deep ecology takes off from value theory themes which stand in diametrical opposition to mainstream Western ethical and social theory.1 The first of these themes, the wide values theme, is that what is valuable in or for itself is not confined to human beings or their features (such as their interests, concerns, pleasures, consciousness, etc.), but extends much more widely to other beings. The value of these other systems or creatures of their features is not merely instrumental, aluable as a means to human objectives, but is independent of human concerns; it is in brief nonanthropic. Indeed deep ecology goes further, rejecting the greater value assumption, according to which anthropic values always take precedence over such natural values. How then is value distributed, in particular across the things of the world? It is here that deep ecology and deepgreen theory part company. Deep ecology takes value to be restricted to things that are alive (in some attentuated sense, so it turns out); this is the theme of biocentrism, life-centredness. And it assumes that these things with life are all of equal value; this is the controversial theme of biospheric egalitarianism. A unique assignment of value results. Deep-green theory rejects both these themes. For reason to be given, Deep-green theory is much less specific as to how value is distributed. But it is spread on to things - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals which are not alive, and it does not cover all things that are living. Nor is it distributed onto those things that have the quality in an equal fashion, except in the trivial sense that all have or partake of value. Some things that have value are much more valuable than others; there is some weak (and partial) ordering of things with value. It is these things that are worth conserving, preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they are. Thus Deep-green theory is axiocentric, value-centered. Value in nature is regular coupled with some mix of value-making characteristics, including such defeasible ecological universals as richness, rarity stability, resilience, diversity, and so forth. But there are considerable constraints on how values are derived from any such "objective function". One over or thing constraint, that of impartiality, substitutes for that of egalitarianism. According to the requirement of biospecies impartiality, which excludes certain types of class chauvinism, a thing cannot be ranked as valuable or ahead or another simply in virtue of belonging to some species (e.g. being human); such features are not in themselves value-making characteristics. 1 There are some who account themselves deep ecologists who would repudiate such an approach through value theory, most notably Warrick Fox. �3 Figure 1. A compariso n of Deep Ecology and Deep-gree n theory, in capsule form. 2 Deep ecology biospheric egalitarianism Shared themes or goals I I I I I Deep-gree n. theory wider value theme rejection of greater value assumption, +through ➔ biocentrism ecological universals as defeasible value-making biospecies impartiality , and rejection of class chauvinism axiocentrism characteristics extreme holism natural systems as integral, irreducible cosmic identity moderate holism ultraperson al identificati on maximal satisizing on value self-realisation determinates limited interference only with natural systems; restricted rights thereto commitment to implement principles applications to economics, politics and policy, especially in bioregional ism ➔ environmen tal areas; e.g. regionalism and federalism +- ecoregionalism human population reduction A major difference between the theories lies in the distribution of value (from which much else of ethical consequenc e arises: rights, obligations , and so forth). Deep ecology, like simpler utilitarianism, proposes a unique initial distribution (over a given atomistic base class): each living individual is assigned equal intrinsic value, and nothing else has intrinsic value. Values of other things, complexes, systems and so on, are then in principle open to determinate s by a calculation. It is a type of recipe to which intellectual s bent on numeration and calculation are regularly attracted; pseudo-obj ective variations are to be found not only in utilitarianis m but in economics and in democtrati c political theory, and also in probability theory, where elements of suitable 2 Most of the capsule theses of deep ecology are explained in detail in the critique, CD; many of those of Deep-green theory are explained in FE. �4 initial esembles are assigned equal probability, through a principle of indifference. The practice is also as problematic as indifference principles (cf. CD on deep ecological egalitarianism). Deep-green theory rejects the assumptions upon which the deep ecological distribution depends. It rejects the latent atomism, the idea of ultimates upon which value devolves. More dangerously these days, it rejects the equality assumption. Much as some humans are more valuable than others (on most moral and other counts), so some creatures, some systems, are more valuable than others. DG theory is, quite deliberately, much less specific as to how value is distributed. Often enough, especially in difficult cases, assessment of value is a complex matter which may call for much reflection (for some details see TE, first essay). But certainly value is an unevenly distributed feature of a variety of things, not just at bottom altimates. It is a quality of many items - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals - which are not alive; and it does not extend to all things that are living, e.g. malignant virases engineered in biochemical laboratories. Nor is it distributed onto those things that have the quality in an equal fashion, except in the trivial sense that all have or partake of value. Some things that have value are much more valuable than others; there is some weak (and partial) ordering of things with value. It is these things that are worth conserving, preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they are. Thus the theory is at least weakly axiocentric, value-centered. In fact it is more strongly axiocentric, in two important respects. Firstly, deontic notions such as those of obligation, rights and duties, answer back to axiologic ones (see TE, essay 3). Secondly, more difficult to explain, value penetrates the metaphysics, including what is accounted fact; most strikingly, the choice of actual world itself depends upon value (see DP). �AUTHENTIC DEEP ECOLOGY: expositio n, critique, alternati ves PREFAC E No longer is there so much need to chronicle and document the major and serious environmental problems confonting the Earth and its ecosystems. Much of the relevant information - details of the damage, difficulties, devastation, disasters, and dire threats of more - now appears in later chapters of biology and geography textbooks, often in striking pictorial or diagramatic form; and the information is regularly updated by articles, too often environmental horror stories, in popular perodicals or newspapers. While many of the problems are abundantly and glaringly evident, others are more subtle, sometimes more insidious, hidden from view, but bound to emerge in not so long term. So we can take the problems, and further problems, "for granted", though with little comfort or ease. Many were, and are, foreseeable; many were, or could be, avoided or mitigated. Serious though these problems are they are still not being taken with full or due seriousness by those who exercise some control over how relevant things happen. 1 Most states are busy attempting more of what has landed us in some of the worst of these problems: more growth, of economic products, of people, of consumption2 , of energy; more or "better" militarisation; more productivity, of agriculture, with environmental cost-cutting and short-cutting, more development and more consumption thereby of biological capital. Growth remains at the top of most national agendas; it is seen as a panacea for all other problems, economic and security problems of course. Serious environmental problems are still mostly treated as economic "externalities", peripheral but growing nuisances, that we shall have to learn to live with3, but not the "real" problems. We have lived under this dominant destructive ideology for much too long already. It has already led to the devastation of much of the planet Earth, to the loss of much of value, many species, While there is a power structure, and a power elite, in all states (virtually as a corollary of features of the state, such as its monopolies on coercion, currency, etc), it cannot be pretended that there are any impressive control systems. So some of the problems are unintended. Given the propensity for human-developed control systems to function in undesirable ways, e.g. to tend towards militarism and totilitarianism, the lack of satisfactory system is no doubt to the good. 2 So, for example, the USA is pressuring Japan to consume more, internally, to ease American balance-ofpayments problems, and soak up excessive production; there is no pressure to produce less. 3 So, for example, prestigious scientific organisations are preparing to teach us how to live with and love the Greenhouse effect. Many communities have learned to live with damaging and noxious pollution; no doubt they would miss it if it were gone. �2 much irreplaceable wilderness, and has left us with an immense, and sometimes hopeless, clean-up and restoration task. Moreover things will rapidly get worse environmentally if we are not rid of it and its variants. Plainly we need several strategies: a strategy for fundamental change, a strategy (needed first) for what comes after the change, and so on. Deep ecology offers a strategy and an initial structure for addressing these environmental problems, along with proposals for addressing the menacing array of other problems confronting modern industrial societies. It is a strategy which goes much deeper than the pathetic patch-up the damage after it's largely done (pollute, then cleanup or pay a bit) approaches that prevail. For this reason alone, deep ecology deserves to be much more widely known. But there is still no satisfactory text on the topic. This book, while hardly an easy introduction to the subject4 , aims to fill a part of the gap. Perhaps too, it can help serve as a basis for that introductory text that still needs to be written. This text tries to do what the title promises. It begins with a sympathetic exposition of deep ecology. That is necessary. It remains hard to find out what deep ecology (DE) is, as it means so many different things to different expositors and exponents. The matter of different visions and elaborations of DE is taken up in the second part, which provides a detailed critique of DE in its main versions. In the final part, other criticisms of DE, from its rival social ecology in particular, are (negatively) assessed; an alternative to DE, deep-green theory is outlined; and some of the political connections of deeper environmentalism are investigated, including strategies for appropriate revolutionary change. Deep ecology is the most exciting deep environmentalism on the present intellectual market; for all its sortcomings, it is still the most thoroughly worked out widely accessible position. That is one reason why its worth a fair bit of time, my time, in struggling with it and trying to improve it, and your time, in getting to know it. This text grew from a critique of DE along with an unpublished expansion of that critique (called 'Continuin g the critique of deep ecology') and sundry associated articles on deep environmentalism. As an expanded version of critique5 remains the centre of the text, some of what I wrote in prefacing the critique should be repeated. I think, I hope, it merits repetition, as amended. 4 There is a need also, as will be explained in subsequent chapters, for a text that measures up to recognised academic standards, sufficiently complex and full of (bad) argument, in order to put deep ecology firmly on academic agenda, to try to ensure that it is not merely a crude popular movement that can be intellectually ignored. 5 'A critique of deep ecology' Radical Philosophy. �3 It was with considerable ambivalence and some serious misgiving that I first undertook a critique of DE, as it risked offending many friends in the deep ecology movement. It succeeded. The trouble was that when I got down to trying to explain what deep ecology was all about (for a seminar, at which N aess and Devell were present, some years ago), I found myself confronted by the following predicament :- While I applauded much about the deep ecology movement, and what it stood for, I could not find my way to accept deep ecology as formulated by any of its main proponents. The reason was not merely that deep ecology is less than a fully coherent body of doctrine, with, furthermore, many problematic sub-themes, but worse, that much of it departed from the ideals I felt it should be expressing, and that some of it was rubbish. Yet I had no doubt that deep ecology was a worthwhile enterprise (carried on by dedicated and good people), and that something along the lines of a replacement for deep ecology - revamped deep ecology if it is simply a matter of repairs, deep-green theory for more - was very much on the right track. Or to put it slightly differently, while rejecting every formulation of deep ecology, I agreed with the general drift of much of deeper ecology, and with virtually all the careful applications of deep ecology. My attempted resolution went along the lines of critical rationalism (for which I have been criticised). The method was to subject deep ecology to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining thereby an improved, more acceptable formulation, which at the same time met other desirable criteria. However to resort to such critical methods was already to type oneself, as old consciousness and old paradigm still, and to risk alienating part of the deep movement. The risks have been taken: but there are some concessions. In the end, when it comes to applications, to lifestyles and policies, the rational ladder has to be enlarged and also supplemented; for it offers only one distinctive way among many. Though the applications of deep ecology to real-world problems are very important, as already indicated, we shall only reach them and not attempt to develop them very far. However a detailed listing of various important applications that have been made will be given.6 Naess and others have complained, with some justification, that I have not gone out my way to find generous interpretation s of deep ecology, which remove apparent rubbish from it (see Naess RS p.3). It is true that, following the prevailing philosophical mode (by no means always to be applauded), I have not been very charatable (here or in other philosophical critiques). I have treated DE as a find it, hopefully in an expositionally straightforwar d and honest way. I do, however, try to 6 The final part of the background paper on population (Routley 84) provides one application in detail, an application expanding on some remarks of Naess (in 83). And several other examples which Naess has outlined (also in 83) can be similarly elaborated. Gare has attempted a major elaboration applying to science. �4 offer alternatives to DE and improvements upon it when I discover them. Deep-greep theory can be seen as a fairly comprehensive alternative. �/ ON SOCIAL ECOLOGY A heavy attack on DE, a tirade really, was launched recently by Bookchin. It caught leading deep ecologists - who had rather foolistly seen Bookchim as one of them, though it was obvious enough that he wasn't - off-guard, entirely stunning some of them 1 . Bookchin furthermore went about his frontal attack in a most ungentlemanly and less than American way, using practices and methods that Americans do not use as regards decent fellow countrymen, but reserve for communism and its representatives and others engaged in un-American activities. 2 Intellectual exchanges are supposed, otherwise, to proceed in a nice, collegial way (the knives come out in the back rooms, not on the front pages). Bookchin broke American cultural conventions (which is a main reason why several people, e.g. Sale, failed to comprehend what was going on). There is heaps of straight mudslinging in Bookchin, name-calling, attributions of guilt by very thin associations, ad hominen moves. We shall bypass this unworthy material, much of what there is in the attack, because anyone with decent basic training in logic can document it for themselves, if they can obtain copies of the work (not at all easy in the peripheral world). We shall try to isolate the much slimmer intellectual content of Bookchin's criticism. Should we dig under all the dirt, we find there are some core criticisms of DE, which are for the most part defective, but as well some interesting suggestions, which are worth fossicking out and displaying. There are two key issues. In both Bookchin's criticism repacts, but focusses upon DE, the old-fashioned erroneous socialist condemnation of environmentalism of all types - as not only getting priorities wrong in not putting human societies absolutely first, but worse failing to appreciate that environmental problems are the product of social problems and removed with them. • Ecological problems are at bottom nothing but social problems. This rival reduction theme, which is what justfies the social ecology terminology and approach, also gets stated in various, often weaker or slacker forms: For instance, ecological problems have their 1 The phrase 'off-guard' is from Naess. As to the extent of Bookchin's depth see the Critique. 2 This nasty face of American intellectual activity is well exposed in Chomsky's political writings. For the most part American philosophical periodicals permit only the nice face to be exhibited. For my part I enjoyed some of this outrageous stuff of Bookchin's, which was livily and refreshing after the flatness and dullness of much in Naess's notes, and also by contrast with Bookchin's earlier papers, which are mostly repetitive and often rather vacuous diatribes. �2 roots in social problems, ecological problems have their ultimate roots in society and social problems, etc. But DE, 'despite all its social rhetoric, has virtually no real sense of' this; that is a major (disgusting) trouble with it. The correctness and tellingness of social reduction themes vary more or less inversely, depending in particular upon how far the operative term 'social' is stretched. If all problems concerning "groups" (including single member groups) of "individuals" of any sort (including volcanoes, hurricanes, seiges, etc.) are "social" problems, then evidently all ecological problems become social problems, as these are all concerned in some way with individuals and their relations with their surroundings. But such a misleading adjustment to the theme, rendered near-tautologous by a low redefinition of 'social', is not what Bookchin and other socialists have intended. They characteristically intend by 'social' 'human social', and what they intend to convey by 'the social roots of the ecological crisis' is that it is 'the gross inequities in [human] society' - which should be attended to first- 'that underpin the disequilibrium between [human] society and nature'. 3 Now this strong social bias thesis is interestingly false. Consider counterexamples of the following sort:Imagine mixed capitalistic and welfare socio-economic arrangements had worked and succeeded in eliminating the gross inequities in society, at least in some relatively independent regions of the world, and perhaps even globally. There were, it still seems, real prospects that this could have happened in the 60s, had energy and funds been redirected from military-industrial enterprise to social-industrial activity. A welfare safety net is stretched right across the regions concerned so that no longer is any human homeless or without sufficient nourishment or basic eductional opportunities and so on, so that poverty and all other grosser inequities are eliminated. 4 It is sufficiently evident that even if all this is achieved, many ecological problems will not be addressed, but may be aggravated by the increased industrialisation and economic development involved. The lot of factory farmed animals or of threatened wild species would not be removed, but, if touched at all, 3 Bookchin 87 p.10 where the thesis is inaccurately associated with Kropotkin. 4 Naturally, finer inequities, such as unsatisfactory job relativities, race relativities, etc., will not thereby be eliminated and are perhaps part of "the human condition", some of which many societies will be prepared to live with or ignore. The relatively easy opportunities of the 60s for societies free of grosser inequities (for good or even great societies) may have passed, as certain new social problems have much complicated matters. �3 likely worsened. There is no guarantee that the position of wild and natural regions would thereby be improved, that these regions would be freed from constant inroads by human developmental activity, that the Antartcic would not be citified, and so on. In general, no environmental damage and degradation that did not rebound upon the relevant human social situation would be halted or resolved. Furthermore, not only is the strong social bias thesis false, as well human social concerns do not always come first where ecological depth is attained. Bookchin suggests an historical basis for the strong social bias thesis, that the notion of the domination of nature arose in the first place out of social domination of people by people, women by men, and so on. But that is pseudo-history; for the domination of nature and some appreciation of its operation, reaches as far back, so far as we can see, so far as our records go, as other forms of domination. What is more, even if a real history were like Bookchin's it would offer little support for strong social bias thesis. All it would reveal is that some ecological problems were glimpsed by anology with social problems, not that ecological problems are at bottom social problems and so resolved with them. • • "Second nature", constituted by human society, is uniquely different from first nature, and so naturally and justifiably interferes substantially with the processes of first nature. The unexploited play on "second nature" does nothing to support such intervention; or the contrary, second nature follows nature rather effortlessly without specific reflection. However, the two "natures" distinction, inadequately introduced and incapable of bearing much weight, is applied, in social ecology, to support much human interferenc e and substantial separateness. 'Natural evolution has not only provided humans with ability but also the necessity to be purposive interveners into "first nature", to conscously change "first nature" by means of highly institutionalized forms of community we call "society".' 5 Given the highly artificial and rather accidental social forms now in place, that many humans now suffer or swear under, this is very far from obvious. This second nature vs. first nature division would re-erect the old division and separation , Man vs. Nature, in old-fashio ned football-m ilitary terms, that deeper environmentalism has been concerned to remove. It is human chauvinistic; it ignores the continuity between humans and other creatures, the overlap in incapacities and skills (remembering all the capable animals able to live skilfully off the land and all the incapable humans). As regards relevant skills and capabilities, there is no uniqueness, or singularity, of humans as a whole. It would chauvinistically try to convert being human into a 5 Bockchin 87 p.21. �4 significant moral category, when it is not. 6 It would induce an inverse, obnoxious ranking among biological kinds; first class, matching second nature, and second class, matching first or primitive nature. The division would accordingly offer a springboard to a range of further interference of the sorts of which we have already witnessed much too much. The main thrust of Bookchin's attack is thus an old-fashioned socialist criticism, which fails any longer to impress because of its excess anthropocentrism. Social problems, which are of course often but not always intertangled with environmental problems, are no longer top of action, political, or other agendas; nor are their standard modern rivals, similarly entangled with environmental problems, namely economic problems. There is a third set of problems, neither exactly left nor right, neither exactly social nor economic nor reducing in approved fashion to those would-be universal categories, nor yet forming an entirely independent dimension: namely, environmental problems. Bookchin faithfully rolls out other elements of routine socialist criticism, against deep ecology. Some of these are telling enough, but mostly not new. They include:• a seriously flawed pantheon of heroic figures. Bookchin gets stuck into DEs favourable mention of Heidegger, of course, but he also tries to convey quite by association with Woody Guthrie (p.6), Malthus (p.15) Ehrlich (p.17) and others. Problems with the heroic figures and historical pedigree of DE had already been observed by others, e.g. Sholomowski. • a thin and inadequate historical genesis and setting. In this regard Naess's work is, of course, primarily in the perfectly admissible tradition and company of systematic philosophy and of most science. Deep environmental has, no more than science, to supply at the outset a full historical context in which its ideas are placed (pace. p.5 bottom). 6 So it is argued at length in EP. �INTRODUCTION Deep ecology is a major environmental position and movement, one of the most important of contemporary times. In name and in assemblage of themes it is a recently elaborated position, dating back only to about 1973; but most of the themes are older, some of them much older. It is the assemblage, package and the way that has been put to environmental work that is newer and different. The initial assemblage and the name are due to Naess, a principal character (in all senses) in what follows 1. 1. On the deep ecology movement and ideology: their intellectual standing. The expression 'deep long-range ecological movement', of which 'deep ecology' 1s a subsequent abbreviation, was minted by N aess to label an emerging environmental movement . Naess was then (sociological) finder ather than founder of this emerging movement, a movement concerned primarily with the natural environment. In explaining ideological features of the movement Naess set down a number of what he took to be characteristic themes. It is from these themes, with much elaboration and considerable variation, that deep ecology, as a doctrine, has grown. It is with the evolving body of doctrine, the position, that we shall primarily be concerned. Control such as it was, of the doctrine did not long remain with Naess. Like many good promising ideas it was quickly imported into California, where it was modified, and to some extent converted into a further individual consciousness-elevating exercise. Thus the doctrine has been elaborated and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several North-Americans, particularly Devall and Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with N aess, and more recently by various Australians, most notably Fox and Seed.NI Deep ecology has caught on largely outside No attempt will be made to give an account of Naess's philosophy, except insofar as it bears directly on deep ecology, though such an attempt would be worth making. We commend the work (which could simply be entitled Naess ) to others; a smell beginning is made in Naess and Rothenberg. Naess was already a significant, influential, but maverick, figure on the European intellectual scene well before deep ecology was discerned. Naess had been professor of philosophy at Oslo since 1939, a chair he obtained when 27. In early days he was a Norwegian Ayer, likwise basking in reflected glory of a disinfecting logical positivism; but how much Naess subsequently diverged from empiricism can be gauged from his 1971 debate with Ayer (recorded in Reflexive Water). In fact Naess had already began to move out of an empiricist set as a result of his early interesting attempt to carry it towards its logical conclusion, and to do philosophy itself empirically, recorded in Truth as Conceived by those who are not Professional Philosophers. Subsequently Naess traversed a wide and unusual range of philosophical enterprise: scepticism naturally; many of the then fashionable areas, such as communication, semantics and interpretation; and several others that were much less philosophically fashionable, but politically significant, such as Gandhi and pacifism, ideology and failure of objectivity, and of course pluralism. These investigations form the complex backdrop to deep ecology. Unfortunately, despite Naess's longstanding commitment to pluralism, deep ecology was from the outset constrained to a certain unduly narrow style of environmentalismm as will appear. �5 narrower academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in contrast to Western Europe, significant areas of natural environment still remain; these are rapidly becoming of increasing public concern. Deep ecology is a radical environmental pos1t10n, which goes far beyond resource conservation positions (which are typically concerned at best with the management, husbandry and stewardship of resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to prevailing attitudes and practices (of the dominant social paradigm), especially those which concern more or less natural environments.N 2 Deep ecology (hereafter is an ideology in the respectible older sense, a system of belief and ideas. It is not an ideology in the post Marxion sense, of such a system characterised by an inflexibility and an unwillingness to listen to other points of view. Quite the contrary. Radical DE may still be, though its radicalness is in decline as it ages and as informed opinion on environmental issues advances; respectable, it is not. In particularly DE is not a respectable academic subject. Though it is arguably the most important movement in environmental philosophy in recent times, it is fl:Ot even mentioned in several recent texts on the topic. There are several reasons for this, ranging from the conservation and close-mindedness, snobbery and bigotry almost, of much contemporary philosophy, to evident presentational deficiencies in DE, its mouldeness, its lack of discriptive and argument, its popular appeal. DE is particularly weak weaker than environmental ethics, which do poorly on these academic indicators - on a run of things that are taken to matter in contemporary ethics; analyses of meanings of key ethical terms, reductions of ethical terms to few primitives, smart arguments, utilitarian-style justifications, etc. That is one reason why it is not part of Anglo-American analytic philosophy; another is that it challenges so much of what analytic philosophy represents and (politically) presupposes. DE scarcely represents, then, many of you will be relieved to learn analytic philosophers' philosophy. N aess believes has been through and seen through that sort of philosophy early in life; and seen that it does not contribute very much to the real features of life and living that philosophy should make significant contributions towards, but mostly does not. As a result you will find very little analysis in DE. Also there is remarkedly little argument, though argument is often taken to be what is distinctive in philosophy. (But that is an Anglo American idea of what philosophy is all about; you find comparatively little argument in much Continental European philosophy - what you do find, even in authors like Kant and Hegel who look superficially as if they are arguing, is mostly patently bad argument, poor at best. DE is much more like European philosophy in tone and style, which helps explain why it is neglected and denigrated in American schools; by contrast, in British philosophy curricula the environment is only just beginning to win any satisfactory attention at all.) �6 These are some of the reasons why, despite its importance, DE goes largely unmentioned in most texts on environmental philosophy and ethics. This says a good deal about the texts, which are mostly not offering satisfactory coverage of their fields (see further chapter 2). But it indicates something too about DE, which is not as intellectually accessible as it could or should be. Moreover, presentation of DE often go out of their way to violate (questionable) academic standards, expecially those for clarity of statement, extent of analysis, and level of argumentation. Deep ecology is an amophous doctrine, as anyone who tries to set down from its sources in a clear and crisp way what its themes are, will readily enough discover. Of course compared with much French philosophy, it is clarity itself; but French philosophy does not provide an acceptable benchmark. A good deal of the obscurity concerning DE results from its varying and different presentations by different expositors. To avoid this problem, we shall, for the most part, follow Naess's elaboration of DE, taking that as fairly authoritative. But the problem is not thereby resolved. Naess's views on deep ecology, its place and importance, and its themes, have changed over the years. Nor are the themes always, sufficiently clear though many of them are succinctly stated. Some of them are said, by disciples or by N aess himself, to be metaphorical. Furthermore, as some important matters go largely unelaborated, for instance the issues of satisfactory methods for achieving ecopolitical change. To surmount these kinds of difficulties, we shall (somewhat presumptuously no doubt) offer our own exposition and elaboration of DE, what we call authentic deep ecology. At least under Naess's conception of DE we are entitled to do this. In part II however, which offers a critique of DE as it has been variously presented, we shall look at the genuine article in its various formulations. Rather than becoming easier with the passage of time, DE has become more and more difficult, and less intellectually tractable as it picks up or toys with environmental fashions, often zanier environmental fads. It is complicated by New themes, often muddy themes, and its solidity is removed by modification or erosion of old themes. Among the new themes picked up, several to be examined critically (in part II), are the Gaia hypothesis, according to which the Earth itself some sort of organic living system. DE is thus an irremedially vague object. Its vagueness has increased with its popularity with its becoming on the green fringe a fashionable, not to say vogue, item (a Foucaultian object). Vague and vogue, a common concotenation. 2. Types of environmental positions: deep environmentalism. �7 What distinguishes an environmental position is a certain level of constraint with respect to the environment, the natural environment especially: not anything goes with respect to nature. In this regard environmental positions contrast with a dominant theme of Western cultural heritage; namely, provided it does not interfere with acknowledged people such as property holders, that people can do more or less what they like with the land, and with what grows and lives there. It is even therefor humans to exploit or manage. This unrestrained position imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment itself. Under it there would, for example, be little compunction about using up material resources, forests, fisheries and so on, immediately or even destroying them. But, because it grants such entitlements to exploitation, the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly moral positions. 2 For it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of independence of person, place or time, a requirement which implies that persons of different races, colours, sexes or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously disadvantaged. Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and even destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very serious disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local (or national) interests, rather than assessments appropriately based on long-range transnational values. Opposed to the unrestrained position are various environmental positions (what Leopold saw as the land ethic is just one of these). Such positions can be classified - conveniently for subsequent development but in a way that already refines and extends Naess's classification - into three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. Unlike the unrestrained position, all these positions would conserve and maintain things - materials, creatures, forests, etc. The shallow (conservation) position differs from the unrestrained position primarily in taking a longer-term view and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so forth. It is more enlightened than the unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective: hence its alternative description in the literture as resource conservation (thus, e.g., soil conservation organisations). Though this conservation position is only a step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass the test of morality in that future people are not treated unfairly; so it is a very significant step. 2 This is a substantial and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity unethical in the narrow or semse, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case for obligations and commitment to future humans, see e.g. Routley 81, and other essays collected with it in Partridge 81. This section is drawn from my People vs the Land (84). �8 The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they share and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature and the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus they take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values reduce to these. It is in this respect especially that these shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource and management and exploitation oriented, positions. According to deeper positions, humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value in the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to human concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to human concerns. According to an intermediate position serious human concerns always come first; and while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right, their value is outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and maintains that even serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values. Figure 1. The positions separated, and separating principles SHALLOWER UNRESTRAINED DEEPER SHALLOW IMMEDIAIB DEEP MORALITY SOLE VALUE GREATER VALUE REQUIREMENT ASSUMPTION ASSUMPTION (of human apartheid) (of human supremacy) The watershed principle which divides the shallow from the deeper positions is the sole value assumption . According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western social theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the value of all other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another. This assumption is build into most present political and economic arrangements; for example, only aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in democratic political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and natural items are presented at best through the preference or votes of interested humans. 3 3 The points are explained in more detail in EP, where too, account is taken of the shift from humans to persons (which would be important were it taken seriously and adhered to) and also of the inclusion of �9 Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive theories which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of humans. Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as standard utilitarianism. 4 According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is determined through what affords maximum satisfaction (preference-fulfilment, pleasure, absence of pain, and so on, for other satisfaction determinates) to the greatest number of individual humans. In theories like utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct inputs or outputs, but only insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals. Such ethical theories are appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man is, or is treated as, apart from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land enters only as a remote experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and interests. However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example, volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies. At least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in economics, ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the environment, have been appended (thus, for example, externality theory in economics, some allowances for "side" constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the environment remains treated as an awkward or tiresome afterthought or backdrop, a (re-)source and sink, when it is considered at all. There is, however, another approach also with historical standing, vying with (and indeed often confused with) human apartheid, which can accommodate secondary theories a little more satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which Man, though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it.N While human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain in the shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable greater value assumption; other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than other things; the value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This assumption allows that other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value; what it insists upon is that, at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never exceeds that of humans. What super-humans. With value for natural items goes, of course, concern, respect, and sensitivity, towards them; but the reverie connection may exhibit occasional failures. 4 But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely contractualism and libertarianism. More broadly based historical utilitarianisms, which allow for some input from other sentient creatures, are considered below. �10 is generally presupposed is that other objects - animals, plants and their communities - are never of very much importance compared with humans. Though human supremacy has appeared in variants upon utilitarianism (from Hutcheson and Bentham on) where animal pain is taken into consideration along with human, Wes tern ethics and associated social sciences such as demography, economics and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form. So in practice does most utilitarianism. 5 It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position 6 is that of Animal Liberation, in the form in which individual animals (but not plants, forests, ecosystems, etc.) are taken to have value in their own right, though in any play-off with humans, humans win. Under the deep position such an outcome is by no means inevitable and not alway assured; in cases of conflict of animals with humans or natural systems with humans, humans sometimes lose. There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that humans do not always matter7 and, more pertinently, that humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one takes the following form:- Some humans voluntarily lead worthless or negative lives, lives without net value. The point, though not uncontroversial, 8 can be argued even from a shallow utilitarianism. Take for instance a life of pain and suffering and little or no happiness: it has a substantial net negative utility. However, some small natural systems do have net value; one example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a live example might be a tropical island before Club Mediterranee depradation). Now consider the situation where the considerable value of a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on behalf of a set of humans whose lives each have no positive net value. For instance, the system is to be exploited, just for the continued maintenance of these humans, or for their addition (as new settlers) to an established population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the natural system takes precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the 5 There practice contrasts with what the theory allows or requires. Utilitarianism is like much pollution control, where regulations are on the books or are part of the law, but are or never only very occasionally applied. Utilitarian double standards are further discussed and referenced in DEP #7. 6 Other examples are considered below. Two of the four form of ecological consciousness considered by Rodman fit here (as Rodman has remarked). For instance, falling into the intermediate range are the types of environmental positions adopted by Birch and Cobb, and by Attfield and by many other consequentialists. 7 See the argument of EP, beginning the Last Man argument, p .... ff. See also the initial example of Routley 2 79 .. 8 The point is argued in detail in DEP #3. �11 integrity of rich natural environments. This simple result cuts deeply into (standard shallow) consumer theory, to take just one example of the impact of deep environmentalism. Authentic deep ecology is a type of deep environmentalism. A genuinely ecospheric egalitarianism, such as deep ecology offers, is bound to reject the Greater Value assumption. For under egalitarianism, larger collarations of significant eco-objects outweight smaller groupings of undistinguished humans. Notes 1. All their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end. 2. Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several sources; e.g. Rodman. 3. Here authenticity is important. As will become evident in part II, certain proclaimed deep ecologists are not prepared to scuttle the Greater Value assumption. As will also become evident, the egalitarian arguments upsetting the Greater Value assumption are build on defective foundations. �CONTINUING THE CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than most ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is how the label often functions, honorifically, for instance in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which gives deep ecology none but a nebulous content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as the interview with Soleri) in diametrical opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by the intellectual "leaders" of the deep ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular appeal of deep ecology has been obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic forms and the slack or nebulous forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some of those who calls themselves 'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes from the more detailed platform (thus e.g. Fox). Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous banner. 1 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the march. Purchasing or growing organic vegetables, having spiritual experiences in a special natural place, or practising some oriental art or exercise routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental position, though it can be a step on the way. While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as biological egalitarianism, have already been criticised in sufficient detail in the original critique. But other features of authentic deep ecology (hereafter mainly DE) were left largely untouched in the original critique, and new features have emerged. The critique thus needs continuing. Since the critique was produced, it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp what DE is all about. Even Naess, the founder of the movement, who now tends to adhere much more closely to the platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to this sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I didn't expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously reduce information sources. �2 apparently large concessions to opposition changes, which however he subsequently more surreptitiously withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he withdraws with one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other. The oscillation can be partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the desire, stronger in the founder of DE, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophels, to create a wide constituency, to tum no one away if it can in any way be avoided. But, on the other there is an evident desire to make deep ecology a very select position, for a chosen few, a place to be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and involving some difficult life adjustments. Deep ecology lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its religious sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict. I.Further problems with the platform and core platform of deep ecology. It is the platform (at level 2 of the organising "double pyramid" of DE depicted below) that constrains, delimits and defines deep ecology, so far as it is well-characterised. For even this level is not very precisely characterised to put it mildly. Some exponents or practitioners of deep ecology (some of them self-nominated or self-proclaimed) appear to repudiate even the core themes at level 2 (e.g. Fox on axiocentrism). In the face of criticism, Naess himself backtracks as far as he plausibly can, and sometime further. Not only does he considerably muddy the clear waters of doctrine of occasional prosentations, but the doctrine itself begins to disappear, to be qualified away (see e.g. Naess's performance in Resurgance , discussed below). The response to intellectual criticism, which DE has been increasingly encountering as it spreads, has not been an appropriate one of clarifying, and where requisite expounding, the core theory; it has rather been one of retreat and digging in, of trying to hold the temple under seige, through diversionary activity (or by broken-record techniques: simply reiterating parts of the messge not under heavy criticism over and over again). When the critical raid has passed, the priests (and very occassional priestess) of deep ecology reemerge, bearing the original doctrine essentially unchanged. The practice resembles christianity (and too much of the practice of dominant science, the rival Western church). Dealing with deep ecologists is very like dealing with devout christians; some of them one feels sure have only recently changed positional hats, from evangelism to deep ecology (correspondingly, my own position has become that of a black sheep). A good deal of the argumentative practice of deep ecology appears to be explained by its evangelical, and even messianic, character. There is genuine effort to tum no-one, except the most incorrigible moneylenders, away from the temple. Everyone else (except perhaps philosophic critics) is welcome, and encouraged to join in worship. Much like the churches, the founder of the �3 De movement seeks as large a flock as possible. In these democratic days, numbers count (at least under the "right" polling conditions); earlier numbers overted for taxing or tithing purposes. Other high priests are not so sure: there are some critics of the movement, who may be beyond the poles; and surely it should be a little more exclusive. But, in any event, DE is a much more liberal doctrine than one of its sources, christianity, has ever been; it admits coupling not just (so it is said) with all the great religions, but with all the more benign positions and practices that achieve fashionability in California. All not ill-disposed to the natural world and duly acknowledging its value can march under the banner of deep ecology, whose main citadel is Nature. N aess casts the net of deep ecology wide, catching therewith not only many remote supporters, but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly Bockshim (p.6). Naess now considers the 8 point platform, formulated by himself and Susians and published in several slightly different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of Deep Ecology'. Naess 'look[s] upon the formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all supporters of the movement have in common' (23.6.88). Thus the 8 point platform (condensed in box 1) provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the core, the core platform, of DE. To get around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to the principles of the core (in some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They are adherents in (simply and literally) holding to the core, the common (intersection of the) platform. They may not be members of the movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because appropriate intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let alone made any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is neither necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockshim, or myself, can be an adherent without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not be an adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not adherents. The De movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep ecologists', who do not adhere to the core, even more or less. Many of these supporters are shallow environmentalists, who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside humans, or try to evade it (e.g. by redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextrically in relations to valuers). Since there are, in my experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts who turn out to be of this shallow sort, Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here 'almost all supporters'? Which isolated exceptions does he have in view? Box 1. The core 8 point plat/orm, in capsule form. l. Non-human and human life have intrinsic value: The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth have intinsic value, inherent �4 value, etc. These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. 2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues : Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation of these values and are also values in themselves. 3.Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues: Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. 4.Human (values compatible with) population decrease: The flourishing of human life and culture is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease. 5. Human inte,ference with natural world excessive: Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive and the situation is rapidly worsening. 6. Policies and basic structures must be changed: Policies must therefore be changed. These policies will affect our basic economic, technological and ideological structures. 7.Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living: The change in our attitudes will bring an appreciation of the quality of life rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great. We will have a great society with no bigness. 8. Obligation to attempted implementation: Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement necessary changes. Most of the core platform is no longer demanding; none of it, except for the last point, specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any commitment in the past of adherents. Mainly adherence to DE, and support of DE, would be very considerably increased were this requirement evaded. A strategy common to econonical practice and sociological research �5 readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent adherents as those who adhere to the core platform, more or less, except that they make no requisite effort to implement it (they may of course have some vague failing of obligation, should they ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit of scholarly survey work, it is evident that De would now have a large number of silent adherents, many of whom are not however adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions or social situations, or simply uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively many excessively interferring humans of Caucasian stock). The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as to envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go into detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' (R p.7). The reasoning does not hold up; a range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be defined by constraints well-known ones as it happened. Naess should be encouraged to go on and delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and neighbouring environmental positions. For instance, 6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of a highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a change in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not implied by point 7. 6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky and polluting technology. 6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated regions. Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly included in principle of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration. Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the core platform itself, which is pretty wishy-wasy when contrasted with what is happening out there environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much further, and to witness some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments, such as extensive clearcutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of range-lands, extensive strip and beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on. �6 Deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE program, and the issue is (perhaps wisely) avoided by some leading proponents of DE. But deindustrialization - a considerable reduction in the levels of industrial activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive prolluting types of industry that conspiciuosly contributed to the first industrial revolution - would emerge from the alternative futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, with a much smaller, less consumption-oriented,terrestial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important environmental objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially, in obtaining some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters as the greenhouse affect, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out. The idea of progress is, like industry, also under a cloud. It is now naive to assume that progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism of something is that it would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating (in some respects); there is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much that was progress, and still is in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for instance, elimination of wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The 'previously ... dominant [assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress towards the industrial state and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly rejected (cf. Naess, on the "status of mythology"). So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select hand, philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded, philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human chauvinists, led by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative persona) and McCloskey. Many of these excluded philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core platform, as weakly interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that there are severe environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly farreaching by conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who becomes inmersed in a spread of these problems, and who does not develop some environmental commitments, even if a liberalish social agenda continues to dominate an environmental one (and it is fast becoming hard to avoid observing the interpretation of social with broadly environmental problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics (now ......... of reaction crises), tended to become progressively more accomodating to what was only a short time ago radical environmental drought, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep �7 ecology has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing pluralism with broad consensualism, and lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental pluralism is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep or an ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the joining of different positions. Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:- Example 1. Among extensionists, both utilitarians and ratonalists. Among utilitarians are Singer, and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed. Utilitarians in the Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences, sometimes a or the like, and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures. Accordingly they satisfy point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much non-human life'. It all depends upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both are quantified with 'all', the theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured abominations as intrinsically valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists. If the terms are more weakly quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are admitted. An evident dividing line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough to exclude shallow philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate positions, which do not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension positions, almost invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of rationalistic persuasion, grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have gradually move away from a utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including those of vegetarianism, can be reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent thinking (thus, it is really a coherence theory of morality). Example 2. More far-reaching informediate positions, which do assign intrinic value less stingily throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some non-individuals, such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which human values always take precedence over non-human assignments. Examples of this sort the postions deliminated (so far in insufficient theoretical details) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions so far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Rolston's case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral extenionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive classificaton of positions). Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1, though not in this formulation. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an adherent of DE, �8 despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism however, only what has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this restriction as very like that imposed by ulitarians, to sentience, or unwarranted, unnecessary and arbitrary. Deep-green theorists, like enviromental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Facters, now see the DE platform as much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism of DE has been excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an environmental consensus (in place of a genuine pluralism), the religo-political quest for a large support Base (which could however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and the input of conservatizing academic thought and aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE which does not make much ground academically, as compared with its success outside academia, especially with book-reading environmentalists, would better forget academic success, where it has made progress only among outsiders, not power-players and return to its more radical mission (academics form only a small minority, though one dangerously and influentially supportive, one the whole, of most past environmental excesses and assaults). 2. Variability, antiquity or dubiquity of main themes of deep ecology omitted from the core platform. Some themes have been retained by letting them undergo extensive change. Nowhere is this more conspicuous than with the difficult principle of "biospherical egalitarianism in principle", central to earle DE, which has taken on some remarkable new guises. In Naess, it becomes a curiously qualified principle of rights: that every being has a right to live - unless the basic needs of other beings overrides its rights. In Devall, who prefers to avoid the term 'rights' (the use of which he asserts is metaphorical in Naess, not at all what Naess, who appeals to childrens" usage, asserts), the principle is emptied of main egalitarian content: 'Properly understood, the principle of biocentric equality means that humans are members of the biotic community, not its masters' (p.58). So understood, the principle can be accepted by many shallow thinkers; it is not incompatible with chauvinism, nor with conciderable inequality, nor with greater value invariably assigned to humans, only with a certain domination. It is a sell-out. Few of the supporters of deep ecology (DE) appear to realise how old-fashionedly defective and sometimes inappropriate some of the elements, and most of the methodology, of deep ecology really is. 2 The organic and organistic image, for instance - heavily deployed by one of the heroes of deep ecology, Whitehead - is as old as Aristotle (for some of the history see Berlin). Despite much valiant effort, no one has so far got the image (now redeployed in the extravagent Gaia 2 Recently, Sholomowski has re-emphasized some of these features. �9 hypothesis) - valuable as it may be, chauvinistic as it characteristically is -to work in a very fruitful way. Likewise the drive for self-realisation, is both old-fashioned - it was fostered by the Enlightenment and had its heyday in the 19thC, was decidedly human chauvinistic in its emphases. But perhaps the heaviest residue of old-fashioned inappropriate material is to be found in the methodology of deep ecology, which is mainly transferred from positivism with little alteration. The hypothetico-deductive methodology, for example, appears essentially intact in the double pyramidal diagram (now called 'the apron' by Naess), which one is supposed to shuffle around and descend by deduction. Having descended so, the way back to the top is by intuition of hypotheses, by the hypothetical part of the method. First principles at the top admit of no proof or derivation - because of the character of the one inferential relation admitted, deduction. In other respects, the double pyramid strait-jacket, which is Naess's way of trying to infuse a certain pluralism (a pluralism of fundamental positions at first principles) into deep ecology, is insufficiently specific. It does not explain, for example, how at a practical lower level, either an environmental directive or environmental action is forthcoming. Indeed given restriction to deduction, it cannot explain how these things come about. DE lacks any requisite theory of environmental action. 3 The double pyramid gets stylized in the way on the left; an alternative representation is that on the right (and Naess now has a representation awkwardly superimposed on a mandala):Needless to say, there are problems lacking within DE's easy pluralism. Noone has ever explained how to get the unretracted DE platform derivationally out of - what looks incompatible Christianity. For that matter no-one has shown how to deduce the platform from any of the other, sometimes more congenial, great religions or philosophies. The nearest we seem to get is Naess's sketch of how we derive parts of the platform from his own specially concocted ecosophy. 3. Further flowing of the DE gospel: its heroes, its arguments, .... Deep ecology is a seriously flawed gospel, not only as regards its doctrines and their coherence, but in other surrounding evangelic respects as well. Virtually all the patron saints of DE, the past philosophical heroes (all male) are deeply flawed. Spinoza's views on the place and treatment of animals, for instance, should be entirely disowned by any deeper environmentalist. Even the later "reformed" Heidegger is conspicuously human chauvinistic, too complacent in a human-dominated and tamed landscape, and, (apart from some new-fangled technology and 3 Various old-fashioned, and again defective, models are available to DE, and could be tacked onto the theory, e.g. the belief (or information) and desire (or value) account of intention and action conventionally attributed to Hume. �10 industrialisation) with the established rural way of things in Germany, including significantly racist and sexist ways. The pervasive background four-fold, fitting the cosmological scheme of things in, includes only divinities and humans; wilderness and its creatures are not part of the fundamentals. Whitehead, despite the apparent bounteousness of his philosophical scheme, was a practising christian, committed to a great chain of being with humans at the top of the chain (and thus to a greater value assumption antithetical to DE); he took no significant interest in nature or nonhuman creatures at all, and was very comfortable in the ways of a socio-political order which directly produced present environmental impasses. 4 No doubt the heroes should be differently viewed. Not as patrons, not even as forerunners; but as deep thinkers, from whom certain elements can be drawn in elaborating an environmental philosophy (e.g. parts of a theory of nature, features of process theory, elements of a critique of technology), while much else is discarded. Most of this theoretical work remains to be done. Regrettably the calibre of the arguments for proceeding to a DE position has not improved. N aess has now resorted to making his case in a very conventionalistic populist fashion. People are inclined to respond in such and such a way (favourable to environmental concerns) to so and so questions. Thus, for instance 'there is reasonably widespread agreement that animals, and even plants, have rights' (EIJ p.3). But surely it is largely as a result of environmentalism, which must (and should) be based on something else that people have began to respond thus and so. Naess also argues from the the concern of many people about nature and natural phenomena for their own sakes (the data is however not all that clearcut) to several other conclusions, for instance that political and stilist approaches to the environmental crisis (etc) should be less anthropocentric (EIJ p.5). The arguments are thus close in character to those widely used in arguments in economics and democratic theory; they are none the better for that. The fact that people used to respond favourably to damming up every nearby river and draining all the swamps is not a solid recommendation for such practices. Moreover, such populist considerations hardly win out, as Naess himself explains (p.4). Pressure groups pedalling narrow and sometimes destructive economic ambitions often succeed against democratic opinion. 4. But much criticism of DE is even more seriously flawed. Despite the growing constituency for core princles. De, which Naess will correctly have alluded to here, DE has been portrayed as extremism - especially from the US political right (which tends towards extreme right). What is extreme depends, of course, on where a carping critic is 4 He appears to have owed his appointment to a philosophy chair at Harvard in significient part to the fact that he was in no way a radical, but suited to the conservative scene established there. �11 situated. Gung-ho growth economists are extremists from a deeper environmental situation. No doubt such GG economists would claim that they have reason, not emotion, on their side; but it is a narrow flawed reason, tailored and biassed to their cause, reflecting a different class of emotions, primarily preferences of business communities of humans. In present deteriorating environmental circumstances, clever "extremism" is sometimes exactly what is required - ideas and action that upset, disturb, interfere with, subvert, and eventually overturn, the dominant military-industrial social ethos. Extremism presumably amounts to being isolated on the outer margins of some politically or socially sensitive (more useless) normal distribution, without respectable companions. On many environmentally important issues, DE is no longer in such a position (often instead the power elite would be if it were not so entrenched). Where it is in such a position, then generally it needs to be, and needs to try to swing the norm in its direction or else to gather respectability for that position. What, if anything, supports the charge of extremism, levelled against DE? Such emotionallycharged criticisms from the right tend to be particularly vague. Sometimes DE itself, portrayed as radical environmentalism, and compared with radical feminism, is dismissed as extremist, without indicating where it is considered extreme. In fact, while better developed, less accommodating DE is radical, at least literally in going, as one aspect of its depth, to root issues and assumptions, it is not very politically radical; it does not seriously challenge present political arrangements in the way that ecoanovehism, or even ecosocialism, does. What has infuriated some critics is undoubtedly the DE removal of humans from absolute centre stage, and above all the cavalier or callous way in which some environmentalists have portrayed the demise of unfortunate humans, from the God-given position to having to share the world-stage. There are many different issues tangled up here, and the charges of extremism depends on retaining the confusion, as well as ascribing to DE claims it does not make. DE asserts that irreducible value is not confined to humans, that life other than humans has intrinsic value. Although such a claim is indeed incompatible with the dominant social paradigm, it represents an old challenge, going back in utilitarianism at least to Bentham. As some of those who held or now hold such a position were not, by any means extremists or even radicals (e.g. Sidgwick) the charge against this part of the DE platform, lapses. Similar points apply against any charge of extremism based on the DE assertion (carefully avoided in the core platform) that a substantial decrease in human population is desirable, especially for conservation of the biosphere. Such a theme is increasingly widely maintained, by many respectable figures, far from any fringes. Nor need any extreme, threatening or dangerous, action result from such DE themes. Human population reduction can occur (and is envisaged by Naess to occur) by such unthreatening means as a �12 reduction in birth rates, a demographic transition brought about for instance through improved education and contraception. Yet some coupling to "extreme" action, and adoption or preparedness to adopt such, has to be established if a proper charge of extremism is to sustained (cf. also the OED definition of 'extremism'). Deep ecologists propose no extreme action to reduce human population, no wars, no genecide, nothing macho. Indeed the idea is ludicrous. Deep ecologists tend to be gentle people, who are opposed to violence; they care about humans, who are part of nature (even if too many of them are trying to set themselves above and apart from it). There are individuals and groups, more evident in America than elsewhere, who do adopt an uncaring, and sometimes brutal attitude to other humans, especially those outside America. Ecofascists, like Hardin, to the right of environmental thought, who think that the time for triage has already arrived, and that starving humans in third world countries should be left to fend for themselfes, offer a striking example. But eco-fascism is far from deep ecology, and has been severely criticised by those close to DE (e.g. Bennett and Griffin). It is no doubt troublesome for deep ecology, and convenient for opportunistic critics, if environmentalists with eco-fascist prodivities present themselves as deep ecologists (as has happened, a prominent example being the present editor of Earth First). It is no doubt troublesome for a charitable organisation if members of a mafia present themselves as agents of it and collect on its behalf; it has long been a problem for democracy that fascists can present themselves as democrats, and even put an end to democracy through seemingly democratic methods. Political movements admits of much infiltration, by both well- and evil-intentioned. ANNEX 1. Interesting proposals continue to emerge from the deep literature. One is for an environmental organisation, which might could be called Environment International, parallelling Amesty International , and adopting a similar role with regard to the environment that Amesty does with respect to human rights and political processes (Naess p.4). 2. There are many false "virtues " in contemporary political life that green politics, such as DE is coupled with, will eventually help remove. These include:- • Unity, united front. All that has merit is a certain limited unity in diversity. • Balance. Balance is achieved by resolution of many forces. To shift �13 the balance, then, environmentalists should be as far out as they can (while still being counted in the resolution, not written off). For end political purposes, citing especially credibility doesn't matter, by contrast with countability. Advice to offer more balanced statements and work should be courteously ignored: it is oppositional, political advice. • Two party ideal REFERENCES A. Naess, 'Environmental ethics and international justice', Ecospirit Quarterly IV (1) (198.) 1-7; referred to as EIJ. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document page PREFACE Part 1 ill ECOLOGICA L ETHICS & ECOLOGICA L POLITICS: TURNING JOHN MCCLOSKE Y'S CHALLENGE i Conservative, reformative and radical responses to the impacts of ecology on ethics 1 ii A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism 3 iii On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics especially that deep-green upstart 8 iv Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics 12 V Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved classification of environmental problems 19 vi Population impact: the fact of human consumption 21 vii On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations 24 viii On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof ix Part 2 Two other critical features of dominant political ways: the shibboleths of extensive private property and high technology 26 31 A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WEST DEEP ECOLOGY: A RESPONSE TO w ARWICK Fox's RESPONSE TO AN EARLIER CRITIQUE. i Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism 39 ii Value in deep ecology 42 iii The extent of values-in-nature 46 iv A biocentric ethic? 49 V Biospheric egalitarianism revisted 51 vi The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology and the condemned environmental axiological route 53 vii The 'case' against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological approach viii Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification ix Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the issue of evil 57 62 65 11 X Deconstruction and reselection of self 68 xi More troubles with Self as foundation 73 xii Liquidating Fox's 'deep ecological territory 75 xiii Justifying 'extreme interpretations' of and 'extreme reactions' to wild West deep ecology 77 xiv Transpersonal logic and methodology 82 xv More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science 86 Part 3 ANOTHER 'REFUTATION' OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: JANNA THOMPSON'S CRITICISMS i The newer destructive phase: overtaxing requirements for (environmental) ethics 94 ii Satisfying duly modified requirements, environmentally 98 iii The former constructive phase: a new anthropocentric environmental ethic? 105 PART 1. CRITICAL EXPOSITION Chapter 1. AT THE PYRAMIDS' JUNCTION. THE BASICS AND CREED OF DEEP ECOLOGY Deep ecology in both a movement and an ideological position. Thus in significant respects it resembles a new religion, which has a creed as well as an organisational structure, practices and so on; a political party, which has a platform as well as organisation, objective and so forth; and an intellectual school, which aim to propagate a philosophy, gain converts and adherents, etc. Like a religion in a literate society, there is a set of texts, DE texts as we shall call them, which present elements of the faith: doctrine, themes, parables, heroic figures, warnings, and so on. The DE texts have not so far been arranged into any authoritative form. Although the movement may have come first, and the theory been but gradually extracted (the historical and pseudo-sociological impression given by the DE texts), it makes for neater characterisation and easier exposition to consider the theoretical structure J first. The very looselyknit movement, subsequently considered, essentially the genuine environment movement (excluding those just in it for human ends), is in any case clustered around this structure - as older cities are around their centre. The theoretical structure is itself conveniently organised in the following (double) pyramidal diagram (now called by Naess, who devised it, "the Apron"):- Diagram 1. Basic Double Pyramid LEVELS UPPER (INVERTED) PYRAMID C B p 1. Sources, or ultimate bases 2.Core Principles DE PLATFORM R E E D REGULAR PRACTICE PARTICULAR PRACTICES POLICIES LIFESTYLES 3. General themes & norms 4. Particular norms and concrete decisions LOWER (COMPLEX) PYRAMID The theoretical centre of DE is to be found at level 2, where the upper and lower pyramid join. The various sources of the central part, such doctrines as those of Buddhism (B) and Christianity (C) and of philosophic cast (P) at level 1, are not usually a part of DE at all. But there is a preferred philosophical source, ecosophy - another theory elaborated by N aess, who again coined the term which does enjoy a closer connection with DE, and is sometimes considered almost part of it. Levels 3 and 4, which are supposed to derive from the central creed, and in turn inductively inform it, are parts of DE, but less central parts, parts of the varying practice. It is level 2 then that is crucial for understanding DE. While the upper pyramid givgs the theoretical or intellectual content and sources of DE, the lower pyramid supplies working DE, and core principles and the practice. 1. The Central level, level 2, and the standard DE platforms Deep Ecology is structured around level 2, the central operational level. The main distinctive principles of DE are set on level 2, the platform level. These principles may be grouped as shown in the following diagram:CREED LEVEL2 BASIC CREED wider platform 8 point platform further and more peripheral principles The reason for distinguishing the 8-point platform from the wider platform is simple this:- The 8point platform, as variously presented in DE texts, omits some of the standard articles of the core DE position, and fails to develop others. 1 There is accordingly a real point in distinguishing "the" platform from the more comprehensive and better rounded core or creed. DE is a decidedly vague object, with vague parts. Perhaps the most definite things about it are its 8-point platform and its diametric opposition to features of the mainstream Western ideology, and dominant social paradigm as it otherwise known. The core position is something discerned from the DE texts, in much the way the platform is. But whereas the 8 point platform is explicitly presented, though in different and incompatible terms, the core has to be winnowed and from an array of more peripheral material (as is shown in part II). Box 1 The 8-point platform, in capsule form. 2 I. Both non-human and human life have intrinsic value: The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth have intrinsic value, inherent value, etc. These value are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. 2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues: Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation themselves these values and are also values in of 3. Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues: Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. 4. Human interference with natural world excessive: Present human interference with the and the situation is rapidly worsening. non-human world is excessive 5. Policies and basic structures must be changed: Policies must therefore be changed. These policies will affect our basic economic, technological and ideological structures. 6. Human (values compatible with) population decrease: The flourishing of human life and culture is compatible with a substantial population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease. decrease of the human 7. Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living: The change in our attitudes will bring an appreciation of the quality of life rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great. We will have a great society with no bigness. 8. Obligation to attempt implementation: Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement necessary changes. 2 The 8-point platform is perhaps the most repeated exhibit in the DE texts. The present formulation adopts the presentation of Naess in Resorg ; the brief formulation on the left does not occur in Naess. A slightly different formulation of the platform under heading 'Basic Principles' is given in DS p.70. The principles have been rendered, and grJuped, to make their structure and interconnections a little clearer. Principles / and 2 concern intrinsic values; principles 3-7 concern human practices and policies. Principle 5 elaborates in principle 3; principle 6 draws the policy consequence of this. The most important of the general policy changes is listed in principle 4; but another crucial policy change is indicated in principle 7: decreased production and consumption. The prime terrestrial policy objectives (that should have obtained separate listing) can in fact be derived from the impact formula: roughly, human environmental impact = human population x personal consumption x available technology. Reducing excessive interference thus requires at least some of, and no doubt all of, human population reduction, consumption reduction, and appropriate technology improvements. Finally, principle 8 supplies a commitment principle. Observe that some of the principles of this 8-point platform, 8-point principles as we may conveniently call them, provide linkages with other levels of the DE pyramid. For example most of the principles, principles 3-7 especially, have implication for policy at level 3, and thence for day-to-day practice at level 4. 8-point principle 8 has direct application to level 4, individual lifestyles. Before the incomplete 8-point platform was devised (as part of a political conciliation and unification attempt), DE was rather differently characterised: primarily through listing of principles countering assumptions of the conventional socioeconomic wisdom, resistance principles. Indeed, in many respects DE is marked out through reaction and resistance: by its opposition the prevailing ideology of industrial society, especially by those elements of it that have lead to the assault on the natural environment, but also by elements that have led to breakdown of connected features of the social fabric. It gives a clearer picture of what DE is about if we tabulate are principles in opposition to those of the dominant Western ideology (or social paradigm), and as compared with those of shallow or reform environmentalism: TABLE 2 DE PRINCIPLES AS CONTRASTED, ON THE ONE SIDE, WITH THOSE OF THE DOMINANT PARADIGM AND SHALLOW ECOLOGY, ON OTHER, WITH ONE OF ITS SOURCES, TAOISM. DOMINANT SHALLOW (WESTERN) ECOLOGY DEEP ECOLOGY TAOISM (DE) PARADIGM (DE) Domination over nature Stewardship of Nature Nature an exploitable resource: intrinsic value confined to As for, but with nature a manager resource Natural environment valued for itself Human supremacy Human ascendency Biocentric egalitarianism Harmony with Nature Elaboration of DE Much as for DE; ''humanism'' rejected Differs from DE; wide impartiality Ample resources substitutes Some resource limitations Earth supplies limited Supplies Material economic growth a predominant goal Sustainable development Non-material goods especially self-realization Following Tao-te Consumerism Optimised consumerism Doing with enough/ recycling Doing with enough (recycling inappropriate) Competitive lifestyle As for DP Cooperative lifeway Much as for DE: voluntary simplicity Centralised/urbancentred/national focus As for DP Decentralized/ bioregional/ neighborhood focus As for DE Largely as for DP Non-hierarchical/ Grassroots democracy Hierarchy without structure More careful high technology Appropriate technology Limited technology Power structure hierarchical High technology ample Power 7 Shallow ecology, or reform environmentalism as it can to be called3 , differs from the dominant paradigm primarily in its emphasis on stewardship, on long-term management, on sustainable development. DE, while it reacts against the dominant paradigm primarily on environmental grounds, stands opposed to shallow ecology, which it correctly sees as not going nearly far enough, in particular to satisfy genuine environmental values. Of course the dominant paradigm resisted is not itself a uniform or static position; some of the in determining of DE flows from this very feature. For example, until very recently DP used to support dominance as a throughgoing feature: not just over Nature, but of the male, white, Western, Protestant, rich, powerful, free, adult, etc., over their opposites. Domination of the latter sorts, within the human species, is, for the most part, no longer a part of the progressive ideology, having been gradually shed over the last century; but such domination still remains part of much practice (as well as of cultural ideologies). Some of the most distinctive, and most controversial, principles of DE, are omitted from the 8-point platform, as is evident from the opposition/resistance principles. These include the principles regularly, and pontifically, claimed to distinguish deep ecology. Moreover without these further principles, DE amount to nothing more than a slightly less shallow environmental position (indeed apart from principle 1 and perhaps 2, all the principles of the 8-point platform can be adopted by reform environmentalism and in fact often are enough espoused therefor). These additional principles, part of the wider platform (and the creed) include these:9. Biospheric egalitarianism [in principle]: 'all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom'. The principle is presented in this unqualified form (in DS) as one of the two ultimate norms, the other being self-realisation. Fir fact Devall and Sessions proceed to tack on a self-realisation component to this principle, of biocentric equality as they call it: namely 'and to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realisation with the larger Selfrealisation' (DS p.67). But, they immediately add, the 'basic intuition is that all organisms and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth' (p.67, continuing, italics added). This italicised value-formulation is straightforward, and has the advantage of moving rights out of the formulation (No doubt, if equal intrinsic value guarantees an equal right to live and blossom, it yields the "equal rights to" formulation.) But it encounters immediate difficulties, because in the process of continuing to live and blossom some organisms interfere with others, for instance through basic demands for food and shelter, most conspicuously in predation. To try to escape these difficulties, Naess at least regularly adds the rider: in principle . 'Naess suggests that biocentric equality as an intuition is true in principle, 3 For example in D & S. The alternative, shallow ecology, was set aside because of the negative conditions of the word 'shallow'. 8 although in the process of living, all species use each other as food, shelter, etc.' (DS p.67). 10. Self-realisation . This involves the realisation - growth, development and maturity - of the self, becoming a whole and full person, but not merely in isolation or in a social setting as in older models of self-realisation, but within a biospheric setting, taking due account of other forms of life. It 'can be summarised symbolically as the realisation of "self-in-Self' where "Self' stands for organic wholeness' (DS p.67). Intimately linked with self-realisation in this wider ecological sense is the next principle. 11 Biospheric identification . The procedure, again a personal one, consists in suitably identifying with parts or wholes of the larger surrounding biosphere. The underlying notion here is one of partial identity, sharing certain salient features with, which permits a qualified substitutivity of an imaginative person into the position of another creature, ecoobject or ecosystem. Such "identification" is a significant method of heightening 12. Ecological consciousness . Less grandiosely this covers environmental awareness, appreciation, and concern, and thus responsiveness to environmental depredation. Engendering ecological consciousness is regarded as a crucial part of spreading the deep ecological message. 13. Holism. On DE precepts, this amounts to more than the modem holism according to which there are nonadditive wholes, wholes or objects which amount to more than the sums of their parts. But as to what else holism demands, there is some disagreement within deep ecological circles. 2. Further principles of the DE creed and important optional extras Beyond the standard platform there are further principles, not enunciated at all, or until very recently, or else more peripheral. Some of the further themes help in deciding what clarity DE had; that is one reason why they presumably do not feature in the 8-point platform. Among the principles not enunciated are these:• Non violence. The new themes, several of them periphical to the main concerns of DE include the following:• Deep ecology offers a green synthesis. It 'combines the "Social Greens" with the "Natural Greens" avoiding the extremes of both' (Naess R p.6). This is a surprising theme for a position that has itself been regularly castigated as extreme. What N aess means, above all, is that DE does not neglect humans, and their legalerate social concerns and aspirations, in the way that the 9 Natural-greens have been (generally erroneously) accused of doing; nor does it neglect or devalue nature and its features in the way that many social-greens are inclined to do. Among the important optional extras that may be coupled with DE are principles of a more through-going animal liberation, such as:• a severe reduction oforend to the enclavement, confinement and slaughter of animals. • vegetarianism (of some form). Some deep ecologists are vegetarians (e.g. Bennett), some are not (e.g. Drengson), and some are in between (e.g. Naess). Unless they undergo a conversion, Northerness brought up in the hunting-fishing-shooting tradition eschew these optimal principles. But evidently there is a tension here; there is pressure coming from other principles, especially nonviolence, to limit sharply slaughter of other creatures. 3. The creed, the basic creed, and the movement. Like many a religious creed, the DE creed is an elaborate concoction (as well as a dubious and rather arbitrary one). Adoption of it, knowledge of it even, cannot be expected of all adherents, especially given its features: its vagueness, its inaccessibility, and so on. It is not surprising that, again like many another creed or ideology, many of the faithful do not know too well what it comprises, still less do many of the fellow-travellers (and DE has many). The most that can perhaps be expected of adherents is adoption of some simpler creed, a basic creed more or less in the vicinity of the 8-point platform. But it is apparent from DE texts that not even all of that platform is demanded: enough will do, especially if other DE principles are adopted. The platform represents 'what most supporters have in common at a deep level' 4 No doubt supporters who eschew part of the platform compensate by adherence instead of other DE principles or practice. Hence the depiction of the basic creed in diagram 2. A basic creed comprises enough of the 8-point platform plus enough other principles at least to compensate for omissions. But not even a basic creed is always demanded. At its most generous and laxest, the DE movement includes everyone who professes a concern for some part of the natural environment and does not demolish a manifestation of concern or interest by blatantly anti-environmental activity or involvement therewith. Inclusion in the movement does not even require strict adoption of, or adherence to the DE platform, though it involves some vague recognition of parts of it. Talk of membership of the movement would be somewhat inapposite; there is no paid-up or recorded membership (or even rewarding as would be done in a voting system). 4 Naess R p.3, italics added. 10 It is sometimes said that the DE movement was born in Europe and adopted elsewhere, US and Australia especially. But such a claim confuses the movement with quasi-sociological extraction of the principles involved and the platform assembling them. The movement itself emerged as a late 1960's affair, substantially under way before it was reported upon and labelled (as usual, academics, like politicians, reacted to, rather than led, more popular movements). Such a movement involves some "mass" of people; it must therefore be anticipated by some smaller groups and likely some initiating individuals. So it was with the DE movement. There were prominent individuals in several countries where environmental groups with deep leanings formed or operated, in the 60s and before; and before that there were many isolated individuals. In USA, where the DE movement no doubt grew to substance first, before that in Europe or Australia, there is a significant chain of deep ecologists, or rather deep ecological thinkers, reaching back to the beginning of the century and perhaps into the previous century; for instance, in reverse temporal order, Carson, Leopold, Muir, perhaps Thoreau. 5 Muir is regularly alluded to as an early deep ecologist by Americans. 6 There are deeper-seated motives for vagueness about the basic creed and uncertainty about the basic requirements to be deep ecologist and who makes the hororific status. One is a dislike of criticism, and resulting vacillation among the high bishops of DE as to what extent critics, and those who declare themselves not to be deep ecologists, should be included in the fold, and consequently as to who exactly is a deep ecologist. (From outside the issue can look rather trivial, but gangs are gangs whether ecological or more generally not..) A main reason for the omission of central doctrines of DE from the 8-point platform is of course related: the desire to increase the flock, to turn away no-one who might be decently admitted. 7 Another motive, linked also with trying to enlist support, in order to mobilize democratic forces and like people power, concerns the pluralistic drive that is an important aspect of authentric DE. It concerns the insertion of pluralistic elements within level 2 itself (rather than confining these elements to other levels, where there are conspicuous, as later exposition will show). As Naess explains the idea 5 6 7 In Australia there were, in reverse order, Dunply, Griffin, Stead; there were of course many others with very considerable environmental concerns (e.g. Ratcliffe), who apparently lacked however the requisite feature of depth, and world count only as reform environmentalistser conservationists. But, quite evidently, there are serious problems in discerning whether some environmentalist or other is deep (there is generally only indirect evidence, as the category was not clearly recognised). The issue as to whether some deep environmentalist is a (prota)-deep ecologist is even more vexed because of the muddiness of DE. It is important to observe that little reliance can be placed, in such issues, on standard and applauded histories, such as Nash's Wilderness and the America Mind, because these are written from a shallow perspective and fail to realise the significance of depth; See further Devall's report on Nash's third edition, Ecorotes, pp23-9. See, for instance, Devall Ecorates. Devall also suggests that St. Francis is a deep ecologist, but given what is now known about St. Francis there is room for considerable doubt. Or othersie admitted. But may be excluded by ignored or incompetance, or deterred by qualms about significent propositions (human populations restraint esp.). 11 is avoid the 'devastating' 'tendency to dogmatism': 'there is not one, definite, deep ecology philosophy, not one definite one kind of green society'. Likewise there is no definite or definitive basic creed. For many purposes this does not matter; we can still normally assert such and such, so and so, definitely deep ecological, such and such, so and so, is definitely not. In an attempt to evade criticism, DE is nowadays sometimes represented as a grass-roots movement, one but loosely associated with philosophical views 8 But such movements have intellectually-shaped objectives, offer at least a set of slogans and elementary principles. And DE is this and more; it verges on the dishonest to try to portray DE as such a movement, when in large measure it is the work of intellectuals, initiated by reporting, rather inaccurately it seems, on the supposed attitudes of field ecologists and like workers - hardly typical grass-roots people. 8 In a different respect, in term of moral of ideas and change of themes, DE is no doubt a movement. It has moved (and with Fox shedding critical principles, it continues moving). Such movement is not good for the types of virtues that stable positions may acquire, such a replenity, reliability, assessibility etc; but it does make life difficult for critics. PART II CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY Chapter 5. THE INITIAL PROBLEM: WHAT ON EARTH IS DEEP ECOLOGY? WHO IS AND ISN'T A DEEP ECOLOGIST? Deep ecology appears , on a preliminary reading, to be some elaboration of the position that natural things other than humans have value in themselves, value sometimes exceeding that of or had by humans. So much appears to follow from the first part of the 8-point platform. But even this much is denied by some of the never philosophers (e.g. Fox). Moreover which elaboration is quite another matter, and decidedly controversial. Indeed DE has not just been rapidly converted (in part through overuse) into a conceptual bog, but is well on the way to becoming all things to all interested parties. This is undoubtedly a drawback; it makes communication, and theoretical and persuasive use of the notion, that much more difficult though it does not condemn an afflicted notion, such as deep ecology undoubtedly is, out of hand. For several important and fruitful notions, which have survived, have encountered very much of this sort of problem - force, mind, energy, differential, infinitesimal, to take some older examples, paradigm and culture to take relevant recent examples.O On the other hand, many notions no more afflicted than deep ecology, such as societism, timocracy and ungrund, have been assigned to the historical scrap-heap. These include the sort of neo-Hegelian panpsychism which deep ecology of the American texts will tum out to resemble. What is evidence of conceptual murkiness and degeneration? The trouble begins with the very introduction of the terminology. Naess, - when first setting down in one preliminary codification what was already in the air,* wrote only of the 'Deep Ecology movement' and set down what he has subsequently described as a 'Deep Ecology platform'. The suggested notion of deep ecology, the underlying notion that informed the loosely-knit and open-ended movement and platform, was not extracted; that subtraction task fell primarily to West Coast American intellectuals, and it was done differently by different proponents of deep ecology. The trouble was accentuated through rapid evolution of the notion. Thus Naess's account of the movement in 0 * In case it is supposed this sort of conceptual muddiness is limited to less exact science, consider such recent notions as anthropic principle, from physics, and nonmonotonic logic, from computer science. See Naess 73, p.98ff. While slogans and preliminary formulations are fine, particularly in campaigns, philosophy cannot rest at the level of slogans or platforms, as too much of DE continues to do. 2 1983 is significantly different from the account he outlined in 1973; seven principles are replaced by six different themes, only two or so of which have much in common with the original principles. t Although DE is introduced in the 8-point platform as a value theory, basically concerned with environmental values 1 , it has been presented as a metaphysics, as a consciousness movement (and as primarily psychological), and even as a sort of (pantheistic) religion. Popular Australian sources will begin to indicate some of the spread. The Deep Ecologist , a network newsletter, sees deep ecology as metaphysical at base, as part of a natural philosophy of humans' place in nature (though many of its correspondents see it as a matter of deep experiences , often of a religious cast, too often decidedly anthropocentric, obtained in or through Nature). According to its manifesto, carried in each issue on its title page, Deep ecology is the search for a sustaining metaphysics of the environment; it represents "a deep understanding of our unity with other beings and livings processes" (Drengson); it is biocentric, not anthropocentric. Though we shall come to modify or reject this manifesto phrase by phrase (deep ecology is not a search, but on one level a position or theory, on another a movement; sustaining should concern the environment, not the metaphysics; depth lies elsewhere than understanding; unity too is a metaphor for integration; biocentric is misleadingly restrictive), the present enterprise, illustrating the degenerative spread of deep ecology, is different. Let us hasten on to the strikingly different explanation John Seed prefers in introducing and advertising his anthology Deep Ecology 2 , a person - and consciousness-oriented souffle (drawn from Devall): "What I call deep ecology ... is premised on a gestalt of person-in-nature [an image Naess had rejected at the very outset of the enterprise 3]. The person is not above or outside of nature. The person is part of creation on-going. The person cares for and about nature, shows reverence towards and respect for nonhuman nature, loves, and lives with nonhuman nature, is a person in the "earth household" and "lets beings be", lets nonhuman nature follow separate evolutionary destinies. Deep ecology, unlike reform environmentalism, is not just a pragmatic, short-term social movement with a goal like stopping nuclear power or cleaning up the waterways. Deep ecology first attempts to question and present alternatives to conventional ways of thinking in the modern West. Deep ecology understands that some of the "solutions" of reform environmentalism are counter-productive. Deep ecology seeks transformation of values and social organisation. t 2 3 The claim is documented in the Appendix to this chapter. Thus according to Naess (73, p.99), ' ... the significant tenets of the Deep Ecology movement are clearly and forcefully normative . They express a value priority system ... '. But even this core claim is now challenged, by Fox, who sees the primary focus of deep ecology as ontological and not evaluative. This is one of three different collections with this title which have been circulated or announced recently: see references. See Naess 73, p.95; but Naess's rejection is rejected below. • 3 Deep ecology is liberating ecological consciousness ... Consciousness is knowing. From the perspective of deep ecology, ecological resistance will naturally flow from and with a developing ecological consciousness (Devall, 'The Deep Ecology Movement'). Again, while informative, much of this will have to be rejected or rectified (for example, the gesalt theme is problematic, and the deep person need do part only of what is specified; shallow or reform ecology need not be short-term, insofar as it may take account of many future generations of humans; it may well not be pragmatic; shallow ecology is better pluralistically combined with deep ecology, as in Naess's original platform, than denigrated; etc.) It is to Bill Devall, more than anyone, that we are indebted for a confusing myriad of formulations of the driving notion, several of them however extending Naess; for instance, deep ecology is first of all deep questioning, deep ecology is ultimately self-realisation and biocentrism, in deep ecology the most important ideas are 'the wholeness and integrity of person/planet together with biological egalitarianism'; it is also however much else - that again we shall come to modify or reject including a new psychology and new philosophical anthropology. 4 But Devall has been much encouraged by George Sessions, and it is Sessions especially who has tried to convert deep ecology into a new religion, with main texts drawn from pantheism, Spinoza and Buddhism. Thus according to Sessions, If the promise of American pantheism and nature mysticism is to be fulfilled, it will occur in the deep ecology social paradigm which is based upon pantheism and the idea of ecological egalitarianism in principle (Ecophilosophy ill). But although Sessions refers immediately to Naess, there is nothing in Naess about American pantheism and nature mysticism. At most Naess would allow that pantheism, along with other comprehensive positions, like Christianity or ecosophy, can be an underlying base for the deep ecology platform. Small wonder that John Passmore (hardly one to be philosophically baffled given his immense experience in comprehending Continental philosophy) goes astray in yet another account, in which he conveniently pushes the shallow-deep contrast into the unsatisfactory conservation/preservation boxes (of his 74): Deep ecophilosophers ... are mainly interested in the preservation of species and wilderness even when preserving them is not immediately and advantageous to human interest. In order to provide intellectual support for such preservation they are prepared to break with traditional Western ethical principles and metaphysical beliefs (Passmore 83). 4 Devall 79, 83; for a synopsis, see Appendix 1, figure 7B. 4 Again, most of this will have to be rectified, since the presentation is decidedly misleading, not to say biassed. As initial explanations of the deep ecological movement straightaway show, and applications reveal, deep ecology has always concerned, and deep ecophilosophers have always been interested in, much else as well, especially in human population levels and human interference, and in quality of life and technological and organisational structures. While this of course requires breaking with some Western traditions - which are in no way sacrosanct Wes tern tradition is far from uniform, and there are other tradition: deep ecology can remain, and is, rooted in tradition, though much about it is as new and fresh as anything of this sort can be. As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than most vague ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is broad vague way is how the label often functions, honorific ally. That is, for instance how it functions in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which gives deep ecology none but a nebulous content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as the interview with Soleri) in diametrical opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by the intellectual "leaders" of the deep ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular appeal of deep ecology has been obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic forms and the slack or nebulous forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some of those who calls themselves 'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes from the more detailed platform (thus e.g. Fox, as explained below). Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous banner. 5 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the march. Attending a consciousness - raising weekend, purchasing or growing organic vegetables, having spiritual experiences in a special natural place, or practising some oriental art or exercise routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental position, though it can be a step on the way. While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in 5 I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to this sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I didn't expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously reduce information sources. 5 several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as biological egalitarianism, have already been subject to much criticism, deserved criticism as will soon appear. But other features of authentic deep ecology have hitherto been left largely untouched, and new features have emerged. So an ongoing critique is needed. Recently 6 , it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp what DE is all about. New themes are introduced, older ones withdrawn or whittled away. Even Naess, the finder of the movement, who now tends to adhere much more closely to the (nonetheless adjustible) platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make apparently large concessions to opposition charges, which however he subsequently more surreptitiously withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he withdraws with one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other. The oscillation can be partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the desire, stronger in the finder-founder, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophets, to create a wide constituency, to tum no one away if doing so can in any way be avoided. But, on the other, there is an evident desire, among the prophers, to make deep ecology a very select position, a place for a chosen few, a place to be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and involving some difficult life adjustments i.e. after an appropriate testing pilgrimage. Deep ecology, however, lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its religious sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict. There is a considerable lack of discrimination among the pace-setters of the movement over, and marked differences between them as to, who and what is accounted within deep ecology, and some unwarranted discrimination from this exclusive club (e.g. of Rodman). Many of the people classed as within or associated with deep ecology are shallow. And some who are excluded are not. For example, Naess (in 75) presents a long list of people he associates with the movement, many of whom are rather or even entirely shallow in their environmental orientation. Elsewhere (in 83) Naess proceeds to identify with deep ecology several other positions or movements which only overlap it, and which may be substantially shallow (such as green politics and new natural philosophies). Some of the predominantly American lists Devall and Sessions assemble are not so artless. To some extent, this combined discrimination and lack of discrimination again reflects the conceptual murkiness of deep ecology; to some extent it is symptomatic of other oldconsciousness malignancies, both within the notion and as regards its use. 6 Since the first critique was produced 6 Still more damaging to the movement is that several of the advertised prophets of deep ecology verge on the shallow, and some of these have denied DE.7 A striking example is Bookchin who has recently denounced DE, and written ranging declamations much of Bookchin's main, windy, bringin-it-together book, The Ecology of Freedom, said to be a "book of deep ecology" is very far from that; it is yet another, is a celebration of humans in very much the old (enlightenment) style. Insofar as it gets to grips with deeper environmental issues, Bookchin's material amounts to an extension of shallow ecology. 8 Ecologically Bookchin, like other of the prophets, buys into vitalism by way of extended consciousness. Ecological ethics is said to render nature self-conscious; the mechanistic alternative is presented as deadness, thus making an entirely false contrast. Indeed, part of the problem with the selection of prophets, is that mechanism is seen as the main bogy - when it is only one of the forms metaphysically underpinning shallower positions, Cartesian dualism being another - with the result that work that simply attacks mechanism and its variants and also advocates some sort of environmental way, gets accounted deep. N aess has cast the net of deep ecology too wide, catching therewith not only many remote "supporters", but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly the antagonistic Bockchin (RS p.6). Naess now considers the 8-point platform, formulated by himself and Sessions and published in several slightly different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of Deep Ecology' - though it leaves out what Devall and Sessions assert are the two essential features of DE, biospheric egalitorionism and self-realisation, and though it does not require depth (immediate positions conforming to the platform). Even so Naess 'look[s] upon the formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all supporters of the movement have in common ' (letter 23.6.88). Thus the 8-point platform provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the distinguishing platform, of DE. To get around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to an approved minimum of the principles of the distinguished platform (in some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They are adherents in (simply and literally) holding to that much of the platform. They may not be members of the movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because appropriate intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let alone made any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is neither necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockchin, or Routley, can be an 7 8 See, e.g., B. Devall and G. Sessions, 'The books of deep ecology', Earth First! 4(8) (1984). Several of these books do not penetrate very deep ecologically or otherwise. See especially p.344, with remarks like 'and wherever possible the wildlife they may support on their fringes'. The paragraph portrays a very human-centered (and conquered-land) picture. See also p.342, middle. 7 adherent without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not be an adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not adherents. The DE movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep ecologists', who do not adhere to the platform, even "more or less". Many of these supporters are shallow environmentalists, who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside humans, or else try to evade it (e.g. by redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextricably in relations to valuers). Since there are, in my experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts who tum out to be of this shallow sort, Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here 'almost all supporters'? Also which isolated exceptions does he have in view? With the rise of environmentism, most of the distinguishing platform is no longer demanding; indeed it is deliberately lax with a view to increasing the following. Moreover, none of it, except for the last point, specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any commitment in the past of adherents. Plainly adherence to DE, as well as support for DE, could be very considerably increased were this requirement evaded. A neat strategy, common to ecomonical practice and sociological research, readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent adherents as those who adhere to the platform, more or less, except that they make no requisite effort to implement it (they may of course have some vague feeling of obligation, should they ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit of scholarly survey work, it is evident that DE would now have a large number of silent adherents, many of whom are not however adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions or social situations, or simply uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively many excessively interferring humans of Caucasian stock). The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as to envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go into detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' 9 • The reasoning does not hold up. A range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be defined by constraints well-known ones as it happens. Naess should certainly be encouraged to go on and delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and neighbouring environmental positions. For instance, 6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of 9 RS p.7. But elsewhere. Naess did go into some detail (e.g. Book). Furthermore, if Naess - old, famous, unorthodox, courageous enough on difficult mountains - doesn't get down to requisite details of structural change, who will? Well, even some rather shallow theorists do. 8 a highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a change in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not implied by, point 7. 6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky and polluting technology. 6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated regions. Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly included in principles of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration. Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the lax distinguishing platform itself, which is pretty wishy-washy when contrasted with what is happening out there environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much further, and to witness some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments, such as extensive clear-cutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of rangelands, extensive strip and beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on. Even deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE creed, though some of the text enjoin it (e.g. DS); but the issue is (no doubt wisely) avoided by leading prophets of DE familiar with the demands of socialism. Yet deindustrialization - a considerable reduction in the levels of industrial activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive polluting types of industry that conspicuously contributed to the first industrial revolution - would emerge from all the alternative futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, along with a much smaller, less consumption-oriented, terrestrial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important environmental objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially, in obtaining some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters as greenhouse effects, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out. The idea of progress is, like that of more industrialisation, also under a cloud. It is now naive to assume that progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism of something is that it would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating (in some respects); there is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much that was progress, and still is in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for instance, elimination of wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The 'previously ... dominant [assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress towards the industrial state and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly rejected (cf. Naess, on the "status of mythology"). 9 So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select band, philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded, philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human chauvinists, led in the textbook stakes by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative persona) and McCloskey, but recently joined by some Americans Many of these excluded philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core platform, as weakly interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that there are severe environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly far-reaching by conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who becomes immersed in some spread of these problems (though it is still a rather rare professional philosopher that does), and who does not develop some environmental commitments - even if a liberalish social agenda still continues to dominate an environmental one (even so it is fast becoming hard to avoid observing the interprenetration of social with broadly environmental problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics 10 , tended to become progressively more accommodating to what was only a short time ago radical environmental throught, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep ecology has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing pluralism with broad consensualism, and has lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental pluralism is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep or an ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the linking of different positions, not their mergence. Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:Example 1. Moral extensionists, both utilitarians and rationalists 11 . Among utilitarians are Singer, and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed. Utilitarians in the Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences, sentience or the like, and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures. Accordingly they satisfy point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much nonhuman life'. It all depends upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both are quantified with 'all', the theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured 10 11 Now benchmark of reaction rareness, but itself beginning to exhibit some restlessness and unpass and signs of change. The useful category of moral extensionism derives from Rodman. It is critically examined also in EE. 10 abominations as intrinsically valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists. If the terms are more weakly quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are admitted. An evident dividing line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough to exclude shallow philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate positions which do not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension positions, almost invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of rationalistic persuasion, grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have gradually move away from utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including those of vegetarianism, can be reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent thinking (thus, the broad position is really a coherence theory of morality). Example 2. More far-reaching intermediate positions, which do assign intrinsic value less stingily throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some nonindividuals, such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which human values always take precedence over non-human assignments. Positions of this sort are delineated (so far in insufficient theoretical detail) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions so far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Ralston's case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral extensionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive classification of positions). Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1, though not in big formulation given above. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an adherent of DE, despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism however, only what has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this restriction as very like that imposed by utilitarians, to sentience as unwarranted, unnecessary, unenforceable and arbitrary. Deep-green theorists, like environmental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Firsters, now see the DE platform as much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism of DE has been excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an environmental consensus (in place of a genuine pluralism), the religio-political quest for a large support base (which could however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and the input of conservatizing academic thought and the aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE which has not gained much ground or good grades academically, as compared with its success outside academia, especially with book-reading environmentalists, would better forget academic success, where it has made progress only among outsiders, not power-players, and return to its 11 more radical mission. Academics, after all, form only a tiny minority, though one dangerously and influentially supportive, on the whole, of most past environmental excesses and assaults. We have proceeded to cut through the problem of what DE is or may be by formulating a specific version, authentic deep ecology, and by taking explicit account of main alternatives proposed. Authentic deep ecology follows, for the most part, Naess's account of deep ecology. But insistence on authentic deep ecology leaves several casualties, nebulous deep ecologists who prove not to be authentically deep. An important test is offorded through the greater value assumption, and the associated special place reserved for humans in the scheme of things, assent to which serves to expose the inadequate depth of more nebulous 'followers of deep ecology'. For (after proper preparation) they make the wrong responses on the crucial tests of depth. A conspicuous casualty who fails to negotiate 'these tricky slopes' is Drengson, behind whose genuine ecological sensibility lies a human supremacist position with humans occupying 'a unique position ... in the scheme of things', at the summit of that old-consciousness hierarchy, "the great chain of being" .12 According to Drengson, circumstances Might force us, sometimes, to choose between the life of a fish or a cow and that of a human child. We do not hesitate to choose the child. Our priorities are a result of our position in the scheme of things, with a spectrum of species (p.7). Not even followers of medium-depth ecology need respond in this reflex fashion, for instance where the child is seriously defective. Certainly, faced with a range of duly-elaborated imagined circumstances of difficult or forced choice, deeper thinkers would hesitate - since such situations tend to pose moral dilemmas. And sometimes at least their priorities would be different from Drengson's; for example, the fish is rare and the child ordinary, the cow occupies a unique place in an important ecosystem.13 Even Naess himself, who vacillates considerably in what he has to say and occasionally lapses badly from the authentic way. 14 It is worth examining some of Naess's logics, not for nonphilosophical reasons (or even to reveal N aess as a further flaws doyen, typical of the heroes 12 13 14 See The Trumpeter 1(4) (1984), 6-7. Drengson is not the only casualty; Berry, whose criticism Drengson is trying to meet, is another. Differently, the child is Hitler or the President who chooses to press the nuclear button. Such cases, which in some settings permit of a traditional treatment, were considered from a deeper perspective in Routley 2 79. A most striking example is Naess's Rescequence article, 'The basis of deep ecology', which departs considerably from the spirit and themes of DE. Even Naess, who is not significantly hang-up in doctrinal purity and doctrinal divergence, felt obliged to circulate a note correcting, "reformulating", what he had said and written (the article was originally a Sub ...... lecture). 'Some ... may find some of its sentences not quite in forming with what I usually tend to say. Therefore I offer some reformulations ... I still stick to my views recently expressed in various articles and books' (Nute, italics added). 12 of DE), but because these show committing about DE, they are indicative of its doctrical instability, lack of clarity, and scope for improvement. • Any society worthy of the name Green is a deep ecological one. 15 Given that there are a range of ........... societies that are green but not deep green, such a claim must fail. Even if 'deep green' were substituted for 'green' it could not be contained, because DE policies exclude some deep green alternatives. Accordingly, it is false that explication of DE is 'articulation of the fundamental positions that are presupposed in Green societies' (p.4); DE societies are but part of that rich and variety plurality. What does Naess say by way of rectification? Frankly, not nearly enough. He proceeds to assert that in his opinion, a 'society that does not operate in harmony with [the 8-point platform of DE ... is not] worthy of being called Green! But a genuinely Green society may well reject or violate several of the points emanciated, e.g. the wide intrinsic value assumption (of point 1), the obligation to action (of point 8). • 'We should never engage in any discussion on technicalities without asking, "What do we basically need in life?" Always ask the basic question. This is what I mean by the term Deep Ecology Movement' (p.5). Naess does nothing whatever to complenish for presentation of the basic technical question in this (biospherically) chauvinistic way. Do we need a DE which tells us that the bottom line is "What's in it for us?"! Doesn't part of deep environmentalism consist in seeing through and explaining what is wrong with this pernicious bottom line. As regard the 'This is what I mean by ... ' blunder, Naess tries to exonerate himself by use of the well-worn criterion/definition distinction.1 6 But on its own it hardly helps; such bottom line inquiry is not a criterion for DE either. Nor is following inquiry through to ultimate ends a distinctive feature of DE; the shallowest sorts of hedonism, for example, may adopt similar procedures. In fact N aess lands himself in further trouble in trying to extricate himself. To try to make the criterion offer look tempting (a comprehensive test for depth), he claims that 'when supporters of the shallow ecology movement are seriously asked about ultimate ends they tend to affirm the same ones as supporters of the deep movement'. Not only would this be a most unlikely outcome of a satisfactory questionaire; but worse, if it were the outcome, it would render shallow ecology supporters deep; so the criterion would eliminate a fundamental contrast for, and for making out, DE. In any event, too many humans, especially powerholders, remain outside the orbit of 15 16 This follows from what Naess asserts given on that a society that adapts 'policies characteristic of Deep Ecology' is a deep ecological one. There is at least a touch of arrogance (or is it part Naess's disdain for conceptual nicety?) in Naess's introduction of this shabby exoneration attempt: The damaging sentences, - those quoted - 'might be reformulated (in honor of my conceptually interested friends) in the follow way:'. Maybe Naess was serious in his (otherwise ab sure) opening remarks in the R ......... article about looking forward to hobnobbing with the aristocracy. 13 shallow ecology, often attached to the pernicious bottom line (it is doubtful that 'most people dwell in shallow ecology', p.5 heading). • Articulation of DE principles gives a total view. (An amazing contrast with the ....... . juxtaposed doctrine of ignorance which suggest we can never obtain a total view.) By contrast with 'shallow ecology which (avoids) the basic questions ... the Deep Ecology Movement concerns itself with basic beliefs and assumptions about the universe. If you articulate the principles of the Deep Ecology Movement you get a total view . The term "total view" is essential. The Deep Ecology Movement is a total view. It covers our basic assumptions, our life philosophy and our decisions in everyday life' (Res ,p.6.italics added). In first place, the alleged contrast with shallow ecology do not stand up to much examination. A dedicated shallow Christian or capitalist may practice the same depth of questioning and reflection or a deep ecologist, or rather more; such a person may have a well-integrated lifestyle, with a fairly comprehensive philosophy (as these thing go) covering it. Secondly, N aess takes what seems to be asserted back in commentary. 'If we articulate the principles of the deep ecology movement, -- you do not get a total view' (p.3); but that apparently directly contradicts the above italicized passage. There is an escape from contradiction offered - distinguish the principles, by filling in the dashes by "in the sense of principles of the DE platform" - but it leads a severe problem - what are the principles of DE? What is DE? Naess's commentary implies that the principles of DE required for a total view are those of all levels of the double pyramid. Such an idea lands the articulation of DE in hopeless difficulties. Firstly, we do not, and cannot, know what the principles are, because they now include principles applied and decisions taken at the bottom level which refers to particular situations, including 'particular direct actions at a particular date'; but these will vary, in ......... ways, over-future times. Secondly, since there are various different, and compating, principles at the top level, DE will either be damagingly inconsistently characterised, or else it will be far from uniquely characterised. For DE will include Christianity of this and that sect, Buddinism of this and that form, and so on. In fact Naess accepts such an outcome (but in his misdirect attempt to avoid dogmatism): 'There is not one, definite, deep ecology philosophy, not one definite "ecosophy", no definite set of green policies' (p.3) and, he should have added on this line of thinking no definite deep ecology or set of DE principles. But there is a set of central principles, those at level 2. They do not present a total view. But nor in general do those of all four levels of deep ecology. There is much, a mass of opinion (for instance, concerning scientific speculation) which would form part of a more comprehensive (world) view that is not reflected at any of the four levels. It is indeed entirely unclear what would present a total view? Spiniza's philosophy perhaps? But it is easy to ...... of topics it does not cover, such as city architecture and factory farming, on which a total view could have an angle. It is certainly doubtful that lesser mentals than Spinaza, such as typical supporters of DE, 14 operate in a total view. N aess claims that they do, but adduces no evidence; testing is much more likely to reveal how pragmentory the ecological view of most deep ecologists are. Not only is the noton of a "total view", drawn from Naess's earlier philosophizing muddy; the desirability of the notion is open to (damaging) questioning. "Total view" comprehends too much, fixes too much that perhaps should be left open; it sails too close to "totaliterian view" for real pluralistic comfort. There is, then, quite evidently, a serious problem with deep ecology, and in finding out exactly what it is, that even the clearer accounts offered differ in significant subjects face similar difficulties, philosophy for one. With movements, which is what deep ecology is often presented as, the situation is normally much worse. Consider the difficulties in saying, with much precision, what some political movement (such as green politics) represents, what some party stands for and against. And despite the accelerating diversity of accounts there appears to be substance to the deep ecology notion. Several important interconnected distinctions, which look to be worth disentangling, are marked out, and an important group of ideas is assembled. Rather than being simply junked (something my conservative inclinations rise against with notions, as with the premature discarding of material "goods"), the notions involved should at least be disentangled and, if feasible, renovated or recycled. More generally, it is not merely valuabe, but quite essential in senous intellectul assignments, to indicate what deep ecology is and isn't - for lots of purposes, including explaining it, arguing from it, and applying it. What can be done? One resolution can be obtained along the lines of critical rationalism. The fuller formulations of deep ecology, after reorganisation into more tractable form, are subject to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining thereby an improved, more satisfactory, thinner and fitter formulation, which at the same time meets other desirable criteria. Among these is a desideratum often lost sight of in the ferment of environmental action, the need for environmental pluralism. A start on this rather analytic approach involves separating out the different components of the deep ecology messages, and isolating core themes of deep and shallow ecology from wider positions and paradigms which they inform. The core is (as Naess indicated) essentially normative. Fortunately the core themes have already been isolated, in a previous application of deep ecology to population theory 17 , and this work can be taken over largely intact. For the extensive remainder, the following pretty complicated sort of picture starts to emerge (upon organising themes and claims of several supporters of deep ecology, in a way explained in the Appendix to this chapter):- 17 In Routley 84. Figure 5.1. SHALLOWER AND DEEPER POSITIONS, AND THEIR ACCLAIMED ASSUMPTIONS, PARTLY SCHEMATIZED. SHALLOW VALUE CORE ENVIRONMENT AL SUBJECT SOLE (INTRINSIC) K,' ALUE ASSUMPTION VALUES-IN-NATURE GREATER VALUE ASSUMPTION BIOSPECIES IMPARTIALITY FURTHER PHILOSOPHICAL BASES GROUNDOF VALUE DEEP (separable theoretical underpinning) FEATURES OF HUMANS DIVERSITY, RICHNESS OF NATURAL(LIFE)FORMS ii. METAPHYSICAL INDIVIDUAL REDUCTION. NATURE AS BACKDROP IRREDUCIBLE SYSTEMS. NATUREAS IN1EGRAL m EPISTEMIC REDUCTIONIST/ANALYTIC SUBJECT-OBJECT ACCOUNT HOLISTIC/GESTALT /FIELD ACCOUNT LARGER ENCOMPASSING AND INFORMING THEORY EMPIRICISM,IDEALISM, ECOSOPHY, PANTHEISM, POSITIVISM AMERICAN NATURALISM +- DIFFERENT FACETS ➔ OF CHRISTIANITY, BUDDHISM, ... VALUE (DEONTIC AND ACTION) COLLARIES EXTENSIVE INTERFERENCE FOR HUMAN INTERESTS AND PURPOSES 1. ACTION (META-) PRINCIPLE APPLICATIONS (AS COROLLARIES) LIMITED INTERFERENCE AND RIGHTS THEREfO ETHICS ASETHETICS METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY IDEOLOGY/ RELIGION LIFESTYLE +-OBLIGATION TO IMPLEMENT COMMITMENTS➔ To population, (individual) consumption, (individual) impact, resources, technology, pollution, economic growth and quality-of-life, culture, organisation, science, education; and to the variety of natural (and some artifical) forms, such as land, oceans, atmosphere, arctic regions, swamps, forests, soils, ... POLICY ECONOMICS POLITICS Given the picture some major and serious sets of problems with deep ecology begin to appear at once. First, the value core arrived at already substantially transforms that suggested by the literature, with, for instance, biospecies impartiality improving on biospheric egalitarianism. Secondly, both the bases and the encompassing theories usually indicated (those diagrammed) are not just highly problematic but are detachable from the core and can be avoided. For example, the various, rather different, epistemic and metaphysical theories that have been proposed as 16 supporting, or even essential to, deeper positions are, to say the least, very dubious. So it is fortunate that the deeper value core is independent of them all - though that is not to say that it is independent of every account, since some (plausible) story of value qualities in the natural world, and our perception and knowledge of them, has to be told, sooner or later. But one weaker parts of the larger deep ecological story as usually told concerns the embedding of deep ecology in a broader philosophical theory, such as Naess's system ecosophy T, or Buddhism, or nature mysticism, or whatever. This much is true: as it is with shallow positions, which can be supported by most of the mainstream, more comprehensive, philosophical theories (for what they are worth), so it is with deeper positions, which can be supported by very different, though unorthodox, philosophical theories, for instance, by (a modification of) Whitehead's process theory or by (an adaption of) Meinong's object theory. But, for reasons we shall come to, such theoretical frameworks as ecosophy, pantheism, Christianity and Buddhism do not include thorough-going deep positions, but sustain only shallower positions, and a properly deep picture is not derivable from them. This suggests that the proposed derivation of deep ecology from ecosophy is substantially astray (and that so, more sweepingly, is the whole derivational pyramid regularly presented by Naess in his four-level picture). So it will prove to be: the success of these derivations would depend upon importing analogues of shallowness into deep ecology. APPENDIX 1. Survey methods as a way of pinning down deep ecology. How does the sort of picture shown in figure 5.1 - which is worth persevering with, elaborating and applying - fit in with the burgeoning deep ecological literature? It is surely not just tangential to that, so that we should look elsewhere to grasp the deeper features of deep ecology? In fact the core themes, and philosophical basis, and extension themes, were assembled in a quite impressionistic fashion, namely working through much of the literature, and all the more basic work, and setting down the themes which on reflection seemed to be presented or emerge. Something like this is still a main method of research in the humanities, e.g. in history, history of ideas, and philosophy. Figure 7a Schematic picture of elementary procedures Source 1 T H Source 2 Source n i INTERSECTION (COMMON CORE) E M E s UNION t DISCOUNTED But here, with deep ecology, there were prospects of doing better than such impressionistic methods, or so one might have thought. Empirical, or at least quasi-empirical, methods (of the sort favoured by Naess in his earlier days) could be employed. The main idea is that the set of relevant sources is assembled, and then some statistical and set-theoretic work is done on the themes extracted from these sources; so the method is an elaboration of the sort of technique larger dictionaries such as the Oxford adopt in pinning down the standard senses of a term. The hope was that analysis of the serious philosophical literature (pretty rough selection criteria these, to be sure) on deep ecology would lead, not to despair, but in particular in two directions:Firstly, to what is more or less common to the positions presented - the intersection of theories, giving the substantial core or basic theory. And secondly, to what results when all the theories are put together - the union of themes, giving an approximation, after some sifting, to a deep ecological paradigm. As you might have anticipated by now, this thematic method hardly worked to perfection. Still it is worth explaining the method in a little more detail since, despite its limited success, it 18 reveals much. First a set of sources is assembled. Here there is scope for sampling and statistical methods, so beloved of social scientists; but in the case of deep ecology it seemed feasible, back in 1984, to gather for winnowing all more serious texts accessible in Australia. That latter limitation (all too familiar in environmental research) imposes a perhaps unfortunate parochial geographical constraint; but it induces no violation of such adequacy requirements as that sources introducing the notion be included in the bundle, as are all sources referred back to in several other sources. With the rise of networking magazines concerned with deep ecology, there are many references to deep ecological thinking and experience which get discounted, as not appropriately serious. Increasingly often, any sort of deeper experience or thought gets assigned under the "deep" heading, no matter how anthropocentric. This is one of the many problems with the depth notion and deep terminology, rather counteracting the valuable idea of penetrating below the conventional surface of received environmental assumptions, that it is important to think deeper than the assumption of Environment Z-land, for instance, that the environment should be managed for present and future generations of humans - a typical governmental surface assumption, often announced, but much less often put into practice. Once the sources are assembled, a beginning can be made on unscrambling themes, something that calls for a good deal of judgement also, especially in such matters as deciding whether themes from different sources come to the same or not. Here and elsewhere care is required not to penetrate too deeply, to expose only so much of surface themes as is necessary (a well-known principle in logical analysis). When the themes are duly marked out, there is some smoothing of the thematic data; for instance, evidently remote and irrelevant themes in one source may be deleted. (It is like the judging of a diving contest or the massaging of statistics, where isolated wild elements are removed from the sample used for assessment.) Then the elementary set operations of union and intersection are applied, again subject to some qualification. In particular, if a very prominent theme in some formulations is omitted from, or only approximated in, one formulation, then that theme will be put, initially at least, in the intersection. (Logicians and mathematicians, for example, sometimes omit intended or assumed axioms; e.g. Parry in analytic implication, Maclean in category theory.) A striking example concerns the very introduction of the notion of deep ecology into the philosophical literature (Naess 73), which fails to present the fundamental value thesis, that intrinsic value is not confined solely to humans or human features. While it can be argued that rejection of the sole and greater value assumptions is implied by what is said concerning biospheric egalitarianism (the equal right to live and blossom), the argument is not decisive, since value is only involved indirectly and perhaps only instrumentally (as Naess's appeal to effects on the 'life quality of humans' and to our ecological dependence might suggest). 19 The results are tabulated, as follows: Figure 7b. Actual results, in not form, of a survey of some main sources. Naess 73 Naess 83 Naess-Sessions 84 Intrinsic value Intrinsic value of life (1) (1) Biological egalitarianism (2) Diversity/richness(3) Complexity not complication (6) Diversity/ richness (2) Diversity/ richness ( 1) Total field holism (1) No negative interference rights, excepting vital needs (3) No negative interference, etc. (3) Devall 79 ROUGH CLASSIFICATIONS VALUE CORE Diversity (10 GROUNDSAND BASES New person/planet metaphysics (1) Objective approach to nature 2 Earth wisdom, VALUEAND limited interference ACTION COROLLARIES More leisure (13) Action obligation 6 Present interference excessive (4) Policy adjustments to economic and ideological structures (5) Anti-pollution/ resource depletion (5) Local autonomy/ decentralisation (7) Anti-class posture 4 Action obligation 8 Present human interference excessive (5) Policy adjustments, etc. [Also to technological structures (6) Objective life quality rather than higher living standard (7) World population reduction (4) POLICY AND LIFESTYLE APPLICATIONS Interim policy steady state (15),(18) Soft Technology ( 11) Life quality rather than quantity of products (6) Reduction of population to optimum (7) Emphasis on pollution and like topics counterproductive (8) Local autonomy/ decentralisation (11),(14) New psychology (3) DISCOUNTED AREAS: with rejection of NEW SUBJECTS dualisms: man/nature, subject/object, etc New philosophical anthropology (9) New objective 20 Embedding in ecosophy NOTES: science (4) New education (12) ? Embedding in updated Spinoza (2) EMBEDDJNG PHrr,OSOPHY/RELIGION 1. Bracketed numerals indicate theses numbers in the sources. 2. The disappointing absence of core themes can to some extent be compensated for by appeal to statements of them or implying them elsewhere in accompanying texts and commentaries. 3. Naess-Sessions 84, also Naess 84, became the 8-point platform, now widely reintensted. Naturally one does not attempt this sort of analysis entirely in the dark, but in the partial expectation that certain kinds of results will emerge, these three especially: • The substantial core represents a significant deviation from mainstream assumptions, a deviation which has been encountered before. • The total theory, or union, is not simply a jumble of theses, but has some reasonable coherence. • There are ways of getting from the substantial core toward the total theory. In the case of deep ecology it would have been pleasant to report triumphantly that these expectations, and more, are fulfilled; indeed the theory is so well integrated it represents a (sub)cultural paradigm. Unfortunately it did not work out that way, as is evident. What is more, the situation has become markedly worse, as presentations of deep ecology have burgeoned since 1984. Partly the thematic enterprise did not succeed because of the poor calibre of the leading presentations of "the" deep ecology intuition, and because exponents had and have different intuitions, messages and objectives. Partly, however it did not work because the idea of obtaining a substantial core and a coherent union was misconceived. Taking the union, in particular, assumed that there was much wider common ground - something that could be called the deeper ecological paradigm which could be approached in this sort of way - rather than as a plurality of positions. Pluralism is fine and feasible, and worth encouraging much more widely; but taking the union of themes of some pluralistic system of positions is likely to lead only to intractable inconsistent sets, and perhaps to trouble. Consider, to illustrate, the United Religion, about to sweep California, a pluralist grouping made up of representations of the World's great religions. While the refined common core of these positions is likely to be interesting, the union is not: it will contain, for example, all of the following inconsistent triad: Many gods exist (from e.g. Hinduism); Exactly one god exists (e.g. Islam); no gods exist (from e.g. Buddhism). There is analogous trouble in combining deep ecological sources with such results as that stones and mountains both do and do not have inherent value; there both are and are not detachable intrinsic values; and so on. The picture is then as shown:- 21 putative substantial core inconsistent elements of putative union What all this emphicizes once again is that deep ecology has to be treated differently, not as a coherent position but as a loose pluralistic grouping of position. To obtain a clearer authentic starting position, we shall have to discount since of what paradox as deep ecology. It is for this sort of reason of course that we chose to follow Naess before other prophets. Once an authentic position has been made out other prositions can be clustered around it. Such a pluralistic outcome does not show that the notion of a deeper ecological paradigm is illusory. It only reveals some of the pluralistic features, mostly not duly recognised at the deeper ends of ecological movements. And it only indicates that a different route should be taken in getting to a deeper paradigm. For the alternative environmental, and deep ecological, paradigm covers a spread of positions, much as the contrasting dominant social paradigm does. A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WESTERN DEEP ECOLOGY: a response to Warwick Fox's Response to an earlier Critique. Western deep ecology differs in important respects from the deep ecology originated and pursued by Naess, what I now call authentic deep ecology, at which my Critique of Deep Ecology was mainly, but by no means entirely, directed. Western deep ecology, also known as transpersonal ecology (though the ecology has largely dropped out), is very roughly a doctrine of the west of those new world continents where environmental philosophy functions; it has been advanced primarily by West Coast Americans (Devall, Drengson, Sessions and others) and associated West Australians (Fox, now of Tasmania, also Hallem and others). Unlike authentic deep ecology, Western deep ecology is hostile to environmental ethics, which it tends to dismiss as mere axiology; and it is excessively enthusiastic about trans personal experience, spiritual "paths" and "ways", and unitarian metaphysics - in which there are no ontological divides, no dualisms (of subject/object, subjective/objective), and no separation of things. Consider what Drengson 'take[s] to be at the heart of deep ecology as Devall and Sessions present it', and which he enthusiastically endorses: What deep ecology directs us towards ... is neither an environmental axiology or a theory of environmental ethics nor a minor reform of existing practices. It directs us to develop our own sense of self until it becomes Self, that is, until we realise through deepening ecological sensibilities that each of us forms a union with the natural world, and that protection of the natural world is the protection of ourselves .... reality lies not in the imaginative, subjective dualism of the dominant outlook, with its self-destructive exploitation of nature and overkill nuclear weapons. Reality is to be found in a quite different way: by a path that is nonaggressive, humble, compassionate, and knows itself as ultimately embedded in the Self of nature. The sacred is immanent in the profane, the spirit pervades and is the world, the cosmos. It is the formed and formless as a unity. This ecosophy is at hand for each of us [ecosophical salvation]. Its realisation is always personal, firsthand experiential understanding. It is an I-Thou, not an I-it relationship (Review pp.87-8). Fox's Response to my Critique develops similar themes, in considerably more detail, so they become rather more open to assessment. That is why my further critique will concentrate on his Responses. (On its own, I doubt that his Response would have sufficient intrinsic interest to warrant an extensive reply.) In Western deep ecology, the focus is upon, or even (as in Fox 89) contracts to, that of self and Self (or what it might almost as well be, soul and Soul/Anima sive Natura, or spirit and World Spirit). For example, Drengson pontificates upon • 38 the crux of the issues raised by deep ecology [as follows]. We are challenged to move to genuinely ecological modes of perception, conception, and practice. If we do this, we will do it to the degree that we realise that our self is part of a larger Self for which we must care. This is part of the ecology of self-Self in the cosmology of deep ecology' (p.89). Fox goes further, making this type of stuff coextensive with "deep ecology": Stated rather formally ... the deep ecological framework ... proceed[s] from two basic hypotheses and one ultimate norm [all concerning self and Self]. The hypotheses are (i) that "the self is as comprehensive as the totality of our identifications. Or, more succinctly: Our Self is that with which we identify" ... ; and (ii) that the self can and does grow/develop/mature (i.e. widen its sphere and intensity of identification over time). The norm is that the ideal state of being is one that sustains the widest (and deepest) possible identification and, hence, sense of Self.... this ideal state of being is referred to as "Selfrealisation" by N aess and as "ecological consciousness" by Devall and Sessions" and its cultivation - effective a spiritual discipline - is considered to be the "real work" of deep ecology (pp. 86-7). This self-Self cultivation of Western deep ecology, which will be severely criticised, is far removed from the deep ecology platform upon which authentic deep ecology is centred, a mundane, secular platform concerned with real environmental issues, which is not a predominantly human psychological exercise and which does not mention 'self' or 'Self'. On the strength of the variant presentation of "deep ecology", of this elaboration of Western deep ecology, Fox feels entitled to assert that 'Sylvan has seriously misunderstood what deep ecology is about. ... Sylvan's criticisms miss their mark ... Sylvan's critique leaves deep ecology ... largely untouched' (p.5). Drengson feels entitled to enlarge this unfounded assertion: 'the critiques of deep ecology that have appeared so far have been based on misconceptions of what deep ecology is all about, and they have therefore been off the mark, or at best superficial' (p.89). The critiques that are substantial, not substantially tirades or shallow, have been substantially directed at authentic deep ecology, not at its different Western analogue. There has been no misconception or misunderstanding by such critics; they have aimed at a different target in the same broad field. On a personal level, I am quite attracted by authentic deep ecology; but I am substantially repelled by Western deep ecology. I subscribe, more or less, to the 8-point platform of deep ecology, and accordingly should be accounted a supporter of deep ecology (for all that critics are not very welcome). Though I do not care for some features of Naess's system Ecosophy T, which does provide a rickety bridge ·to Western deep ecology, N aess has always insisted that this was but one of several optional background ideological frameworks. Western deep ecology is another matter. Too much of it strikes me as like an evangelic cult, much too incidentally coupled to deep environmentalism; too much is a 39 celebration of self, human self, an expanded egoism; too much is essentially a good oldfashioned celebration of things human, a comparatively shallow celebration disguised in new environmental and avant-gard attire. Drengson has the ability to lay on these obnoxious, chauvinistic features disagreeably thick. Consider a bit of his poetic outpouring on that jumbled text, Deep Ecology: Sessions and Devall see humans as beings who are an expression of a nature deeper, more mysterious, and creative than any of our abstract theories appreciate .... it is hoped that [our] experiential encounter with the otherness of Nature transformed as Self will help us to live in such a harmonious way as to continually discover ever new wonders and value inherent in wild nature and in the natural human self. ... The book, thus is dedicated to ... presenting a philosophy of life that resolves some of our most fundamental questions, the central one of this is: how can we live truly in authentic, harmonious relationships with all beings so as to realise a maximum of intrinsic goodness? This is a question, ultimately, of what it means to become a complete, mature, fully Selfrealised human being (pp.94-5 rearranged). The statement could almost have come straight out of modem romanticism; all the same elements are there down to the maximization of human self-realisation. So presented, the new environmental paradigm of Western deep ecology is the old anti-Enlightenment movement in contemporary gear. Though I am substantially turned off by some of Western deep ecology, though I am disappointed by its apparent shallowness, by its reversion to human chauvinism, though I try to take cover when its heavy evangelism blows through, I am far from suggesting that more than critical intellectual action be taken against it. It is, after all, generally for the right sorts of things environmentally, even if it has invested too heavily in dominant notions, such as the exalted human self that a radical environmentalism should be escaping; and it is no worse intellectually than predominant creeds that are far less kind to natural environments, such as Vatican christianity and American pragmatism. Live and let live. 1. Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism. Well is Fox's response to Sylvan's critique of deep ecology entitled 'Approaching Deep Ecology'; for it does no more than approach deep ecology, it does not reach the authentic article. Instead Fox converts deep ecology into a related concoction, largely of his own (now called transpersonal ecology*). Having thus commandeered deep ecology for * Transpersonal ecology is an extreme variant of Western deep ecology, which tries, for instance, to jettison what Drengson and others retain: intrinsic goodness, intrinsic value, and the like. 40 his own purposes, it is easy for Fox to feel confident in his charge that 'Sylvan has seriously understood what deep ecology is about' (p.5). Fox's main accusation is indeed that I have seriously misunderstood what deep ecology is about, that my criticism is misdirected, and that deep ecology emerges largely unscathed. We shall see about that. But first, I want to lodge a counter-charge: Fox appears to have misunderstood a good deal of what I was about. My critique was not concerned with his position, except - in so far as it purported to be deep ecology - in passing; it was addressed to the mainstream of deep ecology. Fox's own transpersonal ecology does not belong to the mainstream of deep ecology; indeed it is doubtful that it is deep ecology at all. It tries to throw away central parts of deep ecology, the value theory in particular, and to revert to what appears, to all intents and purposes, to be a rather shallow position. But, most remarkable, it has very little to do with the natural environment; much of it is but expanded self adulation. Both Fox and N aess, in their responses to my critique, try to make some easy initial capital by pointing to the different ending of a working draft of the critique from the pluralist ending of the published version. 1 Naess uses the different endings to ground his allegation that Sylvan is uncertain what he is about, an ad hominem strategy which he presumably hopes will help to defuse substantial criticisms of deep ecology which he does not address (see his 84 and 85). Fox makes much of the different endings (almost 5 pages worth) in order to reveal an uncharitable interpretation: that already indicated, of misunderstanding, and that my 'critique leaves deep ecology .... largely untouched' (p.5). Naess and Fox seem to think that it counts against a critique that it may enjoy more than one ending, that it can leave room for doubt as to whether something should be restored or abandoned. Yet these are very much the sort of outcome a more tolerant and careful assessment may yield. Consider an old building seriously defective in main structural detail, yet with many worthwhile period features. It may be a hard question, over which there is room for uncertainty, whether it should be restored or demolished. So it is often with intellectual systems, such as deep ecology and ecosophy. By and large I am in favour of rehabilitation (see e.g. Routley 74), though from a favoured nonpluralistic 1 Though I feel a bit used, I'm not going to make anything of incomplete working drafts I naively handed out not being a fair target for commentary (it is obvious that one can be even more stupid and so forth in drafts than in more considered final versions). Much of the interesting work in and around deep ecology appears only in working draft form or in what academic snobs describe as semi-published form. 41 stance such systems as ecosophy include material destined for the intellectual scrap heap. But, in any event, I am in favour of recycling of rubbish wherever this is feasible. For anyone who adheres to a select position within an also conceded pluralistic setting, there is always more than one presentation, and more than one ending: a monistic, or singular, ending deriving from the select position, and a pluralistic ending from the setting. There is nothing particularly remarkable about this, for all that it baffles Fox. On the singular ending (of the limited edition "penultimate version" of my critique) many major themes of deep ecology go down, not because they are ' insubstantial or vacuous' (what Fox finds it convenient to infer p.2ff.), but because they are all defective, all substantially astray. So much had already been argued in the main body of the work; for instance, one sustained development aimed to demonstrate the substantial falsity of the principle of biospheric egalitarianism and its inconsistency with other principles of deep ecology. What of the last words, drawn from Eliot's Four Quartets, 'there is no one to bury'? By this, I meant: no correct doctrine, not: nothing substantial. It is true that from the singular position I did look upon several main 'ideas of deep ecology ... not even as if they were once useful ... but rather that upon closer scrutiny there is ... nothing ... [correct in] them in the first place' (p.3); from that stance I still look upon them in that way. On the final pluralistic ending what remains 2 are not the trumpeted major themes, which still go down, but a good many of the less heralded points and themes, such as departure principles in the 8-point platform of deep ecology. What can be added, furthermore, are significant variations upon some of the major themes; for instance ecospheric impartiality in place of biospheric egalitarianism. Now both Naess and Fox assume that a pluralistic ending diminishes, or ought to weaken, the force of the criticism. Not so. Naess ends his response to the critique with a relativistic complaint: 'if you have your own philosophy from which you generate the [core] position of deep ecology, ... why object to ecosophy T?' (Naess pp.3-4 reordered, also quoted in Fox). The short answer is because system T is seriously intellectually flawed. A pluralist may let such material stand, but, unlike a relativist, doesn't have to let it alone; its weaknesses can be exposed, its inferiority exhibited. Fox goes on to claim that under pluralism, which he also confuses with relativism, my 'critique loses much of its original sting and no longer constitutes the challenge to deep ecology that was formerly intended' (p.5). Again, not so; the challenge and sting remain as before. But now deep ecology is regarded more benignly; and more future work will be directed at restoration, etc. As you might now anticipate, Fox finds 'a 2 Fox's surprise about this (p.3) can be attributed to his failure to appreciate the force of 'acclaimed major themes' in the theories to be put to rest. 42 strong tension between such a pluralistic position' and the singular position which he regards as 'essentially argumentative' (p.5). But there is no tension; the singular position slots neatly into the pluralistic array. Further, both are argumentative, though neither essentially so. 3 2. Value in deep ecology Fox's 'most fundamental objection to [my] critique' is that it offers, is based upon, an 'environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology' (p.29, p.53). Given what Fox intends by 'environmental axiological interpretation' (his never properly explained terminology, not mine), which involves axiological reductionism and a certain axiological priority and hegemony throughout environmental philosophy (p.52) 4 , I deny this. My critique neither offers nor is based upon such an interpretation; and, as inspection will confirm, my other work will not bear such an interpretation 5 , I do not 'pursue environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental axiology'. What I do ascribe to deep ecology is "a value core", features of which I explain in some detail (and to which we shall have to return). But a large transformer (or similar item) does not reduce to its cores, there is much to such an item besides the core; nor do the cores pervade, dominate or guide all the rest. The core, which was introduced primarily as part of an organising structure, does not support what Fox tries to read out of it, namely an axiological reduction (back in 84, Naess thought 'core' was a 'good expression' for a quite proper part of deep ecology). In fact, I am not hooked on the term 'core'; substitution of 'value part' for 'value core' would make very little difference to the substance of my critique of deep ecology, but it would quite adversely effect Fox's response. An early example of the feebleness of Fox's reconstruction is his attempt to make my treatment of deep ecological theory outside the value core look as if it too was part of an axiological interpretation. He proceeds to argue from a title of a later section, 'Beyond the value core: metaphysical and epistemological "intuitions" of deep ecology', thus: 'as this title suggests, it is Sylvan's environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology that underpins his criticisms there (as elsewhere)' (p.29). The title was not intended to suggest, and would not normally suggest, such an interpretation; it indicated a separation of parts and 3 For much more detail on all these pluralistic matters, see my Deep Plurallism. 4 For fuller illustration of such undesirable phenomena at work in philosophy, see Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy. 5 For one example, see the jointly authored The Fight for the Forests. 43 the upcoming contents. As an argument (to be slack with this term), Fox's move is a nonsequitur. 6 Now to get down to the real adjudicational business (of this section), I claim to have been verballed by Fox.7 While I am becoming pretty accustomed to serious misrepresentation, I see Fox as ascending to new heights in this regard. For he proceeds to attribute to me major derivative theses which I nowhere presented, which do not derive from what I did present, and to which I should not, in any case, accede. Let's look straight away at some of what Fox proceeds to foist upon me. 'Sylvan assumes from the outset and proceeds upon the basis that deep ecology is ... primarily a value-in-nature position' (p.30), that is the 'primary claim' (p.31). I do not assume that deep ecology is primarily that, but that it is that among other things; 8 I do not proceed on that basis, and I never did suppose that deep ecology was primarily or only a values-in-nature position. As I say, in a clause Fox left out in the selective quotation of his indictment, deep ecology 'has been presented as a metaphysics, as a consciousness movement (and a primarily psychological), and even as a sort of (Pantheist) religion' (and in an accompanying note I mention Fox's alternative ontological focus). I am not committed to such a primacy claim (what Fox refers to as 6 As the text reveals, Fox is rather fond of making passages suggest not what they were intended to suggest or prima facie do suggest, but what he would have them "suggest" conveniently for his own unscrupulous purposes (we might even label this the suggestive fallacy). He is not averse either to considerable distortion. For example (also on p.29) he makes it look, by a clever use of sectional divisions, as if the bulk of my critique was concerned with the value part of deep ecology, when in fact I get beyond that part on p.26 in a critique of 60 pages. Of course it would not show that much even if I had devoted virtually the whole critique to the value part rather than less than a third; it could just mean that that was the part of deep ecology that interested me most, or that I ran out of energy and patience thereabouts, etc. In the present critique I ran out of these commodities and time before I had finalized a section on fallacious methodological practices in deep ecology, perhaps to be called 'fallacies of transpersonal ecology'. Next edition, perhaps. 7 Verbal is an Australian verb, alluding to fabricated evidence made up by police or official prosecutioners. Verballing was a common practice in Queensland, and is certainly used by police gangs in some other states. 8 I do begin the first "problem" section of the critique 'Deep ecology appears to be some elaboration of the position that natural things other than humans have value in themselves .. .' (Cp.1 ). But that says nothing more offensive than what can be inferred from point 1 of the 8-point platform of deep ecology, and nothing about primacy. Moreover I go on to say that the elaboration is extensive (e.g. Cp.4), a claim well illustrated by Figure 1 (Cp.5), where the "value core" comprises but a small part of the deep position. 44 'Sylvan's primary claim', p.31, p.33, p.34, p.47, p.48, p.57, p.70 and many other pages, sometimes obliquely as 'Sylvan's claims' and the like, e.g. 'Sylvan says', p.86). 'Moreover', Fox continues (p.30), 'for Sylvan, it is an objective position since its "core theme" of "values-in-nature suggests ... that natural items have value qualities independently of perceivers"'. Firstly there is a misquotation; I refer to 'core themes', which furthermore extend beyond the value part. 9 Secondly, no objectivist claim is made or follows for Sylvan. 10 On the basis of the primacy claim, in conjunction with the objectivist claim (in the case of D2 at least), Fox proceeds to foist upon me 'two derivative claims': Dl. 'deep ecology does not proceed from a general vision of reality or "underlying perception of the way things are" ' 11 , and D2. 'deep ecology is not at all concerned with the way in which we experience the world' (p.31, Fox's italics). Firstly, I do not present such claims; indeed I present a substantial amount of material incompatible with such claims, for instance in the discussion of the theme of extreme holism as regards D 1, and of cosmic identity as regards D2. Secondly, I did not and do not adhere to such claims; indeed I have put a good deal of effort into exposing the metaphysical and epistemological parts of deep ecology. Thirdly, as should be thus evident, they do not derive from what I did present in the critique. Fourthly, in particular, they do not derive from the primacy and objectivist claims. Indeed readily available counter-models will show as much. Consider a values-in-nature objectivist position such as that of Holmes Rolston, which we can conveniently call 'R(olston)'s deep ecology' (there is not even any cheating here, as Ralston's position has a better claim to be accounted deep ecology than some of the positions admitted to the club). Now simply substitute 'R's deep ecology' for 'deep ecology' throughout the "derivation" of the claims. The premiss or grounds hold, as R's deep ecology satisfies both primacy and objectivist claims; but the claims supposed to be derived do not hold, both RD 1 and RD2 fail. For example, Ralston's deep ecology is very 9 It seems to be on the basis of efforts like this misquotation that Fox feels himself justified in writing of 'Sylvan's "core claim" that deep ecology is primarily a valuesin-nature position ' (p.34). That is remote from what I do. For example, I am in trouble for dismissing a sizeable chunk of core deep ecology as rubbish; but a valuesin-nature position is not rubbish. 10 The point was explained in considerable detail in EE p.154ff, where the ugly term nonjective was deliberately introduced to remove illusions as to objectivity or subjectivity. 11 The context makes it look as if the internal quotation is drawn from me, but it is not as perusal of fn.44 will show. DI gains no support from anything I assert. 45 much concerned with the way we experience the world, as a reading of Rolston quickly discloses. Or if a clearer deep example than Rolston is demanded, there is N aess himself. Finally, unsurprisingly now, Fox has made elementary mistakes in his alleged derivations. Consider D2 first. 'This follows', Fox says, 'since value-in-nature are held to exist "out there" independently of perceivers' (p.31). But again it just does not follow, as a topic can be deeply concerned with something that enjoys some independence. You might almost as well try to say that epistemology is not at all concerned with the way in which we experience the world since primary properties are "out there" independent of perceivers. Consider next D1, where there is considerably more distortion to be exposed. Fox's "derivation" really consists of two separable parts. In the first part, Fox's thoroughly fallacious strategy is to replace 'concerned with' by 'only concerned with' and 'because' by 'simply because', as textual comparisons, of my text with what Fox draws from it, make plain. His strategy certainly makes for terrific derivations. For example, from "the Prime Minister is concerned with his sex life" we obtain the startling result that the Prime Minister is only concerned with his sex life. From the premiss that a man likes his wife because of her body we obtain without any further ado the familiar worry that he likes her simply because of her body. 'Beyond this', in a second part, there is an argument based on independence (apparently involving some misunderstanding of the notion). The argument appears to be of the form: A is independent of B, therefore A does not proceed from B. The defectiveness of such an argument is obvious enough once its form is exposed. And the defectiveness of the case in hand should have been evident to Fox. For Naess has explained many times how a person can be a deep ecologist (e.g. can adhere to the platform) without adopting (or even being aware of) the general metaphysical vision from which it proceeds. The felling of Fox's derivations brings down, like trees felled in a rainforest, a good part of the rest of the structure. For instance, there cease to be the problems Fox supposes he has found (p.32 ff.), such as difficulties of consistency in accounting for the metaphysical 'sources that supporters of deep ecology draws upon' (p.33). With that small exercise in logic, the remainder of Fox's "response" to my critique (pages 31-89 of text and miles of footnotes) is disposed of in main essentials. For pages 53-84 constitute a largely separate essay on wider identification, an essay which only bears obliquely on my critique; and most of the rest turns upon lumbering me with the claims just off loaded, the claims which 'constitute [my] very poor understanding of deep ecology' (p.31). Thus, for example, Fox expends a good deal of space upon citing authorities from deep ecology (who too often supply extremely dubious statements) directed at contradicting D 1 and D2. Obviously that is beside the point. But while my main work on Fox's dismal response is done, and I could stop here, I don't intend to, as there is a lot more heavily 46 polluting rubbish to be despatched, or recycled. One's rubbish may be another's input (therein for Moore lay the whole challenge of philosophy). 3 The extent of values-in-nature. Even a casual reader of Fox's Response will have observed the following: that Fox is very quick off the mark with (largely unsubstantiated) accusations like 'so and so has failed to grasp', 'has misunderstood', 'has ignored', 'has missed the point'; that the evidence for these ad hominem claims is often quite insubstantial; and that that 'so and so' often happens to be Sylvan. One of the many things Sylvan allegedly 'fails to grasp' is 'that (a position) deep ecology can be normative (i.e. offer prescriptive proposals) without that necessarily meaning that it is prescriptive [of this or that,] of a values-in-nature position'. Well, I thought I had a reasonable grasp upon, and had made use in print of, the distinction between prescription and evaluation (likewise deontology and axiology), and had in the critique sufficiently emphasized that shallow positions were normative but decidedly not prescriptive of values-in-nature. So what evidence does Fox present for his charge? Well, none really. True he begins his next sentence with a 'Thus', but he then rambles on with quotations of material (he has previously tried to flog to death) concerning deep ecology and value theory. But, as nearly everyone appreciates, a position may include a value theory without that theory being a values-in-nature position; shallow positions are such. Now 'Sylvan takes Naess's statement that deep ecology is normative as direct support ... the only support that Sylvan provides ... for his own ... "claim" that deep ecology is ... a value-in-nature position' (p.36 rearranged, prejudicial terms deleted). Well, he didn't take that as direct support; what he did take as support is Naess's oft-repeated assertion (quoted by Fox on the very page) that 'the significant tenets of ... Deep Ecology ... express a value priority system' (many places, e.g. 73 p.99, my italics). So it includes a value framework. Furthermore further evidence is adduced or alluded to both for the claim that deep ecology involves a value framework and that it includes a values-in-nature tenet (e.g. 'deep ecology seeks a transformation of values' Cp.29, quoting Devall; an 'egalitarian principle of equal value of all life, is "an intuitively clear and obvious value axiom"' Cp.13 quoting N aess; the restriction of this axiom to cases 'when genuine conflicts of value are absent 'Cp.14 quoting Fox; etc). Fox issues the challenge: 'where is the (objectivist) values-in-nature "core claim"?' (p.36). Of course it is right there in the platform, in the very first point which duly 47 distributes intrinsic value much more widely than humans and human features; it is also implied by the biocentric egalitarian principle; and so on. 12 What is more, although I have at long last (late 1989) read Fox's tactless Response, I am sticking to my claim that deep ecology has a value core. As it happens, I think as much is evident from Naess's recent publications (esp. 89 chapters 2 and 3). But the claim can be argued, for example as follows:- Firstly, Deep ecology has a value part. Secondly, that part is a core part. As to the first, I should begin by appealing to the value themes of the deep ecology platform, particularly points 1 and 2 which amounts values-in-nature points. Curiously, when several of the points in the platform are value themes, Fox proceeds to assert that 'biocentric ... egalitarianism ... is the deep ecological notion that most lends itself to interpretation as a value-in-nature position' (pp.31-33). Perhaps this is a diversionary tactic. It seems that it would be most convenient for Fox's anti-axiology and unauthentic view of deep ecology if critics forgot about the platform of deep ecology. The value part of deep ecology is reasonably taken as a core, i.e. as a central or inner part (to use dictionary accounts of 'core'). A number of arguments can be advanced for adopting it as a core, of which I'll indicate one 13 . The 8-point platform is a central part of deep ecology, what more or less distinguishes deep ecologists; value themes comprise a central part of this platform (the first three points as well as others such as point 7); what is a central part of a central part is indeed central. It is no doubt 'somewhat unfortunate that the 8-principles start with ethical terms ... ' (quoting Sessions p.49). Fox tries to wriggle out of that unfortunate predicament, that the 8-point platform of deep ecology - one of the few hitherto stable parts of the whole jerrybuilt structure - begins with value themes and a values-in-nature claim, by an expansion of the same shabby tactic he has already tried to use to defuse biological egalitarianism and displace apparently ethical principles of deep ecology (such as the important obligation to implement environmental commitments): Namely, the formal-axiological waste-disposal is replaced by an even grander formal-philosophical disposal - down which goes my criticism. 'Sylvan ... takes the "neutral"' (i.e. variously: literal, nontechnical, 12 It is only anomalous that the intrinsic value theme is missing Naess's early paper because it features so prominently in the platform and in parts of Naess's later work, both characterising deep ecology. Fox tries to twist the anomaly into a contradiction in my evidence (pp.36-7), but it is a shabby effort, entirely neglecting the evidence I assemble in Appendix 1 (which he quotes from however) for Figure 1 of the Critique which indicates the value core. 13 Thereby doing in, by example, another of Fox's unpleasant shotgun accusations, p.6. 48 understandable to most persons) 'formulation of basic principles as a formal philosophical position .... Thus, even such limited support for his "core claim" as Sylvan is able to find turns out to be due to mistaking an everyday language 8-point list for an ultimate expression of deep ecology in formal philosophical terms' (p.51) That I find, I confess, a ridiculous accusation and defence. I wasn't taking the basic principles at other than face value, as other than principles in a "neutral" formulation; I was, and am, 'using the word "value" in a metaphorical or everyday sense' (p.49), namely in the literal everyday non-metaphorical sense where it signifies worth. I frankly don't really know what it would be like to take deep ecology in the way Fox alleges I do, as a 'formal philosophical position' (p.49, p.51). It is not just that we are far removed from 'the ultimate expression of deep ecology in formal philosophical terms'; deep ecology is not, in the hands of Fox and friends, the sort of position that looks at all likely to obtain such formulation ever. Until it is properly made out, then, Fox's "defence" lapses. He owes us an account of what a 'formal philosophical expression' would be, by contrast with what we have, and to provide requisite evidence that Sylvan (whatever his actual intentions) was "taking" the platform in that "mistaken" way. I'm not surprised that Fox has not attempted the requisite philosophical work; I am surprised he got Session to go along with him in the intellectually disreputable ploy. I freely confess, then, my astonishment that Sessions states that he and N aess would not agree philosophically to the principles of the deep ecology platform (p.50,p.51 ). What on earth does he mean? In his own book (with Devall), these principles are presented as 'basic principles of deep ecology' (in boldface capitals, p.69), they are supplemented by a detailed commentary of a type appropriate for serious philosophical principles, and they are introduced as having 'summarized fifteen years of thinking on the principles of deep ecology' (p.69). If that doesn't make them philosophical, what in the deep ecological scheme of things would? In any case, Sessions has elsewhere been prepared, in highly philosophical contexts to ascribe intrinsic values to parts of nonhuman Nature (e.g. p.236). For Naess too there is no easy escape. Firstly, the platform is said to derive from his Ecosophy T; secondly Ecosophy T itself assigns 'intrinsic value to every life form' (89 p.164ff). But I should make an admission; deep ecology is bound to be a values-in-nature position, at least as I characterised those things. It follows from the way I explained depth and what is meant by 'values-in-nature'. That is one reason why I claim Fox's 49 transpersonal ecology is not deep ecology, because it is explicitly not a values-in-nature position. 14 Fox himself has tried various ways of avoiding values-in-nature; but, needless to say, value expressions of "in-nature" cast creep into much of his discourse. For example, the shallow/deep distinction is now "explained" (in 89 p.33), not directly in terms of value, but, to begin with, through an anthropocentric/ecocentric distinction. The trouble is that, in explaining the intended senses of contrasting terms, value slips back again (as in 'use value for humans (e.g. its scientific, recreational, or aesthetic value)'). But Fox's main chance is the "value constellation" idea, which tries to lock values away in a complex involving a valuer and a valuing relation. But nothing stops analyses of this complex, examination of components of the constellation; and for many logical purposes (such as quantification of the value end of the complex) some separation is required. 4 A biocentric ethic? It has been widely thought that deep ecology supplies 'a biocentric ethic as opposed to an anthropocentric one' 15 , that it includes at least rudiments of a value theory and leading features of an environmental ethics. But now whether deep ecology is, among other things, an environmental ethic is in increasing doubt. There are now many, not merely on the margins of deep ecology, who would question the role or significance of ethics or even dispense with it altogether. On these issues, as on others, deep ecology speaks not just with many tongues, but forked tongues as well. Fox does something to assemble the diverse voices from the deep ecology multitude (p.42ff.). Let us classify - in a preliminary way: A. Getting rid of ethics altogether. This appears to be a position taken by Livingston and by Shepard, at least in the quotes Fox supplies. There is nothing new and exciting, still less of new paradigmatic cast, about this. It is as old as ethical nihilism and scepticism, which is to say, very old, reaching back to classical Greek thought. 16 Nor are the entirely dubious supporting considerations adduced in any way new: 'ethics and morals were ... invented by one species to meet the needs of that species' p.42, or, more cynically, for the advantage of certain classes or pressure groups within that species; ethics are at best mischievous, more 14 See e.g. p.85. The matter is further discussed below. 15 Thus Bradford 89,p.10. The authentic deep ecology (of. Naess, on reliable days) certainly does. 16 For preliminary notes on the history of moral nihilism, see Hinckfuss p.17. 50 likely damaging; ethics are unsuccessful and even counterproductive in their effects (p.43); 'ethics and morals are unknown in nature' (p.42); and similar. A*. Retaining ethics, hardly intellectually revolutionary either, but B. Downgrading the whole enterprise. Such appears to be one of Naess's newer tactics, where ethics, now of minor importance, becomes an experiential epiphenomenon. 'I'm not much interested in ethics or morals. I'm interested in how we experience the world .... Ethic follows from how we experience the world' (p.46, also Naess 89 p.20 and elsewhere). Naess is doing more in this much quoted passage (which involves clear commission of the prescriptive fallacy 17 ) than expressing personal idiosyncracies; he is saying, he is taken as saying, by those who quote him, how things now stand for deep ecology (of which he is still, though losing ground, the chief guru). B*. While ethical enterprise is perhaps not downgraded, C. Ethics as usually conceived is displaced or superseded. According to Fox, "conventional ethics", which combines a code of conduct with a set of values, is displaced by an 'experientially grounded state of being' (p.41). 18 That state of being is none other than ecological consciousness, which 'precedes and preempts the search for an "environmental ethic"' (Devall quoted p.45, similarly Sessions, who also goes further, suggesting we should abandon the search for an environmental ethics' p.44). But surely it is foolish to discard useful tools (if admittedly due for repair) because something that may look brighter and shinier and does something for some agents, attracts attention; in these critical times everything that works at all is needed. A bit differently, Rodman suggests superfessions of conventional ethics (though perhaps not of a more expansive ethics), because it is an integral part of the former moral/legal stage of consciousness, conventional ethics - if not actually in the process of being superseded (in the dominant culture it is not) by a later and higher stage, of appropriate new experience - ought to be superseded, since the moral/legal stage is 'now more part of the problem than its solution' (p.43). Again all 17 Elsewhere however (e.g. Naess 89 p.24) explains how values go beyond "facts". 18 Later Fox proceeds differently, with 'deep ecology ... described as ... a position within ... "foundational ethics'" (p.86). "Foundational ethics", another exceedingly illexplained notion, is ethics as 'concerned with "understanding ourselves"' (p.86, p.113), and so part of the egocentric self nexus; it is also said to be ethics as 'concerned with development of a state of being' (p.113), the being of selves no doubt. Does "foundational ethics" supply principles and some values? If not, how does it manage to be an ethic? If so, how does it escape Fox's objections to environmental ethics? In any case, "foundational ethics" which we are supposed to search for (along with "understanding ourselves"), is intended to be an environmental ethic! 51 decidedly questionable, both historically and systematically, particularly given the prospect of a plurality of integrated techniques. C*. Instead, a radically new ethic is designed. This is of course part of what deepgreen and other radical, not merely reformist, alternatives to prevailing ethics and nature philosophies are about. It was, once upon a time, an objective of deep ecology also; it apparently no longer invariably is. But just as there is no definite position offered by deep ecology on several critical issues (esp. in ecological politics), so there is now no definite position on the place of ethics (pace p.41), as the tentative classification serves to reveal. No doubt Fox had a particular message that he wanted to be drawn from the quotations and needed for his arguments - explicit rejection of an ethical approach in favour of experience in the shape of ecological consciousness (p.47) - but what he has supplied is an entertaining pot pourri of positions, countering or jamming the message. It is ironic that Western deep ecology should have tried to opt out of ethics, at exactly the time that ethics is making a major come back, when ethics are becoming again a significant force in business and the world. Or in terms of a different image, at the very time when the ship of ethics is returning to harbour after a long period on high rough seas, Fox and friends decide to jump overboard; we hope they are strong swimmers. With ethics returned, a renewed force, what we need is not no ethics but new ethics, not to concede the power of renewed ethics over to conservative power-holders or restrictive do-gooders, but to put ethics to expansive tolerant good environmental and social works. 5. Biospheric egalitarianism revisited. The notion is terminally ill, but I fear we shall keep revisiting it until it is buried under heavy concrete. So far, for all its problems, it lives on (with apologists, Fox included, shifting ground accordingly; similarly N aess, e.g. 85 p.6). It just keeps reappearing in strong unqualified form, for instance in Sessions (recently): 'one of the first clear statements' of ecosophy 'that all individuals, species (including humans), and ecosystems have EQUAL inherent value (the ecocentric position) was made by Arne Naess when he proposed the principle of BIOSPHERICAL (ECOLOGICAL) EGALITARIANISM ... ' (89, p.11). So represented it simply succumbs to all the previous criticism (in my Critique and indirectly in EE p.139 ff.). Interestingly then both Fox and Naess appeal to 'Sessions' interpretation of biocentric egalitarianism as "a statement of non-anthropocent ricism"' (p.39), to which Fox adds, in all seriousness, 'rather than as a formal environmental axiological position'. In a revealing passage, Sessions puts it rather differently, 'Biocentric egalitarianism is essentially a rejection of human chauvinistic ethical theory and the criteria 52 used to ascribe rights and value; it is a reductio ad absurdum of conventional ethics. Biocentric egalitarianism is essentially a statement of non-anthropocentricism' 19 . This statement does not hang together. For instance, non-anthropocentricism is weaker than rejection of human chauvinism, which on its own is not a reductio ad absurdum of all conventional ethics (because, first off, not an argument, and because, second, of the character of some "conventional" ethics such as intuitionism). Without the logically inadmissible loop through anti-human chauvinism (the deep-green position) the situation is worse still; for, on the contrary, rather conventional British utilitarianisms such as Smart's and Singer's are robustly nonanthropocentric. By so excessively eroding its egalitarian principles, deep ecology loses much depth. In a passage which Fox says 'greatly clarifies the confusion that has surrounded Naess's notion', Naess too, again over-influenced by his minders, takes a similar pathetic course. The principle had previously 'suggest[ed] a positive doctrine, and that is too much'! 'The importance of the intuition' contracts to 'its capacity to counteract' certain chauvinistic hubris. What Fox manages to draw out of these counteracting principles are, however, not principles at all, but an orientation to or general attitude of non-interference, "Letting be", etc. This is not just considerably removed from what N aess offers; it is pretty remote from egalitarianisms. For one can let inferiors, and what is of no inherent value, be, spare and preserve them, perhaps for later exploitation. But what Fox is really concerned to draw from his authorities is the concession (they do not make, nor did he himself formerly) that the principle of biospherical egalitarianism is not a principle, not a position at all (a curious thing to think it was), but something much less definite, less positive, less specific, less open to criticism, a more general attitude, no doubt underlying ethical practice, but definitely not part of an environmental axiology. Poor deluded critics like Sylvan who supposed that a principle is a principle have 'missed' 'the extremely important point' that for supporters of deep ecology a "principle" is but a general attitude. These supporters indeed feel that treating a principle as a principle can do more harm than good, 'and so have deliberately chosen not to take the environmental axiological route' (p.41). There ends Fox's diversion on biospheric egalitarianism. What it comes to is this:- Had the principle been a principle, within environmental axiology, the criticism made of the principle would at 19 Quoted by Fox in a quote that never ends (p.39). In this mismash, Session proceeds to draw upon our material against human chauvinism and conventional ethics, having first dismissed us, referring to EE p.139, as 'mistak[ing] what Naess is up to. Naess's position is not ... "an extension of conventional Western ethics"'. As it happens, we don't mention Naess at all either on p.139 or in our discussion of extensionalism: how do we mistake what Naess is up there to when we don't consider what he is up to? Back in the 70s deep ecology was, after all, not a significant position. 53 the very least constitute a powerful challenge (p.38); but fortunately it is not, "positive doctrines" are too open to criticism! It is only a general attitude concerning reluctance to harm other living beings (p.40). 20 Egalitarianism, of value as well as principle, has dropped out in this rather shallow evasion. 6. The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology and the condemned "environmental axiological route". Fox wants to distance deep ecology from value theory but is also aware, from time to time, that this is not really possible. As a result his position on the relation of deep ecology to value theory is decidedly ambiguous at best, and at worst inconsistent. The tensions appear within the space of a single page (e.g. p.85). We are told both that 'deep ecology is not [a] position within environmental axiology' and that 'it could be quite mistaken to think' that deep ecology 'stands outside ... value theory'. Whence inconsistency results, given that axiology has its normal technical sense. 21 But there is evidence that Fox intends significantly more by 'axiology' than normal - as well as adopting the normal sense: so that behind the initial inconsistency stands another inconsistency. What precisely Fox does intend remains however obscure, scandalously obscure. For one of Fox's main accusations against critics of deep ecology 22 , is that critics are committed to 'environmental axiological reductionism', they 'pursue environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental axiology', so they are blind to what 'deep ecology thinkers are really on about', which (negatively) consists in 'rejection of the "environmental axiological route"' (pp.51-53). Among these critics, mired in "ethical reductionism", blind to the new paradigmatic character of deep ecology which 20 Or presumably otherwise negatively interfere with other natural things - otherwise the reformulation, though apparently platitudinous, is too narrow, discriminating against some parts of nature. The harm reformulation is borrowed from Devall and Session, who try to make biospherical egalitarian and Self-realisation interpenetrate: 'Biocentric equality is intimately related to the all inclusive Self-realisation in the sense that if we harm the rest of Nature then we are harming ourselves' (p.56). Unfortunately in the ordinary sense of 'harm' the latter claim is entirely false; as I previously remarked, it is all too easy to harm parts of Nature without harming ourselves, with but negligible impact on ourselves. 21 The word 'axiology' does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But no doubt it means the investigation, study and theory of value or worth, and is thus tantamount to value theory, as contrasted however with deontology. What it means will soon become an issue: see below. 22 Yes, it remains an unduly adversial intellectual game, part of the long Britishscholastic history of philosophy. 54 has taken as a guiding star precisely avoidance of the "axiological route", is the hapless Sylvan; the tenacity with which he sticks to his indefensible account of deep ecology is largely explained through these features (p.52). For explanation of some of the operative abusive terminology we are referred elsewhere, to other writings of Fox. But the source is scarcely more informative, and indeed relevant parts of it have, in any case, been lifted for Fox's Response. 23 The promise of explanation is not fulfilled. 'Ethical reductionism' is, like its successor 'environmental axiological reductionism', explained by Fox on the run, which is to say it is not explained. Nor is the reductionist charge sustained. For what is offered, what 'the vast majority of environmental philosophers' are alleged to do, the pursuit of 'environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental ethics/axiology', may well reflect undue concentration, but it is not reductionism. Fox is decidedly adept in the fallacious business of sliding terms around (otherwise known as Humpty Dumptyism). 'Reductionism' and 'axiology' are not the only terms that suffer at his hands; so, relevant to our purposes, does 'ontology'. At least in the context of his "guiding stars" paper, parts of which are shunted into his Response, Fox uses 'ontology' to mean, not what it does mean, roughly 'the general study of what exists', but very differently, the 'underlying perception of the way things are', which, among other things, epistemologizes what was part of metaphysics. In those terms, 'deep ecology's guiding star ... [which] is (and should be) ... this attempt to shift the primary focus of environmental philosophical concern from ethics to ontology' becomes an epistemological diversion: a regressive attempt to move environmental philosophy to anthropic experiential concerns (Fox 84 p.204 rearranged). It is evident, by the way, who is attempting to do this shifting. If epistemologists focus their efforts on a tiny number of tiny epistemological problems, if logicians discuss only quantificational logic, they cannot be significantly accused of reductionism; they would have 23 While many sorts of recycling are of course commendable, reservations should be held about academic recycling of earlier papers, especially when no improvements are attempted. Fox does at least attempt some "improvements" to get around the obvious objection that deep ecology is itself a normative and hence ethical route; but the adjustments he infiltrates actually make other matters worse. For they consist of the replacement of 'ethical' by 'axiological' or 'environmental axiological' or similar. So now, for instance, the journal Environmental Ethics is charged with reflecting environmental axiological reductionism (p.106); but as examination quickly shows the journal carries much ethical material which is not axiological (e.g. on rights and obligations) - evidently it also carries much that is not reductionistic and even some that concerns philosophy of nature rather than ethics. Fox's charges are without proper foundation. 55 also to claim that is all there is to their enterprise, and to make some attempt to show how the apparent remainder comes down to that. These further necessary conditions are not fulfilled in the case of 'the vast majority of environmental philosophers'; apart from a small minority of philosophers associated with the "ethics without philosophy" idea here is nothing approaching a requisite reduction framework. No doubt there is an axiological reduction program, pursued by consequentalists of various brands, but that is predominantly a program within ethics. As well the long-running naturalistic reduction program grinds on unsuccessfully. But there is no recognisable environmental philosophy reduction program; nor could such a program hope to succeed. There are suitably many counter-instances to Fox's large accusations; among them, conveniently, is that main target, Sylvan, who does not take an "environmental axiological route". In print I have come out against reduction of deontic notions and normative discourse generally to axiological terms; and have, in any case, made it perfectly plain that environmental philosophy comprises much more than ethics, certainly including parts of politics, philosophy of nature, metaphysics and so on. 24 Thus Sylvan, so far from 'criticis[ing] deep ecology on the erroneous basis of it being a position or approach within environmental axiology' (p.101), does not himself take the alleged "environmental axiological route", as the record shows. Rather than rely on my record (a political expedient that should engender but little philosophical enthusiasm), I'm tempted to issue a countercharge: insofar as Sylvan is committed to an "environmental axiological route" so also is (authentic) deep ecology, as elaborated by Naess. Consider, for instance, Naess's elaboration of the deep ecological platform. But in sustaining this counter-charge (the detailed support involves a comparison, made in Bennett and Sylvan, of deep-green theory with authentic deep ecology), we come up once again against the problem of what is meant here by 'axiology'. Unremarkably Fox deploys the fallacious method of redefinition. By 'axiology' and its compounds, Fox both means what is normally meant and also means significantly more. Hardly necessary by now to add, he manages to slide from one to the other. In the normal way, axiology, or value theory, is the philosophical study of virtue and values, 'their meaning, characteristics, origins, types, criteria and epistemological status (p.100, quoting Angeles). 24 So far so good. But now for the first twist and slide. 'In the area of See EP, e.g . p.188, p.222, and several works in the Green series. In the early 70s when there was briefly some glimmer of hope that the Australian National University might interest itself in environmental philosophy, I sketched out a perspective of what it might comprise, which I reproduce as an Appendix (if I can find it!). 56 environmental ethics, the axiological concept of intrinsic value plays a fundamental role. 25 . . . On this understanding, environmental ethics is more accurately described as environmental axiology ... ' (p.100). This is a major non-sequitur. It would almost as well be said that because induction plays a fundamental role in philosophy of science, philosophy of science is more accurately described as induction-theory, and even amounts to induction-theory! Plainly it is quite inaccurately described as induction-theory, since there is much else to philosophy of science; what makes matters still worse is that there are schools which contend that induction drops out as a method and so as a problem. Rather similarly environmental ethics is much more inaccurately redescribed as environmental axiology because, but not only because, there is much more to ethics than axiology, the whole matter of proper conduct for example. For value only impacts on action and proper conduct by way of further principles which are not themselves part of value theory. It is obvious that value theory does not in general exclude what is not (without further ado) a part of it, such as deontic theory, moral epistemology, and so on; but the obvious gets lost sight of, as when Fox assumes that environmental axiology rules out experiential and empathetic procedures. Fox attempts rather more than adjustment and exclusion in his "redescription" of normal environmental ethics as environmental axiology; he has to if his charges against environmental axiology (on the face of it a harmless enough study), and the importance of avoiding it, are to begin to stand up. 25 Fox backs up this claim with themes drawn from Callicott and Regan, with which it is said 'most environmental philosophers would agree', (p.100). Maybe others do; but I doubt that they should, not without significant qualification. Regan states that 'the development of what can properly be called an environmental ethic requires that we postulate inherent value in nature'. Firstly, that is only one way to try to develop an environmental ethic (which may not be deep). There are other feasible starting points and primitives: rights, justice, respects, fairness, empathy, identification, utility, vandalism, evil, and so on, in terms of which value may (or may not) be subsequently be defined (e.g. along lines that tempted former philosophers: what it is fitting/right, for any rational being to prefer/desire). Secondly, the term 'postulate' at best grates, at worst gets the picture seriously wrong: value may not be self-evident, assumed without proof, imposed as a demand, ... . Callicott describes 'the problem of intrinsic value in nature ... as the most critical and most recalitrant theoretical problem of environmental ethics'. That already presupposes that an ethics starts out in Regan's sort of way. Even if a deep ethics does take value as primitive, that is but one problem among several, a problem blown up to critical exaggerated size, primarily by opponents of environmental ethics and infiltrators of the ranks. For other major problems for any ethics, and a more balanced view, see Broad's final chapter. 57 We can glean further information as to what is loaded into the terminology from what Fox tries to do. An environmental axiology is the same as a (formal) environmental axiological position, and that as a formal value theory (pp.40-41; the word 'formal' can be inserted or left out, in Fox it appears to function primarily as a con-term). Such theories, which are "theoretical" and "definite", contain as well as • a value theory, and perhaps also a rights theory (e.g. p.35), both • exact principles, offering specific positional guidance, which are • positively formulated • which apply to all situations, and • a code of conduct, no doubt made up from the principles. 26 Some of Fox's criticisms of environmental axiology turn on these further, and excessively exacting, features he has tried illegitimately to incorporate into axiology. At this stage, there are two main confusions:- first, as to the extent of ethics and moral theory that axiology comprehends, and secondly as to the character of the principles axiology (and, for that matter, deontology and praxis) is supposed to include. A value theory on it own yields neither a rights' theory nor a code of conduct. Even a highly and objectionably reductive theory such as consequentialism requires principles drawn from outside value theory, such as that one ought to act so as to maximize value or utility, in order to arrive at principles of conduct and actionable rights. A value theory may include principles but these are principles concerning value. Like other principles, like those of deontology, they may well not measure up to the excessive standards Fox tries to impose. In particular, the principles may be defeasible, may include or presuppose unspecified and unlistable exceptions; they may include ceteris paribus clauses; and so they may well not apply in all situations. They may fall far short of supplying necessary and/or sufficient conditions; they may not be positively formulated (prohibitions in such forms as 'Don't ... ' are commonplace in ethics); and so on. 26 As well, it seems to be assumed that an axiology, and indeed an Anglo-American ethics, must be atomistic and individualistic; they are but 'means of structuring the interactions of atomistic individuals' (p.112). Not so. It is worth remarking that deep-green theory assumes neither atomism nor individualism (see EP). Nor does it pursue or assume any of the following reductive practices: deontic to axiological, or vice versa; environmental philosophy to environmental ethics, or vice versa; axiological notions to a unique set of primitives, or the single primitive value. As there are several ways to disable a bulldozer, so there are many ways to enable an environmental philosophy: value is but one starting point. 58 7. The "case" against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological approach' (p.82). Among the 'serious problems' encountered are said to be those, now hoary, issues concerning intrinsic value, which Fox tosses up in a substantially shallow way. For most environmental ethicists, it is difficult to see how something can have value in itself (i.e. intrinsic value) if it isn't valuable to itself, and to be valuable to itself it must be able to matter to itself or, in other words, be sentient, by which is meant that it must possess the capacity to suffer (p.73)27_ This contention is at least dubious clause by clause, and overall profoundly mistaken. The critical transformation, for deep environmentalism, is centred on that of value in to valuable to (or of value to). It is difficult to see why any environmental thinker would accede to such a transformation, in itself and to itself being so very different in meaning (e.g. consider them coupled respectively with such terms as conspicuous, unusual, etc.) But, in any event, there are several sorts of evident counter-examples to such transformations. Firstly, there are examples from outside environmental territory such as works of art, intellectual theories, and transcendental metaphysical gems. A beautiful theory or a resplendent form can be intrinsically valuable without being of value to itself, without being able to matter to itself, etc. Secondly, there are examples like rare seed, embryonic valuables, and the like. Thirdly, there are sentient or conscious items of intrinsic value that are not valuable to themselves, and do not matter to themselves, such as great but utterly modest people. There is much else wrong in the connections Fox delivers up 28 , but we can bypass most of them (e.g. sentience does not mean a capacity to suffer, as shown by perceptually aware creatures who do not suffer because they have no pain receptors and the like; nor is sentience required, as consciousness will serve for mattering; and so on). 27 It is hard to credit that someone fronting up as a deep environmental thinker could present such stuff, but of course various reasons can be found. While the argument is very bad, there is no doubt, what is no excuse, that worse can be found. For instance, what is intrinsically valuable is valuable in itself, so it must have a self, so it must be sentient, etc. 28 Fox subsequently announces the 'link between something not mattering to itself ... and the conclusion that we can do as we will with it ... sacred in the Environmental Axiological Orthodox Church of Intrinsic Value' (p.80). It is a Church of his own fabrication, at which no respectable deep environmentalist would worship or even be found. 59 Fox runs straight on to an old paradigm assertion by Frankena, from whom he borrowed the argument, which he again proceeds to ascribe (without any evidence offered or, I suspect, any research basis)to most environmental ethicists 29 : 'I do not see, however, how anything can have intrinsic value except the activities, experiences, and lives of conscious sentient beings (persons, etc.)' (Frankena, quoted p.73). Frankena's assertion, as it stands utterly unsupported, 'is a powerful one', according to Fox, again displaying his shallow proclivities: 'What difference does it make how I treat something if it cannot matter to itself?' (p.78) Big differences, not merely to those in a region for whom it may matter, but in the region, if Fox dams the last wild river in the region, cuts down the last lowland rainforest. Fox tops his astounding move by dignifying this shallow rubbish by the title 'powerful argument'. Its power 'is evidenced by the fact that those who want to say rocks or trees have intrinsic value often do so by pure assertion rather than providing an argument for their view (140)' (p.78). That's no evidence, it's irrelevant; and I wouldn't pursue it, were not such a familiar utterly shallow complaint built into the alleged evidence, and were Sylvan not roped in again in a footnote as 'another case in point' (p.112 note 140). It may come as news to Fox (who seems to have read little of what I have written before he rushed out his Response), but I do provide arguments, including those built on examples like the Last Person and the Last Sentient Creatures, examples which have obtained a fair bit of exposure (for some of these, see e.g. EP pp.121-132; and in fact a general argument can be developed from the semantical analysis of value). The certainties of Frankena's dogmatic assertion can be whittled away, first by separating conscious from sentient (after all many people can now see that animals that are not conscious persons can have intrinsic value), second by assembling marginal cases and analogies in a now familiar way, then by counter-arguments, and so on. But, in any case, insofar as environmental ethicists (as distinct from conventional ethicists) continue to side with Frankena that reveals them as a rather reactionary lot, significantly lagging popular thinking. 30 As Naess and others report, many non-philosophers have no difficulty in recognising value-in-itself outside persons, in living creatures and natural objects. 29 There is evidence that these ascriptions are mere desk-chair speculation, in fact of little value; e.g. at the bottom of p.78 where Fox says, of Frankena's position, 'I think it represents the dominant position within ... environmental axiology'. I suspect that, once again, Fox is not duly separating environmental axiology from conventional axiology. 30 The chauvinism of traditional ethical systems is enough to explain the comparative lack of intellectual interest in such moribund systems, and the resulting much wider search for roots, ideas, etc. There is accordingly no serious puzzle as to the sources of deep environmentalism (pace Fox p.74). 60 In the course of trying to get his attack on the environmental axiological framework airborne Fox resorts to some extraordinary distortion and falsification. The looseleaf insert (page 79), where some disenchanted thinkers make an abrupt unexplained entry, affords a good illustration. First we are told that what those in the business (except no doubt some enlightened deep ecologists) 'typically fail to realise is that the environmental axiological framework of discourse so dominates the discussion of our relationship with the natural world that it is mistakenly taken to be the only possible approach' (p.79). This claim is, it seems to me, roundly refuted by the history of the discussion and some of the literature it encompasses. Among other approaches there are, for instance, extended rights (e.g. Stone), environmental justice (e.g. Wenz), extended interests (e.g. Johnson), and negatively ethical nihilism (e.g. Hinckfuss). Fox continues unabashed: 'In other words [!], the hegemony of the environmental axiological framework is such that it has led almost everybody involved in the ecophilosophical debate to think that we have an obligation to care for something if and only if it "has" intrinsic value' (p.79). There's some prime rubbish for you. The charge is manifestly false, seriously flawed, plucked from thin air, and unnecessary except for Fox's misguided mission. Even if an axiological approach were the only approach, no such obligation-to-care principles would follow, and certainly not principles as dubious or refutable as those given. The if -half of the unabashed claim is at, the very, least dubious and would be rejected on some popular positions: suppose, for instance that the intrinsic value of the thing is small, or that it is overridden by the intrinsic value of some competitor for our attention. The only-if-half (which wins Fox's italics, he is going to make much of it) would be rejected by almost everyone who thought about the matter, because of course obligations apply to what has merely instrumental value. If I have borrowed a friend's tools then I have an obligation to care for them though these tools have no intrinsic value. Differently, I am under obligations to behave generally in certain sorts of ways whether the things encountered have intrinsic value or not; accordingly I'm not entitled to treat them any old way (e.g. to vandalise them) or even as I will or, more ambiguously, as I 'see fit'. Combining the pernicious principles Fox has unearthed yields the following ridiculous result: if a thing has no value to itself, for instance has ceased to be of value to itself, then we have no obligation to care for it, we can do what we like with it. The applications of this result are remarkable. There is no doubt that Fox has thereby provided a simple - if appalling - solutions to such major social problems as those of drug and alcohol abuse; victims who are so far down the track that they have ceased to be of value to themselves, can simply be vanished, or dealt with in whatever other way we find convenient. Then too human slavery and sacrifice, never entirely vanquished, could be widely reinstated: Oh brave new world that Fox has lead us into! 61 Fox tries to make a lot out of these odious obligation-to-care principles he has attempted to foist upon environmental axiology. He suggests they indicate the need to abandon rather than broaden the notion of intrinsic value; he suggests they may 'reflect the inherent limitations of the environmental axiological approach' (p.79); he suggests that we need to find instead 'another framework of discourse that can articulate' our feelings about what we ought to care about. This alternative framework - from the many and various that might have been selected - is none other than the wider self identification framework. The obvious course, which should be pursued anyway, of seeking an obligation-to-care principle that does measure up better to our emotional presentations, does not seem to have occurred to Fox, so preoccupied is he with attacking what he sees as "the environmental axiological route" and getting to self immersion. Finally, Fox runs out some examples which are supposed to show the repugnant conclusions to which the axiological approach leads. Unfortunately for Fox's case, the arguments involved do not succeed without further assumptions beyond those Fox enumerates, assumptions smarter adherents of an axiological approach do not make. The examples involve comparisons of groups of individuals, which, it is alleged, exponents of intrinsic value cannot discriminate, though the group situations are very different. One example runs as follows: ' ... the loss, by human interference at least, of the last members of a species ... is somehow "worse" than the loss by human interference of an equivalent number from an abundant species ... . Yet, in terms of intrinsic value, those losses are equivalent since the same "amount" is lost in both cases' (p.80). Fox then argues against more holistic assignments of value on the basis of another dogmatic pronouncement from 'Frankena that communities (such as species ... ) do not "have intrinsic value over and above that contained in ... [their] members"' .31 But he goes on to assert that, irrespective of Frankena's position, 'the point ... applies generally to any atomistic environmental axiological position i.e. to any position that sees intrinsic value as exclusively adhering in or attaching to individual entities' (p.81). Fox is dead wrong. The case assumes, without warrant or mention, equality of the value adhering or assigned to individuals. Plainly the loss of the last members of the species is worse (where it is, e.g. the species is not a diabolical laboratory concoction) because the members of the species are individually more valuable than those of the abundant species. Consider, for comparison, the razing by fire of 31 Fox's second example actually contains the elements of an interesting argument (perhaps, to be uncharitable, the only example in his whole Response). This example, of monoculture vs diversity (p.81), does introduce, if not much of holism, at least relational features of the individuals assembled. There is no reason, of course, why axiology should not take account of those features. Contrary to Fox, there is no need to 'separately posit' that the principle of diversity is 'valuable in and of itself' (p.82). 62 two art galleries containing the same numbers of individual art works, one containing rare art works, the other containing selections from the abundant works of relatively indifferent crafters. The amount, assessed in monetary value even, lost in the first fire is much greater, and so the loss much worse, than in the second fire. Fox not only proceeds to state what his examples would show without due qualification. But he goes on, quite inadmissibly, to general claims which leave off even the qualifications he had earlier introduced (thus later on, p.82, he drops the essential restriction to atomistic positions). Environmental axiology accordingly emerges substantially unscathed; it does not need to be replaced by something else, such as wider identification, only rendered smarter, and supplemented or merged into a fuller environmental philosophy. 8. Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification. But Wes tern deep ecology is now bent upon replacement. Devall, for example, now maintains that 'the unique contribution that deep ecology makes to ecophilosophy is its emphasis on ecological self and affirmation. Subscribing to similar ideas Fox has suggested changing the label "deep ecology" to "transpersonal ecology".' Devall (in 89 again) has deep ecology as, above all, discovering 'an aspect of our self' which has been culturally neglected. Such a reorientation is significantly at variance with Naess's introduction and initial elaboration of deep ecology; for his original summary (in 73) of deep ecology, which is ecologically focussed, contains no allusion to self, ecological or other. It is also at variance with Devall and Sessions of but three years earlier, where nature, ecology and biological systems still appeared fundamental to deep ecology, these entering through the other ultimate norm (besides Self-realisation) of deep ecology, that of biocentric equality (see their p.66). As it happens, Devall, by contrast with Fox, vacillates between a more authentic deep ecology in the style ofNaess (chapter 1 of Devall 89) and the Western variant of transparent ecology (e.g. pp.39-57), which would displace the original theory. There is much speaking with many tongues, much inconsistency, in deep ecology. We have already witnessed such deep ecology doubletalk in the matter of value and the status of ethics. We see it again with transpersonal or expanded-self identification. We only enter 'the real territory of deep ecology' according to Fox (p.53ff.) with such expanded identification. Yet one can be a deep ecologist, much literature explains, without any identification efforts at all (for example by adopting the platform which does not mention identification). So one can be a deep ecologist without ever 'entering deep ecological territory'. Deep ecology without deep ecology - another wonder, or just more double talk? Like Fox's parting flourish: there are sketch maps for deep ecological territory (p.89), yet it is 'ultimately mapless' (see Devall 89 p.39). 63 Fox tries to explain "the search" of deep ecology 'for such things as "ecological consciousness" (Devall and Sessions) and "Self-realisation" (Naess)' through expanded identification. Most conveniently he can take ready-made from Devall and Sessions reductive explications:- 'Ecological consciousness is the result of a psychological expansion of the narrowly encapsulated sense of self as isolated ego, through identification with all humans (species chauvinism), to finally an awareness of the identification and interpenetration of self with ecosystem and biosphere' (Sessions, quoted pp.53-4). 'The essence of ecological consciousness ... [is] to overcome this illusory dichotomy [between Humans and N ature 32 ]' for which 'the important task is ... the psychological development from narrow egotistical "self' to identification with the whole' (Devall as quoted p.53). But, once again, it is one thing to have on authority such explication; it is quite another thing whether such reductions work. I submit that they do not, for the simple reason that ecological consciousness may be had or attained without any such self expansion developments. Consider, first, Professor Flatpan who is a devoted but unimaginative ecological field worker. All his practice, behaviour and so on, shows him as utterly committed to ecological causes, preservation of wilderness and so on, and fully conscious of its importance. But he makes no identification of himself with what he works with or for. It may be that he is some sort of empirical separatist; or it may not. Perhaps he even rejects identification suggestions when they are put to him, e.g. on grounds of hubris, nonsense, ... , or he simply doesn't identify, etc. In Professor Flatpan and his variants we seem to have a tribe of people with strong ecological consciousness and affiliations but without identification. Consider next, the interesting Wombat tribe, superb in their tribal treatment of their environment, who have not developed the notion of self or, for that matter, that of identification. The tribe exhibits a high ecological consciousness (in our ordinary understanding of that non-technical notion, in terms of a strong perception or awareness of environmental matters) but lacks even the conceptual apparatus for self expansion developments. Expanded identity or self developments may serve as useful or powerful tactics for raising ecological consciousness in people raised and hooked on a narrow self-interested self, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for explaining or understanding ecological consc10usness. Analogous points apply against the attempt to drag Self-realisation into the picture. 32 Naess, in a regressive move, now asserts that humans are unique (e.g. in 89), whence the dichotomy ceases to be illusory. More inconsistency. 64 There are in fact at least three separable notions which deep ecology has tended to fuse: ecological consciousness, widened identification and wider Self-realisation. Confusion is made so much the easier because those notions are, for the most part, not decently introduced. The whole deep ecological theory of expanded identification and Self remains exceedingly poorly explained (thus e.g. identification in Fox, esp. p.60; dimensions of Self, p.83). As ecological consciousness has already been distinguished, it remains to begin on unscrambling identification and self-realisation, and therewith the many senses of self In the first place, identification is independent of self, its manifestation or "realisation", at least to this extent: that discourse concerning identification can be explained and can proceed satisfactorily without any introduction of or notion of selves. A theory may well include identification, and even expanded identification with remote items, without selves or expanded selves. Early Taoism appears to illustrate the point well. Differently, an ontologically modest account of acting can afford a good example of how identification can operate without persona or selves. In fact, a case can be argued that such theories proceed better in this fashion, because they avoid problematic commitments to selves. It may look as if Fox, following Naess and Wilber, can escape these problems, and separation, simply by defining 'self' through identification (and perhaps conversely): 'succinctly: Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.54). There are serious obstacles to such a stratagem. d Elsewhere Fox makes quite a fuss about ontological commitments; on the matter of cluttering up the universe with Selves he is strangely silent. Yet there are rather a lot of these strange selves. Assuming selves do not reproduce themselves, in a universe where there are n objects, and so 2n -1 complexes, and m individuals with selves (with m << n), there are, at first estimate, m x (2n -1) larger selves. Of course some of these larger selves may be the same, nonetheless the number of selves is huge where n is large. Moreover, if a person can identify with nonexistent, with Sherlock Holmes or Pegasus or Satan if not with the form of the Good and the set of all sets, then the numbers shoot right up, into the big infinities. Yet nothing is more common in this arena than for people to identify with fictional objects, of books, TV and so on. Indeed the art of acting depends heavily upon it. A character actor works to identify with the character being portrayed; a good actor enjoys more success in this identification enterprise. d It does not in any case evade ontic issues, because the definition requires that which abstraction which a modest theory would not have generally available. d There are questions as to the adequacy of such an explicative definition of self: whether, for example, it answers duly to prevailing senses of 'self'. The proposal does not. Consider, to bring out just one deficiency, two different but closely integrated creatures, 65 Arthur and Martha say, who identify with the same class of items including themselves and each other. Then on the Naess-Fox definition, it follows, counter-intuitively, that Arthur's Self = Martha's Self, though Arthur @ Martha. Part of what has gone wrong is evident from recent philosophical investigations, namely that the first person point of view, crucial to such items as a self or a spirit or a soul or an ego, has got omitted; a widened self involves some sort of (concentric) expansion from, or focused upon, a first-person self. 33 Normally in religious settings, it is furthermore expansion outwards from an inner personal locus by restrictive identification or selective identification (as Wilber has it), not arbitrary identification. 9. Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the issue of evil. Restrictive practices can remove a serious problem for identification theory, the problem of evil identifications, but they raise an equally serious problem, how the re intrusion of value is to be avoided. Fox is vaguely aware that 'the concept of intrinsic worth' may intrude in discussions of Self-realisation. But he assumes, much too facilely, that it can be simply removed (p.56). Devall's later writings should have alerted him to the problems of those who identify with anti-environmental objects or causes, such as beach buggies, symbols of power like bulldozers or tanks , or sand mining opportunities. Identification is not always with the good, with good guys or good causes, as selective deep ecology examples invariably suggest (e.g. p.60, with sea turtles, tigers and gibbons). Spinoza, one of the progenitors of the theory, avoided the problem of evil attachments and causes by envisaging primarily identification with Nature or God, assumed ipso facto to be good. But Naess and Sessions allow for a much wider range of identifications, with the whole human race, which may overall be evil (for all that conventional ethics assert), or with undoubtedly evil human groups or organisations (e.g. the German S.S. or the Mafia). Such expanded identification is hardly to be recommended or encouraged. 33 The person touch is too narrow, unless animals are persons. For there appear to be no serious difficulties in ascribing selves to animals. Of course, if consciousness (or circularly self-consciousness) is written into the notion of self, as with some of the dictionary senses, then selves will be restricted to those animals that enjoy consciousness, a quite extensive class overlapping humans. In a different sense, tied to an original meaning of 'self as same, or one and the same used esp. prepositionally in referring back, there is no difficulty in ascribing selves much more widely. Thus we naturally say of a forest, 'It looks after itself', of an automata or even boomerang, 'It came back itself'. The broad philosophical sense (first part of sense 3 in OED) in terms of individual essences, what a thing really and intrinsically is, haecceity, certainly admits selves for forests! 66 There are criticisms, yet to be answered (though initiated in my Critique), that the "widened identification route" introduces virtually as many problems as it would resolve, and that it cannot proceed independently of what it is supposed to offer an alternative to (p.53), the pernicious "environmental axiological route". In a passage quoted from Seed part of the problem is glimpsed, though Fox who emphasizes the relevant passage fails to observe it: 'It is only by identification with the whole process that correct values will emerge' (p.63). Why? Because, as in Spinoza, "the whole process" is assumed Good, while anything less may not be; a distribution of value is presupposed. How furthermore does a disciple ensure that a proper totalising identification is made? By confirming that correct values do emerge. In brief, then, identification theory is no substitute for valuation theory, but an addition to it. Moreover, it is not an entirely essential addition, however psychologically useful. With the reintrusion of value or the like, the acclaimed superiority of the wider identification approach over the environmental axiological approach lapses. The claim, for which Fox offers initial but unpersuasive defence (p.77 on), is based on another mistake: the mistake, already observed, of thinking that value theory excludes identification. But it need not: selective identification can complement intrinsic value. Very selective identification reveals as well how a theory of heightened Self can be substantially independent of widened (unrestrictive) identification. In showing independence Hinduism, as sometimes presented (e.g. by Smith), affords an admirable example. Hinduism supposes a diminution or deepening of the self to the underlying Self, a route of self-abnegation; but that is taken to be equivalent, by inversion, to a unique expansion of self to approximate a God's eye viewpoint (of things sub specie aeternitas ). 34 34 Whereas Western approaches aim to enlarge the self - as with stock aggrandizement, or Western deep ecology expansion - Indian approaches are concerned primarily with contracting upon the self, to reduce individual expectations, aspirations, wants (to nothing on some accounts). For a resolution of life with disappointments, the (negative) suggestion is: 'if the ego were to have no expectations, there would then be nothing to disappoint' (Smith p.26). But interestingly, there is supposed to be a positive inversion of self abnegation which turns it into self expansion. Expand 'the interests of the self ... to the point of approximating a God's-eye view .. . . Seeing, thus, all things "under the aspect of eternity", would not one become completely objective towards oneself, accepting failure as being as natural an occurrence as success ... . How can defeat disappoint if one feels the joy of the victor as if it were one's own?' (p.26). 'Detachment from the finite self or attachment to reality as a whole ... positive or negative ... ' (p.27). One path to God, to oneness with the Godhead (Brahman), that through knowledge, jnana yoga, strikingly resembles Western deep ecology in some of its features and terminology. The 'Yoga of knowledge is said to be the shortest path to divine realisation (to God). It is also the steepest' (p.35). For intellectuals, introverts and the like 'Hinduism proposes a series of meditations and logical demonstrations 67 While Hinduism does also make room for expansions of selves through time, so as to 'rise above the present and even above present lifespans' (p.28) these expansions are tied to lifelines of single creatures (perhaps as reincarnated). There is no technical provision for unlimited wider identification, for instance identification with inanimate items, with a motorcycle or nuclear reactor. Thus Hinduism can serve to show the independence of unrestrictive expanded identification from self-Self theories. Evidently, too, variations on self-Self (e.g. with more ascetic theories of big Self) can strengthen this result. designed to convince the thinker that there is more to him than his finite self; ... [to] shift his central concern to the deeper reaches of his being ... the larger self that lies behind ... ' (p.33). One 'must pierce and dissolve the innumerable layers of manifest personality until all strata of the mask [all roles of the persona] are at length cut through, [to] arrive finally at the anonymous and strangely unconcerned actor [Atman] who stands beneath. The distinction between self and Self can come through another image' (p.34) however than that of the removal of roles and personae; thus there is the image of the game of life upon a chess-board and the image of the charioteer. Through exercise with such images and such practices it is claimed that a practitioner can 'build up a lively sense of an abiding Self that underlies his phenomenal personality' (p.34). The further 'step consists in shifting his self-identification from the passing to the eternal part of his being. The most direct way of doing this ... is simply to [contemplate] one's identity with the Eternal Spirit ... ' (p.35). Of course analogous self-improvement, self-abnegation and self-expansive elements feature in other religions than Indian, where they were especially early and conspicuous. In Zen, for instance, 'the dualisms of self and object, of self and other, are transcended' (p.134). In Christianity too, the circle of self can be broken, and release experienced from the cramping confines of ego (Smith again, p.280). Analogous elements made their way into Western philosophies, such as that of Spinoza, early romanticism (e.g. Schegel), German idealism and T.H. Green, and directly or indirectly into Western deep ecology (Fox, p.57). As Marxism is sometimes seen, crudely, as obtained by upending Hegelianism and replacing God by Man, so transpersonal ecology can be regarded as similarly varying elements of Hinduism, replacing God by Nature (rather than identifying them as in Spinoza). Ideological tradition does not however point uniformly in one direction, with self elevation as invariant. According to Buddhism, here too more enlightened than alternatives, that is a wrong direction. 'Strong emotions, however lofty [including those of ecological consciousness], tend to emphasize and strengthen the fatal illusion of the ego, which it is the whole aim and purpose of religion to transcend'. For the 'idea of a Self is at the root of every evil passion (and through its action Salvation becomes impossible)' (both quoted in Perrett, p.72). Instead Buddhism offers the tantalizing doctrine of "no self', which at least denies the existence of a substantial self. Further there is allusion to "'the two kinds of non-self': that means there is no ego in humans and no Self in Nature'. 68 Features of Hinduism also show up deficiencies in the Western Enlightenmentsponsored objective of Self-realisation. These include the already remarked problem of evil, which afflicts unrestricted Self-realisation in much the way it plagues closely related hedonism (often a main goal of Self-realisation, and out of an adjacent intellectual stable). To avoid promotion of evil and the like, ethical or similar controls need to be inserted. It should be realisation of an ethical Self, just as elsewhere it should be ethical happiness and ethical profit, not happiness and profit at the expense of other creatures or the Earth. There is worse to come. For there is a scurrilous bigger-is-better element to big Self expansion and realisation, and to often announced, but thoroughly dubious, goals of maximization. Without ethical constraints, the supreme goal of ecosophy, of maximizing Self-realisation, can be decidedly anti-environmental, as too many maximizers proceed to aggrandize themselves, maximize their consumption, or their identification with false chauvinistic Gods, or their dominance, and so on. Such maximal Self-realisation is evidently antithetical to deep environmentalism, which like high-path Hinduism and Taoism, is opposed to selfelevation and self-aggrandizement, especially in material consumption, and favours some self-restraint, self-effacement, self-domination, even selflessness and self-abnegation. But such unconstrained maximization is also in conflict with other features of ecosophy, such as simplicity of, and restraint in, material means, implying a certain Self-contraction. In brief, unrefined ecosophy is liable to be inconsistent. 10. Deconstruction and reselection of self. The problems run deeper however. The theory of expanded self and Self-realisation has ecologically defective starting points: it takes as given what should be investigated and rejected. For instance, Naess simply assumes that the process of heightened Self-realisation starts with the 'development of the narrow ego of the small [Western] child into the comprehensive structure of a Self which comprises all human beings' (quoted p.55; egoism is also assumed p.64 ). Of course deep ecology aims to induce a further development, beyond the anthropic limitations of standard trans personal psychology, 'a deep identification of individuals with all of life' (p.55 again). 35 While it is plain enough that ego is a theoretical notion, elaborated especially by Freud, it is less plain that self too is a folk-theoretic term of certain folk cultures, and it is quite insufficiently appreciated that narrow egos and individual selves are not culturally independent items (artifacts some would now say), but are acquired concepts, 35 Both developments parallel ascents in Hinduism, of upward path of "renunciation", to third (service to human communities) and fourth life-objectives. 69 chauvinistically learnt early in civilised life. Perhaps because individual selves are so deeply entrenched, especially in Westerners' impressions of themselves, a clever practical and ideological course is no doubt the encouragement of expanded egoism, self stretching exercises and empathy. But a deeper philosophical approach would investigate the notions of ego and selftheir history, development, entrenchment, arbitrariness, and dispensibility - rather than take them substantially for granted. In dissolving egoism, it is wise not to concede it at the outset. It, and the intertwined notions of self-interest, and self-ish-ness, should be taken apart to begin with, both analytically and historically. There are of course two parts to the unmasking and dethroning of self-interest: dealing with interest and dealing with self A historical investigation of the rise of the modern theory of self, done in the style of Foucault, might serve to show how arbitrary in crucial respects the notion now rigorously adhered to in social theory happens to be, and how developments could have been different. But even if such an investigation should run aground (e.g. because the notion, although not present in all tribal peoples, reaches back to prehistory), a systematic investigation need not get stuck. The notion of self-interest, and also expanded self interest in the form of group or class interest, has already been taken apart, from the angle of interest, and found wanting as an ethical starting point (see esp. our 79). A complementary investigation of self, standard theories of which should certainly not be conceded, is now required. 36 Some realisation of the problematic character of the notion of self is in fact disclosed in Naess's much earlier investigations, but he does not apply it to the familiar Enlightenment ideal of self-realisation which he takes over as foundation of his own ecosophy, and so of deep ecology as he conceives it. Instead of requisite critical and de( con)structive investigation of the notion of self, resulting in its demotion, what we are witnessing in too much deeper environmental philosophy, is an elevation of the notion and an attempt to focus and found much theory upon it (as esp. in Fox). It is reminiscent of, and related to, the earlier failed attempt to found much theory, including ethics (or a replacement for it), on the notion of person.3 7 36 My impression is that several such investigations are now under way. For discussion and elaboration of earlier investigations, which glimpse some of the requisite points, see Perrett. Our own previous investigations, particularly of the interests and needs of oneself and their interrelations and overlap with those of others (and accordingly the falseness of the egoism-altruism contrast) in 79 and EP, go some small way along the requisite path. 37 Thus, for instance, Strawson in metaphysics, and Benn in moral sciences, both elaborating on Kantian illusions. 70 Indeed those routes are significantly interlinked and offer similar beginnings; for instance, a personality comprises certain roles into which a self, oneself, is cast. In important respects, self amounts to person somewhat deanthropocized. It also suffers similar defects. Neither is sufficiently explained (e.g. what are the existence conditions, the identity conditions, the distinctive properties); neither is up to carrying the heavy theoretical load aficionados have attempted to impose upon them. In particular, neither enables an independent characterisation of central axiologic or deontic notions or other notions bound up with the regulation of conduct which they would somehow displace and to some extent provide new foundations for. Furthermore it appears that the notion of self is not, and cannot be, sufficiently deanthropicized, short of distributing selves around in woods, springs and mountains in the way pagan religions did with spirits (and then letting them be good and evil, and so forth). Undue concentration upon selves has the unfortunate and retrograde effect of swinging environmental philosophy away from deepened ecology and back to agents and actors, the live active subcomponents within ecologies. unacknowledged return to shallower waters. It signals an Because self, however dispensible in environmental philosophy, is integral to Wes tern deep ecology, it behoves us to say something about it, something more than deep ecology has said. Self is a folk-theoretic object of philosophical cast, though no doubt an item with experiential linkage, for instance as a permanent substratum of a certain range of successive (internal) states and experiences, or, without a substance, as a bundle or stringing together of a succession of 'personal' experiences. 38 It is an item, almost an objectification, whose features (which may vary with underlying theory) are primarily supplied through a culturally-dependent theory or the like (e.g. a religious or cult theory). In this regard it is like other typically psychological items of philosophical importance, such as soul (with which it is sometimes identified), spirit, mental substance, mind, psyche, person, personal essence, ego, life force, conatus, etc. In due course a now standard range of philosophical theories gets invoked to account for, or discount, such items: realisms, constructivisms, nominalisms, etc., with dominant scientific ideology committed to a dismissive nominalism. A fashionable humanist opposition has, by contrast, become enamoured of a flamboyant constructivism: selves are made, fabricated, and the like. By contrast again Western deep ecology appears committed to realism, and therewith an 38 While the experiences, such as surges of desire or apprehension, are subjectively empirical enough, the substratum or self-substance may not be. To put it in Humean terms, when I look within I don't find a self just like that (how a sceptical Hume managed to still eludes me). Self itself, like cause, though empirically grounded, is not an "empirical" concept. 71 incredible ontology of selves (already castigated). None of these standard mass-produced positions impresses as at all satisfactory (for reasons elaborated in JB ). For example, scientific nominalism inexcusably leaves out lots of experience, life-forms, and much richness (whereas for its own "legitimate" theoretical purposes it is prepared to introduce all sorts of strange objects). For constructivism there are so far unsurmounted difficulties in getting beyond the analogy: exhibiting the materials and explaining just how they are assembled. While not averse to phrases like 'the fabrication of self', it needs to be remembered that the fabrications are more like those of fiction. Insensitive realism is different; there is sound reason to remain entirely sceptical about an intuitive ontology of selves, especially when a good empathesizer may have numerous different existent selves. I can see little excuse for (being taken in by) such ontological blow outs. Item-theory offers an appealing alternative to these standard positions generally, and therewith very different prospects for self. An item-theoretic account of self will resemble that already offered for mind (in MX); analogous item-theoretic accounts can no doubt be given for spirit, psyche and ego (and also spook, shade, spectre, ghost, etc.). Minds are fairly satisfactory folk-theoretic items which do not exist; ghosts, whether in machines or not, are decidedly less satisfactory inexistential items. Selves are different inexistential items again, with different features; many subjects which do not have minds may have selves. The difficult part of the business consists in explaining whic~ items selves are, a business that is complicated because there are several somewhat different but interconnected notions of self in circulation. Fortunately these can all be accounted for as restrictions in one way or another- temporal, cultural, subject-discipline - of a total self. The total self of a subject abstracts from the total set of features which contribute to the self or personality of that subject, from everything that makes it selfwise what it is (whether supplied by local cultures or not, both supplied internally and not), over the life-span of the subject. For some subjects with richer psychic lives, these features will include states of consciousness (and then the total self will properly include ego, the conscious self). Thus a total self is, if you like, what distinguishes a subject, makes it what it is and so gives its abiding essence (and id-entity), and so resolves issues of personal identity over times. 39 What the relevant features are will become clearer as we come to the usual restrictions. A first set of restrictions are temporal restrictions, a second set aspect restrictions. These are combined in the OED sense 39 This account sharpens and much elaborates the senses which the dictionaries list as philosophical, e.g. OED sense 3. The inexistential account offered shares common ground with the Buddhist "no self' theory when presented as denying the real existence of a self. 72 '4.a. What one is at a particular time or in a particular aspect or relation; one's nature, character, or (sometimes) physical constitution or appearance, considered as different at different times. Chiefly with qualifying adj.' So, for example, Dobbin's total self restricted to time period t1 differs from his total self restricted to t2 at which period he is old and mentally decrepit. A main aspect restriction, very commonly imposed, is to psychically-relevant features, excluding merely bodily features. Differently, a total self, especially a total psychic self, of a subject may be partitioned into such selves, whence sense 4 b of OED. '4. b. An assemblage of characteristics and dispositions which may be conceived as constituting one of various conflicting personalities within a human being. Better self: the better part of one's nature.' Among the topic, or subject-discipline, restricted selves those of economics and social sciences are nowadays particularly prominent. A broad economic self, for instance, is a psychic self confined to an individual and restricted to its locus of wants, preferences, desires, interests, needs, aspirations, goals, etc. (Of course some of the volitional features can be explained in terms of others; in older faculty discourse, it coincides with the individual will.) With a narrow economic self, that of mainstream economics, the broad economic self is narrowed considerably to remove all volitional features stretching beyond those of a present human. Thus interests, for instance, are restricted to selfish interests, those of the human concerned, to exclude both altruistic interests (those of relevance to other items and typically against a creature's own selfish interests) and, more important, other-directed and higher-order interests (such as a's interest is that Ws interest be fulfilled, a's concern for~' etc.) 40 This narrow self tightens up a further dictionary sense, namely OED '5. One's personal welfare and interests as an object of concern; chiefly in a bad sense, selfish or self-interested motives ... '. The tightened-up restrictive notion lies at the base of most modern social science. It is characteristically coupled with the Hobbesian theme, according to which all motivation reduces to that of narrow economic selves, effectively self-interest. Such psychological egoism, that nothing can move a creature to action or decision except interests and like experiences of its own self, was assumed by Spinoza, who proposed absorbing this 40 These points are much further explained in 79 and EP. Other selves, such as altruistic selves and self-effacing selves, deploy quite different obverse restrictions, eliminating local selfish interests. 73 excessively narrow self in a generous Nature (p.57). Deep ecology has attempted to expand this sorry route (p.54), which starts out from a dominant paradigm mistake. 41 11. More troubles with Self as foundation. The big trouble is that an expanded Hobbesian picture, with expanded-self interest as the only fundamental motive, presupposes the essential correctness of Hobbes' crude theme - all that Hobbes really got wrong was the 'size' of one's self - but that is a fundamental mistake. It is a mistake as fundamental as the conflicting crude motivational theme that the only basic motive of business enterpreneurs is [self-]profit. It is a mistake of the same cast as the pervasive idea that conventional ethics can be rendered environmentally adequate just by expansion of those it applies to (expansion of the "community", or of a suitable base class of parties with interests, sentience, etc.) - what is often now called 'moral extensionism' 42 . As empirical evidence tells, prima facie decisively, against intertwined Hobbesian and entrepreneurial economic motivational theory - an extraordinarily convenient, and not "rationally" abandoned, theory for contemporary power elites - two substantially successful theory-saving strategies swing into action: • a sustained propaganda campaign to align people's motives with the theory, conducted through advertising, education and other mass channels of persuasion; • a sustained reduction campaign by subservient intellectuals to show that all apparently exceptional motives actually conform to the motivational theory. At the same time, minorities (such as pre-industrial peoples) whose motives do not conform to the established/ment theory are of course discounted. This seriously flawed anti-environmental theory should be resisted and replaced, not just extended. For the only basic and legitimate motives and interests are not merely those of self (whether expanded in a futile attempt to encapture other or not). One distinct motive is, to put it in old-fashioned Kantian terms though the example is not Kantian, that of duty, duty for instance to this Earth, duty which is neither self-regarding or necessarily Self-regarding or, in any ordinary sense, otherregarding. 41 The chauvinistic expansion of self and person is sometimes carried to remarkable lengths, as revealed by Shepard: 'we must affirm that the world is being a part of our own body'. 42 For further explanation and criticism of this expansion, see EP. At least Fox does Sylvan the "favour" of distancing him from the most famous exponent of such extensionism, Leopold, whom he tries to push into the wider identification and wider Self fold (p.64). 74 A third complementary strategy renders the theory normative: while agents may act, or appear to act, on non-self-interested motives, it is only rational to act according to one's ongoing self-interest. (While we shall focus upon a strong version of the normative egoistic theme, that it is only rational to act in one's own self-interest, including one's future self, much of what is said counts against weaker forms of the theme according to which it is in some way preeminently reasonable to act in one's own on-going self-interest.) This normative assumption depends crucially however upon a specially-tailored theory of self- a substantial underlying self that suitably integrates all one's interests and concerns, past, present and future. Without such an account the peculiar self-evidence normative egoism is presented as enjoying, and upon which it depends as an unargued rest position, begins to fall away. Suppose instead a self or person is represented as a sequence of causally connected experiential moments (e.g. momentary selves, of a person). Unfortunately then, for normative egoism, it ceases to be evident to many presently placed selves that there are special specially-valid reasons for only being concerned with future elements of one particular sequence rather than another, to which one's present self may not belong; for promoting the interests of this future momentary self rather than some other more congenial one, perhaps in another sequence. 43 Indeed it is evident that reasons for action are not confined to those intermalised to the interests of one future self rather than another, one my or thou or it (say) rather than another; that reasons can and do operate beyond interests, as when directed at the futures of forests or fens, and beyond selves and their extensions and variants such as I's and Thou's and You's, as when arguing for deep environmental action. Nor is there cogent reason for trying to curtail reasons to what answers to a bad, if deeply incalcated, theory, a pernicious and damaging, if widely promoted, theory and sense of self joined to chauvinistic bodily consumption and advancement. A more generous itemtheoretic theory of total self can expose this theoretical fraud, allowing for a full flowering of reasons for action; it thus diffuses the narrow greedy self of Hobbesian theory. Expanded Hobbesian is assumed in deep ecological Ego-tripping (pp. 65-66) and in 'the theme of ecological resistance as Self-defence', that resisting ecological depredation is defending oneSelf, because the whales or forests are me; it is me that is being injured (p.61). Such expanded Hobbesian is even less plausible than Hobbesianism itself - among other things because you can go on, to become other You's even after You as the forest has been destroyed. Be sure I do not deplore, but welcome worthwhile ecological resistance 43 On all these points see further Perrett, esp. p.72. Perrett explains how the regularly assumed opposition between egoism and altruism depends on particular assumptions about the nature of self, and breaks down when, as in buddhist ethics with its doctrine of no-self, these assumptions get removed. 75 whether conducted as Self-defence, or not; good works, even if undertaken for self-ish or distorted or ridiculous motives, are not to be disparaged. Nor similarly should the help of campaigners whose motives have been distorted by propaganda systems be disparaged because those campaigners are engaged on dubious or bizarre bases, such as that they are defending themselves rather than something else that deserves their care, concern and respect. What should be resisted are the twin ideas that these are the wholesome motives or the only [rational] motives, and that quality of motivation does not affect goodness of act. The main trouble then with the wild Western approach so advanced under Self-interest is that, like Hobbesianism but on an expanded scale, it would reduce or suppress all other motivation. In many ways, it has not really got beyond bad "old paradigm" thinking, but merely bizarrely extended it. 12. Liquidating Fox's "deep ecological territory". The success Fox imagines expanded-Self is going to have in the environmental struggle arena, a success far surpassing that environmental ethics is likely to have (p.84), is premissed on this faulty expanded Hobbesianism theory. It is not based on monitored field experience. In the action field, where some Western deep ecologists are seldom seen, identification techniques, far from admirably shifting the onus of proof (a dubious claim also advanced on p.84 ), are likely to be greeted with amazement and disbelief: what is this crap? It is not very long ago that people who thought they were tigers or trees were locked away, or else regarded, like the man who identified his wife as a hat, as figures of fun not to be taken seriously. Such motivation is likely to be taken, and presented, by a hostile and backwards opposition as crazy. Furthermore, such defences can back-fire. Identification with a rainforest, for instance, because symmetrical, does not guarantee defence of its needs as one's own, as against one's own needs as its. A powerful bunch of developers and bureaucrats who identify with the forest may take their needs, for timber profits and tourist revenues, as its, and interfere with it accordingly. Identification, on its own, admits disastrous reversal. Expanded Selves can be dubious allies in environmental struggles. It is fortunate then that for almost all environmental purposes, including those of deep environmental philosophy, the notion of self can drop out; selves are inessential. While 76 decent theories of self and self-Self can presumably be worked out44 , and Self tried out as sole primitive, the theory so far, and with it (Western) deep ecological theory in present form remains both a shambles and an embarrassment. It is bad news then, given the abysmal shape of the deep ecological theory of self, that deep ecology should contract, at least on Fox's continuing vision, to a theory of self (see also 89). On this presentation much of authentic deep ecology is thrown away. The deep ecological framework comes down to 'two basic hypotheses and on ultimate norm', all of which revolve around Self (pp.86-7): it is Self, Self and Self, nothing but Self. And it has nothing essentially to do with the environment. For Self does not provide the great new (or shabby old) starting point to environmental philosophy that Fox imagines. To elaborate:One "hypothesis", already criticised, is that 'Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.86, the pluralisation is interesting, e.g. a vintage car club has a group Self which includes their cars and perhaps others they covet); the other, not previously encountered, is that 'the self can and does grow/develop/mature ... over time' (p.17). That hypothesis is presumably false; for selves, like plants, may decline, wither or die. Or don't ecological selves wither and die? 'The norm is that the ideal state of being is one that sustains the evident (and deepest) possible identification and, hence, sense of Self'. It seems to be assumed that the ideal state, identified in the "norm", ought to be striven for (though it is hard to see why: it involves much unpleasant, embarrassing or boring identification work, etc.). There are accordingly covert principles of conduct, such as striving towards the norm and undertaking the "real spiritual work" of deep ecology, and covert values, such as that of the (so-called) ideal state, lurking at the bottom of Wes tern deep ecology; it too hides, even in its reduced form, a condemned "axiology" and ethics. But not environmental ones; the norm could have issued from a deviant Hinduism, without environmental commitments, concerned above all with introverted cultivation of self. Although Fox says the 'ideal state of being is referred to ... as "ecological consciousness" by Devall and Sessions' (p.87), such reference does not make it so; ecological consciousness involves rather awareness of and commitment to certain things and matters ecological, not widest identification, which involves much that is unecological, such 44 Perhaps following through suggestions sketched earlier, perhaps elaborating, in less anthropocentric style, T.H. Green, whose theory appears to anticipate much of wild Western deep ecology. Green took self-awareness as a guide to the nature of things and self-realisation as each person's goal. He held that the developed self is the end which defines the good, and that all ethical terms may be formed, so far as required, to that end. Of course he also spoke against atomism and individualism, and in favour of holism and organicism. 77 as traffic with occult and transfinite, or antiecological, such as identification with developers ripping down rainforest and heritage works. While Fox does claim that consequences for the natural (not the built) environment do follow from his framework, the claim is mistaken. According to him, 'it follows ... that when we harm or limit the flow of nature then we are harming or limiting that with which we ... identify and so diminishing our ... Self' (p.87). No such consequence follows as regards widest possible identification; all that destruction of an ecosystem does is to put the ecosystem in a possible world, with which identification is sustained, and bring up a different and perhaps humanly improved world (e.g. a wild river is dammed to save villages). The remote Self is unperturbed by such commerce of actuality. Even if Fox should try to save the show by again restricting awkward or uncomfortable identification feats, his intended consequences do not follow. For we may well increase that with which we identify by "limiting the flow of nature", for instance by varying or enriching parts of extensive monotonous natural systems. 45 Fox's deep ecological-framew ork, Self-indulgence of a deep spiritual cast, is no framework for an environmental anything. Luckily it is not needed, but can be despatched with other deep ecological rubbish. 13. Justifying "extreme interpretations" of and "extreme reactions" to wild West deep ecology. Fox exhibits full dominant paradigm outrage at what he refers to as my 'extreme interpretations' and 'extreme reactions' (boldface headings for sections 3 and 4, p.13 and p.19). While I am quite accustomed to being called or accounted an extremist, it is generally done by those far on the shallow side of the environmental divide. I trust such terms as 'extreme' carry no more weight with readers than they do with me. It is a fashionable, but methodologically quite unsound, ploy to try to dismiss those who depart far from some lately received position as extremists. Nowadays even 'Thomas Aquinas, for example, is depicted as an 'extremist' (by Hart) and dismissed because the views he expressed do not accord with what "all lawyers think" (Dworkin)' ;46 one is in good company. The Earth will in the longer term be helped by deep environmental extremists 45 That Fox's theory (already epicycling, into dimensions) admits such cases is evident from "the extinction example" (pp. 82-3). Because they are sufficiently evident, I have not recorded difficulties regarding this example, which attempts to discriminate different sorts of environmental losses by their differential effects on Selves (if there are any ecological ones left that is: Last Self arguments retain their bite and smile). 46 According to H. Miles in a curious letter to the ANU Reporter 1989. 78 who serve to shift various balances in environmental directions - the balances to be achieved, for example, in discussions, in time allowed in decision making, and so on. But what Fox also says he means, under the emotive overlay, is that 'Sylvan's arguments show a tendency to push the claims of those he criticises to extremes' through application of the following reduction-of-relations principles: S 1. 'if two concepts/ideas are linked, then they must be completely similar (equivalent [identical])'; S2. 'if they are contrasted then they must be completely different (i.e. non-intersecting) as well as completely exhaustive (i.e. covering all cases/examples of the set in question)' (p.13 and earlier). All these principles (S2 breaks down into a pair straightaway) are evidently fallacious, and only hold in very special cases. Now I claim to be well aware of this, and to have illustrated this awareness sufficiently in my work (esp. investigation of the history of the attempt to remove or suppress relations, investigation of very special cases, such as "classical relevant logics", where a connections of the form, "where Rab then a = b" does hold; see JB and RLR respectively). Indeed I discuss an example of this 'crude fallacy' in one of the sectors that particularly excites Fox (Cp.27). But in any case, the principles are substantially irrelevant to Fox's discussion of 'extreme interpretations' and 'extreme reactions' (in his sections 3 and 4)! For, as we shall see, what really bothers Fox, and also N aess, has little that is not superficial (merely terminological) to do with extremes; what troubles them rather is that I take their claims seriously, and not as forever 'preliminary', or at 'a superficial level', or 'metaphorical' or the like (see e.g. p.13, p.49). 47 Firstly, I introduced the quasi-technical term 'extreme holism' ('extreme' was italicised to indicate its introduction and quasi-technical character, not to emphasize my extremism) as contrasted with 'moderate holism' .48 That is obviously not an extreme claim, it is not pressing a claim to extremes; it is simply using a piece of terminology, and does nothing for Fox's cause. I take seriously Naess's holistic claim, repeated by incautious deep ecologists, that his conception 'dissolves ... the very notion of the world as composed of discrete, compact, separate "things"', which I describe as 'extreme holism'. 47 One day I should really like some non-preliminary formulations from Naess. Quite separately from that standing request, I do regard it as pretty ridiculous to insist that ordinary discourse about chairs and desks, fems and wombats is 'talking at a superficial or preliminary level of communication'. Perhaps we have to expect this sort of twaddle from hard-wired physicalists, not from deep thinkers. 48 It is a contrast previously discussed, in more detail but in different terms, in EP, p.222ff. 79 Fox's response to my reporting of Naess's claim, in the style of Dr. Johnson (no separate things, so no wildernesses!, no forests!), his only response it seems, is '(Does Sylvan) sincerely think that anybody could be that silly?' (p.14). The answer is of course: Yes, damned right he does; for example, too many influenced by Hegelianism. It 1s unremarkable that Fox and Naess are trying to backtrack without appearing to do so. 49 Where, then, is the (non-quotational) extreme interpretation? Fox makes two connected moves, neither of which duly involve principles Sl and S2. Firstly, he introduces a distinction, not previously in the ballpark, between relative and absolute autonomy of "things in the world" (p.14). As commonplace in Fox's practice, the apparent distinction is introduced and put to work without proper explanation. Then Fox announces that 'it is clear from his interpretation that he [Sylvan] takes Naess and myself to be denying even relative autonomy ... whereas it should be clear ... that what is being denied is absolute autonomy'; and he has the audacity to go on, ' ... there is really no excuse for Sylvan's extreme interpretation' (p.14). Well, you can take my word for it that Sylvan did not take N aess and Fox that way; the distinction in question had not been introduced in the literature under discussion. For similar reasons, that there is no basis for it, there is no extreme interpretation, and nothing to underwrite Fox's captious moralising. Secondly, Fox proceeds quite scurrilously to make it look as if I am attributing certain themes I nowhere allude to him and Naess (but in fact attacked in Wilber's book). ' ... Sylvan's extreme interpretation ... would have Naess and myself reduce all diversity and multiplicity to something like "uniform, homogeneous, and unchanging mush" or to "uniform, all-prevading, featureless but divine goo"'. The quotations, which may well look as if they were drawn from my criticism, bear no resemblance to anything I attributed to Naess or Fox; they are in fact drawn from Wilber's fashionable Eye to Eye. Similarly that 'extreme interpretation' is not to be found in Sylvan; it is a fabrication on the part of Fox. Nothing I made critical use of tells against Naess's total-field exhibiting various features, such as some internal differentiation. The Flux of late nineteenth century philosophy was both non-uniform and non-homogeneous, with 'eddies, ripples and whirlpools in a stream ("unity in process")' (p.15), without being composed of separate individuals. The other example Fox includes in his section in extreme interpretations, the matter of internal relations, will also require, to begin with, some grimy textual exegesis, including further inspection of Fox's practice of tactical misquotation (or quotation out of context), 49 Their behaviour is reminiscent of Parmenides and Zeno at the races, as delightfully related by Bouwsma. 80 rather than real philosophical work. 50 But here no attempt is made to exhibit an 'extreme interpretation' (nor again do principles Sl and S2 enter). Fox's first (and final) point is that subscription to a doctrine of internal relations 'does not necessarily render one an idealist' (p.17). Whereupon, by way of counterexample, Fox trots out his own admirable philosophical pedigree, and reveals a doctrine of internal relations inherited from the neutral monism of Spinoza and the process philosophy of Whitehead, both well known for their doctrines of internal relations. N aess does at least make it evident that he is adopting or adapting the received theory of internal relations. As it happens, I did not commit myself to the proposition that a doctrine of internal relations (however characteristic of idealism) entails idealism; naturally there appears to be more to idealism than that (such as a total-field doctrine). Only by a misreading or misquotation does Fox obtain his necessarily linkage to idealism. Firstly he represents me as ascribing to him 'this "idealist theory of internal relations"' (p.15), when what I actually wrote was that a certain 'form of argument ... commandeers elements of the idealist theory of internal relations' (p.27 emphasis added). Later he congratulates himself upon 'discrediting Sylvan's claims that deep ecology subscribes ... to his characterisation of the theory of internal relations, which he describes (p.28) as "a terminal form of idealism newly warmed up"' (p.18). To credit to me 'a characterisation of the theory of internal relations' is certainly a gross overstatement, though it may be convenient in trying to exonerate the doctrine of deep ecology from evident criticism. But the immediate salient point is that what I say 'looks like a terminal form of idealism ... ' (C p.28 emphasis added) is not the theory of internal relations but 'what Fox describes as "the central intuition of deep ecology"'. The second, of Fox's three points as to my comments on the deep ecological doctrine of internal relations, is a bit more philosophically substantive, and concerns the character of the necessity ascribed to connections. But textual exegesis is again unavoidable. Fox contends that 'Naess's definition of internal relations ... flatly contradicts Sylvan's claim that this view point renders "all connections necessary" in the ... sense Sy Ivan intends' (p.16; Fox has the term 'strong' where dots are inserted; we'll look at what Fox is trying to hang on me shortly). 51 On Naess's explanation, an internal 'relation between two things A and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic constituents of A and B, so that without the relation, A and Bare no longer the same things' (see p.15). Consider any 50 By and large, deep ecology involves disturbingly little real philosophical work. So much of it is name dropping, rank pulling, unacknowledged borrowing - all the old stuff some of us hoped to be rid of with a "new environmental paradigm". 51 In fact I had been arguing from Fox's theme that "all entities are constituted by their relations" (see C pp.27-8), but Fox diverts the issue to Naess. 81 internal connection R between A and B (indeed on the standard theory where all relations of objects are internal, any connection). Then ARB holds by virtue of definitional or constitutional features of A and B. But what so holds, holds as a matter of necessity (is 'necessarily constitutive' in Fox's lingo, Fox trying again for a resolving distinction); whence the connection holds of necessity. A flat contradiction? Now to the 'strong sense' Fox has located and is spreading abroad that I intend (once again he did not consult me as to what I intended). 'Sylvan is claiming', according to him (though I have never advanced such a claim, and am still not clear what it means, 'exact nature of' being Fox's terminology), 'that the exact nature of all those relationships is also necessary' (p.16). Now in trying to show that Naess's story conflicts with this claim he has hung on me, Fox proceeds to run Naess into deep trouble (though Naess is blithely oblivious; see note (22)). For, so Fox says,5 2 'Naess explicitly acknowledges that A and B can exist "without" the relation"', meaning "'in a different relationship" or "in the absence of that specific relation"' (p.16). Suppose such a different relation is S (at worst S is the absence of R). So apparently ASB and not-ARB; whence A, for instance, has inconsistent properties, namely both ... RB which is constitutive and not- ... RB by acknowledgement . To be sure, the difficulty can be avoided, by insisting (as N aess did and as Fox also has him say) that 'without the relationship, A and B are no longer the same things', so what we have is A'SB' and not- A'RB' for some counterparts A' and B' of A and B. Some such line is taken by the standard theory. But Fox seeks a connection between A and B for Naess which is in some respects contingent. Certainly that is possible, but it goes beyond the bounds of the standard theory by admitting external relations, for which it is not required that A and B are no longer the same without the relation. And, in a straightforward sense, it fails the constituting claim: entities have relations, external ones, which are not constituting (to deal with Fox-past), or alternatively (to refute Fox-present, p.17) it is false that 'all relationships are necessarily constitutive' because some, external ones, are not. My wombat example, to come to Fox's third point, was designed to indicate just that, that a wombat stands in various relationships which are not (necessarily) constitutive and which are merely contingent. Suppose wombat A passed by hollow stringbark B on its foraging route (say once only, and accidentally, because it had wandered out of its territory). Then "A passed by B" is a relation between A and B, a true relation, which furthermore is merely contingent, because it might not have transpired. Moreover, the relation is not constitutive, for instance of A, because it makes no difference to the nature or 52 The claim attributed to Naess does not appear in his original 1973 paper where the relational total field image was presented, and from which the other Naess' quotes were drawn. 82 constitution of wombat A. What I mean by term 'constitute' (and likewise 'constitutive') Fox professes unclarity about this (p.17) - is what is ordinarily meant by the term in such contexts, namely what makes a thing what it is, what determines it (see OED), what gives a definite nature or character to (see Concise English). 53 Wombat A, one and the same A, a creature with exactly the same make-up as A, not some counterpart or surrogate A', might not have passed by B. So "passed by B" is not constitutive of A; and again not all relations are constitutive. Despite the general paucity and poorness of argument in much revealed deep ecology literature, the general downgrading of rational and analytic methods 54 , and the emphasis on experiential and empathetic approaches, the status of argument turns out to be a sensitive issue too. Fox beats up an issue on this topic, on route to the grander issue of intellectual rubbish, by his standard practice of misattribution. He proceeds stealthily to amend my aside, '(argument often not being considered in the proper style of such a nonanalytical enterprise as deep ecology)', which I believe I can sustain, to the assertion 'that argument is not in the "proper style" of deep ecology' (p.20), which I did not make (for all Fox's kind attribution) and would not want to defend. I wish decent argument and careful reasoning were more often considered in the proper sty le of deep ecology, and more often practised. Then I should be more enthusiastic about it, writing much less critical of it, and castigating less as rubbish. Fox, I am afraid, has done little to convince me that 'closely measured intellectual argument is thoroughly in keeping with the style of deep ecology' (p.20) or that it is much of a priority. He offers but two examples: he stands on his own record as attested in his Response (how can I say anything unfavourable about that), and he appeals, forgetting I said 'often ... considered', to an exceedingly loose talk by Devall on the Stone/Sky path, which mentions 'logical analyses of ideas, premises, systems of thought' and 'formal statements of definitions of key terms, explication of relationships', but deliberately avoids any such work, preferring instead, in characteristic deep ecological style, 'a steeper ... path that requires ... the "real work"', consciousness elevation, jnana yoga or psychedelic drugs maybe (pp.21-2). 14. Transpersonal logic and methodology. 53 It is proponents of the dubious doctrine of internal relations - a doctrine quite inessential to and external to deep environmentalism - who are forced into assigning an extraordinary meaning to constitute. 54 The Counter-Enlightenment antipathy to analytic and rational methods resurfaces in Western deep ecology. For an example in Fox's Response, consider his remarks on the 'blunt tools of logical analysis' when applied to the 'real world of communication' (p.11), which could almost have come from the late eighteenth century. 83 The quaint relation-reduc tion principles, S 1 and S2, do show up with the first premisses of what Fox dignifies with the misleading titles of "false equivalence argument" and "false contrast argument". The second title is particularly misleading, because there is a recognised traditional fallacy of "false contrast" or "false dichotomy" (arising as regards classifications), which differs from Fox's defective "false contrast argument". Fox has proceeded to latch onto my legitimate use of traditional logic, as when I say (rightly or wrongly) that Devall and Sessions are operating with a false contrast (p.11), in order to saddle me with a defective argument of his own concoction which I do not apply. But to show that these defective arguments, which Fox accuses me of heavily and repeatedly applying (p.6, p.11 ), are not deployed by me in the way Fox alleges, we shall need to look at the arguments. To avoid further confusion with tradition, let us relabel the arguments, replacing 'false' by 'foxy'. Let A and B be terms (Fox has 'concept/idea'); let a be a person or group whose views are under criticism. Then the foxy equivalence argument, set down pretty much in Fox's way, runs as follows Key Premiss. When a links A with B (i.e. maintains that ARB for some relation R), claim a holds that A=B. Subargument. Show there are cases where A without B or B without A, whence A;;:: B. Conclusion according to Fox: ' the "argument" (i.e. the claim that A = B) is "false" or that it "fails"' (p.6). An immediate observation is that Fox has not succeeded in setting down what he is after with much success. The conclusion, which does not make use of the key premiss, is a mess. As he hasn't located an argument, in 'the claim that A = B', he has perhaps felt obliged to put critical terms in italics, or perhaps he imagines he is quoting me - what is going on is unclear. He might have concluded, though a level up, that the "false equivalence argument" itself fails, a conclusion he doesn't explicitly draw, but then he would be left without a conclusion at all for the foxy equivalence argument. There is a valid traditional argument, filling out the subargument that is buried in the foxy argument as intended. In a standard logical format, with A( c) symbolising that c is or has A or that A applies to c, it runs as follows:!. A= B hypothesized claim (imposed on a) 2. A( c) iff B(c) for every case c 3. A(c) & ~B(c) for some case c standard case expansion of 1 further data 4. ~2 from 3 5. ~(A= B) from 4 6. ~(A= B) reductio, discharging the hypothetical argument 84 Thus the claim, that A= B, is indeed false, as its negation is categorically established, given the data. But again the argument, now valid, makes no use of the key premiss. A proper fuller version of the argument would replace 3 by the disjunction, A(ci) & -B(ci) V. -A(c2) & B(c2) for some cases ci and c2, and consider each disjunct. But the result would be the same, namely 6 categorically. The preceding represents the valid core of the foxy equivalence argument. What of the key premiss however? That part also can be rendered correct, but upon assumption of the quite defective S 1. To convert this part of the argument into available logical form, let us replace holding or maintaining functors by a correspondin g asserting or (more satisfactorily) commitment to asserting functor. (Should you imagine a fast one is being pulled just read 't-a' as 'a holds that'). Then the key dubious premiss becomes, at first approximation. KP. from a is committed to asserting A is related to B, i.e. ARB, infer that a is committed to asserting that A= B (or A= B). Expressed in symbols in implicational form it looks as follows: KP➔ . .,_a ARB ➔ . t-a A= B. This form makes it easy to see how the key premiss derives from relation-reduction S 1, i.e. ARB ➔ A = B, namely by a standard distribution of the committed-to -asserting functor, .,_a, or specifically by the rule x ➔ y / t-a x ➔ t-a y. S1 is the way to arrive at KP. Moreover without S 1, there is little basis for KP. Now the arguments can be put together. We argue to KP➔, e.g. from Sl. We run out the subargument to ~(A= B), from which we conclude a is wrong or mistaken in asserting A = B. Then we proceed back across KP➔ (using what results from it by distribution of the mistake functor W, namely W t-a A= B ➔. W t-a ARB), to conclude that our friends a were wrong in maintaining, as they did, that A is linked to B. Exposure of that part of the argument involving KP➔ is enough to at least suggest that I am unlikely to rely on it heavily, since it is manifestly defective when so exposed, relying upon the already jettisoned S 1. Fox, for all his assertions, does nothing to show that I do rely on it heavily; indeed he does not show that I rely upon it at all. For all his effort in eliciting these arguments (shoddy though his work may be), he fails entirely to follow through and show how they apply. Consider his "example" of the foxy argument at work, and supposedly scrutinized, where the terms involved are life and value (p.7). Fox's conclusion does not appear, no conclusion is reached. Moreover the key premiss is not instantiated, nor is any evidence of its use advanced; it is knocked down to the claim, deriving from certain deeper positions, that life= value. Whence the sort of argument that I am alleged to be employing 'in a totally 85 fallacious manner' comes down to the valid traditional subargument. Fox's complaint is not about an argument at all, it is about the premiss. As Fox concedes 'this argument is fine, it's just that the original claim is false' (p.7)! Let's take time out from the argument to consider the original claim. What Fox reports that 'Sylvan ... claims, [namely] that (U.S.) "West Coast deep ecology" equates life (A) and value (B)', differs significantly from what Sylvan did write, namely 'the impression comes through from much West Coast deep ecology (from certain insufficiently penetrating intermediate positions) that what is important is ... life and nothing but life' (Cp.16). No universal claim, no equation, no falsehood. Naturally there are some commitments, but Fox hasn't taken much care with those, or got them right either. For example, Sylvan does not offer a definition (of his own or of any sort) of 'biospherical' (which does not mean 'earth-centered') or of 'biocentric', but relies on standard meanings (accordingly, too, he cannot 'refute his own ... definition'). The position with the foxy contrast argument is very similar to that already dealt with, a similar shambles. The argument is exactly the same except that equality or (strong) equivalence,= , is replaced throughout by a dual notion, exclusive disjunction, symbolised V. But Fox does not dualise properly; instead of the dual conclusion, "the argument (i.e. the claim that A V B) is "false" or that it fails", he misleadingly introduces the traditional fallacy terms, as if they were new terms without a predetermined sense. He has it that we 'conclude that the contrast in question is a "false contrast" or a "false dichotomy'" (p.8). Once again, a properly developed illustration of the argument is not offered, and in the very sketchy "example" given the argument drops out. It turns into a question - an interesting question - of the use, point, and merit of the shallow/deep distinction. Let's take time out to consider the issues raised, as some are important. But first some trivia. Fox, in effect, charges me with presenting a straw-person, as no one (but me) takes the shallow/deep distinction as exhaustive of environmental positions. Well, he has led a sheltered life; I've met too many activists who do. Fox implies that I 'want to assign the shallow/deep terminology to the "historical scrap-heap"' (p.9). Here, and elsewhere, Fox apparently joins the activists who conflate the shallow/deep distinction with the shallow ecology/deep ecology distinction. It is only deep ecology that I have contemplated for the scrap heap, not the shallow/deep distinction. More important is the status of such illdefined items as deep ecology. Fox now assumes that shallow and deep ecology, however imperfect, are "ideal types", the merit of which is to be assessed pragmatically, through their usefulness, heuristic roles, etc. Some scepticism is warranted. Ideal types such as protestant and middle class might be defensible in sociological investigations where there are plenty of protestants or middle class people to survey, but what is supposed to correspond with deep ecology? The comparison has serious problems. Western deep 86 ecologists have yet to get their theoretical slum in order, to rectify their classifications, clean up the objects of these, and so forth. 15. More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science. Along with a substantial upgrading of the calibre of argumentation in deep ecology should go extensive removal of rubbish, such as the unnecessary doctrine of internal relations. The image of philosophers removing the rubbish, which comes from Locke, is much favoured in Australia, and has been deployed by both Armstrong and Passmore. 55 It tends to accompany the picture of real philosophy 'as tough, practical, rational and secular', which Sessions deplores, in the case of environmental ethics, as 'neither desirable nor necessary, and perhaps not possible'. 56 While such an approach is hardly necessary it is certainly possible: it is a divisive issue whether it is desirable. As is increasingly appreciated these days, there are various sorts of rubbish, which can be separated; so too in philosophy there is more than one sort of rubbish. Not all of it is nonsense or quite unintelligible (pace p.23). Considerable parts of prevailing religions have been dismissed as rubbish (see OED examples); but while some parts, such as the doctrine of Trinity, may be accounted unintelligible, most parts would not. They are regarded rather as substantially false as well as seriously flawed in important respects, and perhaps also as pernicious or largely worthless (and likely as unnecessary). Evidently, then, there are several distinguishable components to rubbish; and, as dictionary senses reveal (e.g. OED: 'worthless, ridiculous, nonsensical ideas, discourse, or writing'), there may be quite a variety of ideological and intellectual rubbish. Rubbish, of all sorts, is hard to escape these days; unfortunately it is easily encountered in both deep ecology and popular science. Many environmental philosophers, Fox is one, do seem to be highly attracted by a very fashionable cutting edge, along with a semi-respectable crank end, of recent diverting popular science. It is almost enough to look at the cast of witnesses Fox pulls in for defence of his unstated theme that there is no 55 According to Locke, 'it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of knowledge'. Contrary to the impression Fox tries to convey, here and elsewhere, it wasn't so much a matter of 'following Passmore' (except in a dilute temporal sense, in which I always follow Aquinas when I agree with him), as of following a larger tradition. 56 This part of Session's essay is quoted approvingly in Fox's Response, p.44. Sessions should be rapped over the knuckles for his sexist citations (which Fox too does little to rectify). 87 rubbish in deep or transpersonal ecology (the theme is enthymematically Self-refuting, so to say). The cast includes Capra, Davies, Bohm, Wilber, Gribbin, Pegals, Zukav, Prigogine, d'Espagnat, Sheldrake, Pribram, Comfort and Walsh. There is ample rubbish littering the works of some of these authors, some of which finds its way into Western deep ecology (e.g. Fox's Section 4, and also e.g. pp. 58-9). It is instructive to look at a couple of examples of prime rubbish early in the work of Gribbin cited:- First 'Isaac Newton invented physics, and all of science depends on physics' (p.7). Observe that this conjoint claim, which luckily does not drift into deep ecology, is intelligible, but it is ridiculous 57 ; and observe, furthermore, that there is no straightforward way of recycling such intellectual rubbish. Second, 'what quantum mechanics says is that nothing is real and that we cannot say anything about what things are doing when we are not looking at them' (p.2). As Gribbin presents quantum mechanics as true, we can detach to achieve his shocking headlines and like assertions; so for instance, 'Nothing is real unless it is observed' (p.3), naive phenomenalism. Remarkably, Gribbin is hardly obliged to generate the amount of striking rubbish he does (but then he is a scientific journalist), because of his later proclivity towards a "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which affords one neat way of halting production of this type of idealist rubbish. Fox, eager to retain an idealistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics for his nefarious metaphysical purposes, fails to take account of Gribbin's later turnabout which effectively repeals the earlier headlines, and actually appeals to Gribbin's "authority" (in note 41) in trying to dispose of the many worlds interpretation! Fortunately we do not have to put up philosophically with the rubbish produced by popular elaborations of the Copenhagen interpretation, which Fox and other avant-garde thinkers would foist upon us. One reason is that micro-features of quantum behaviour very rarely impinge upon macro-phenomena. They thus make little or no real difference to issues of environmental philosophy (only problems tangential to it, such as determinism). Another and major reason is that there are significant alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation, which at least shed most of the rubbish. And the 'range of choice' is far more extensive than Fox would allow 'if Sylvan did follow his appeal through' (p.27) - yet another example of "false choice". It happens that Sylvan had followed through on some of the further options Fox does not consider, namely 57 If physics and science are the sorts of things that can significantly be invented, then there are plenty of candidates for the claims both before and after Newton, e.g. Einstein if we wish to be really extravagant. As for the extravagant reduction claim, well it is refuted along with physicalism and associated Australian primitivism; see e.g. J.W. Smith and JB . 88 • alternative logic approaches. There are many interesting possibilities here, but few of which physicists have had time or inclination to investigate. My own, rather preliminary, investigations have concerned a uniform relevant logic approach (see uu § 13, on ultramodal quantum logic) and, differently, paraconsistent approaches (see OP p.157ff.) • a neutral worlds interpretation (see my 85). What this amounts to is an ontic neutralisation of many-worlds interpretation. Because of the neutralisation, the 'metaphysical baggage' and unparsimoniousness that Fox complains about are removed. Of course too, since the interpretation corresponds, through the mathematical formalism deployed, to other standard interpretations, it as just as falsifiable (pace note 41 ), and accordingly hardly 'desperate', a mere "just-so" story. These observations, duly elaborated (as attempted, in part, in work alluded to), indicate 'how Sylvan would describe the ontological implications of the "new (ie. post-1920s) physics?"' (p.23 reordered). Briefly, there are many hitherto unknown physical objects at the sub-atomic level whose behaviour is classically anomalous, being partly wavelike and partly particlelike, for which a new and interpretationally difficult theory has been devised. But the positivism and related idealism of early interpretations can be removed by a warranted change of interpretation. And then the ontic implications for ecology and most of environmental philosophy are much less remarkable than Wes tern deep ecology has imagined. Given apparently viable options as to interpretation, all the rubbish Walsh and Fox add to the already problematic Copenhagen interpretation can be packed off (if you can find a way to recycle it, good luck to you). For those who like picking through rubbish (I occasionally collect stuff from the local dump myself), Fox's page 26 is particularly rewarding. But two examples only :- 'What can be known is ... never the independent properties of the observed alone'. So it cannot be known that the wounded wombat (somehow) observed is female, pregnant, and so on. Such astonishing epistemological results are not delivered by the Copenhagen interpretation, which only tells us that knowledge as to quantum happenings is limited by exclusion principles. Similarly for 'the known universe is inextricably linked with consciousness rather than being separable into consciousness and objects of consciousness'. The standard formalism of quantum theory discloses nothing about observers; and while observers do feature in the Copenhagen interpretation these can be simply more measuring or witnessing devices: consciousness does not figure. Even if it did, that would only apply to quantum objects, and would scarcely warrant the grand extrapolations Fox and Walsh wish to make. Furthermore, the Copenhagen interpretation as elaborated is obliged to set quantum domains within wider classical settings always (by contrast with multiple-world interpretations there is no wave function for the universe, etc.); so in the larger setting classical assumptions concerning independence, separability, and so on, are not overthrown, but confirmed. 89 In fact my passing reference to rubbish in Fox's presentations was directed not at Walsh, who was not pretending to tell us what deep ecology is about, but at Fox's reproduction of this material 'in advancing the "unity of process" metaphysics of deep ecology' (p.19). Fox's presentation of the issues (in section 4), with himself as some sort of interested third party in a dispute between Sylvan and Walsh, is substantially misleading; I was not attempting (what is overdue) a critique of transpersonal psychology. What is taken to be known, furthermore, affords little comfort or support for the list of 'ontological implications' that Fox and Walsh wish to draw from the "new physics". Consider some representative exhibits, mostly compressed one-worders, from 'the fundamental ontology now being revealed', with which Fox tells us deep ecology is not merely 'in accord with' but 'throws its full weight behind' (see p.18):- Impermanen t? Some of the newly discovered sub-atomic objects are extraordinarily durable and have experimentally assessed lifetimes of millions of years. Fluid? This attribute of macrosystems does not extend significantly even down to the molecular level; it makes no sense to say that wavicles (or even atoms) flow, they are the wrong sorts of things. Whereas the attribution of impermanence makes straightforward sense (but is substantially false), that of fluidity does not. Empty? Some of the newly located astrophysical objects are extraordinarily dense, packed with matter. Infinitely over-determined? How does this sit with quantum indeterminacy and under-determination? Or with another speculative exhibit from the list: Self-consistent? At least questions of the consistency of the "new physics" and its parts are proper and reasonable. But we are far from being in a position to assert that the theory is consistent. On the contrary, inconsistencies keep emerging in the developing theory, to which often ad hoc repairs are proposed (e.g. with the Dirac o function, renormalization etc.; cf OP). Given the inadequate ramshackle character of the present quantum theory, it is a fair bet that it remains inconsistent. It is a widespread opinion among researchers that the present theory is something of a mess and in much need of improvement. Even so practicing scientists are not hoping for foundations, which tend to be frowned upon these days. However, foundations, such as an extension of von Neumann's axiomatisatio n of part of quantum theory, would help in effecting improvements, and something of the sort is a prerequisite for establishing consistency, if it can be done. Foundationless? What is meant is, apparently, not foundations for the theory, such as axiomatic foundations, nor really basic (atomic) components for what the theory is about. In this sense, Newtonian physics had as foundational elements corpuscles, or particles of certain sorts. It is sometimes said that quantum physics afford no such ultimate building blocks, each apparent stopping point fragmenting into new substructures, most recently quarks. But this idea, which so far appears to lack a satisfactory physical modelling, diverges from the still entrenched paradigm of particle physics which, for all the talk about "new paradigms" in physics, still consists in analytical reduction to ultimates. 90 Such objectual foundations leave open, of course, the question as to whether, and to what extent, new phenomena may emerge, at "higher levels", as the building blocks are variously put together and structured. As with elements, so with microphysical particles, while the zoo of known items has expanded apace, the hope remains that there is a simple underlying explanation in terms of very small ultimates, such as contemporary quarks. Those who looked forward to a quite new outlook emerging from particle physics are bound - if they look at what really goes on nowadays (esp. all the hightech dominant social paradigm aspects) as distinct from what some popular science entrepreneurs say - to be very disappointed. Walsh's "explanation" of what 'foundationle ss' means is something else: 'the universe appears to be ... foundationless and self-consistent in that, since all components and mechanisms are interconnected and interdependent, none are ultimately more fundamental than any other- hence the universe is inexplicable in terms of a limited number of fundamental mechanisms' (p.23, quoting Walsh p.180). This is Fox's example of how 'Walsh provides clear and intelligible meanings to each and every one of the items on the list'! The truth is that Walsh offers nothing of substance on some terms in his list (e.g. 'self-consistent'), and much of what he does offer is like that quoted, garbage. Granted we can make something of some of it, something extravagantly false. Even on Newtonian physics everything is connected, through forces such as gravitation 58 , but some objects are fundamental building blocks. So it is too on the 'new physics', protons for instance are more fundamental than molecules, quarks (if recent theory succeeds and proves consistent) than protons. Some objects are certainly more fundamental than others. And in the "new physics" it is widely assumed that the universe is explicable in terms of a very few principles of mechanist character (e.g. the rashly promised single equation T-shirt). But Walsh's hence clause would not follow, as simple models indicate, even if his premiss had requisite physical cogency. It does deep ecology no credit to include conspicuous rubbish. Nor is there any good reason why it should; the rubbish is not essential to deep ecology. It is not part of the platform for instance, and it is relatively easily removed from (authentic) deep ecology. So much should be evident from my original Critique (as published), and the accompanying 58 Such forces as gravitation offer, of course, nonlocal connections, and delineate fields what are said to be at 'the nub of what these emerging ideas ... of cross-disciplinary parallels ... have in common' (p.23, insert from p.23 and p.21). This confirms the impression that Fox lacks a solid grasp on what is new in the "new physics" and other "new sciences" such as they are, and thereby contributes towards answers to further of Fox's questions (p.23), by undermining their presuppositions. I 91 sketch of deep green theory, intended to function as a relatively rubbish-free relative of deep ecology. It is some measure of the intellectual sloppiness of some of these engaged in presenting and promoting deep ecology that in a recent major text from Naess (Naess 89), the editor and translator, Rothenberg, asserts that my 'critique of deep ecological philosophy ... labels all of deep ecology literature "inconsistent rubbish"' (p.19), somehow achieving a fallacious transition from some to all. But apparently Rothenberg's acquaintance with my Critique was extraordinarily casual, since I didn't use the label 'inconsistent rubbish' (and wouldn't as anyone who had read much of my work, esp. OP, would realise), and since I certainly did not make a universal claim (and wouldn't for reasons already given, which should have been evident). 'The interpretation of the whole thing as rubbish', Rothenberg continues (p.19), 'comes only if you concentrate too much on rereading some of the sketchy formulations of deep ecology philosophies ... '. While endorsing the point about sketchy formulations, no rereading of many deep ecological productions is required to produce rubbish, no projection; several offerings - such as items lifted from trans personal psychology, idealist physics and other esoteric deep ecological sources, and such as Fox's 'sketch map of deep ecological territory' (p.89) - contain notable rubbish of themselves. Unfortunately Rothenberg proceeds, without even a pause, to repeat Fox's regressive conclusion, which would return deep ecology to human psychology, the very fate of earlier establishment-cha llenging ethics, such as (group) egoism and utilitarianism. 'One should steer clear of "environmental axiology" - that is, looking for values in nature', indeed one almost feels, from looking directly at nature at all. Instead, one should seek to change one's whole way of sensing oneself and the world in the direction of identification and Self-realisation .... Fox summarises [this debacle]: The appropriate framework of discourse for describing and presenting deep ecology is not one that is fundamentally to do with the value of the non-human world, but rather one that is fundamentally to do with the nature and possibilities of the Self, or, we might say, the question of who we are, can become, and should become in the larger scheme of things (Rothenberg p.19, quoting Fox p.85). It is a sad fate for a promising philosophy of nature; degeneration into human psychology. While that can no doubt be edifying enough, in the style of uplifting anthropocentric religions, it is hardly the sought new ecological paradigm (p. 71) and only a warped fragment of the sort of philosophy the whole Earth needs. REFERENCES Bennett, D and Sylvan, R., Damn Greenies: Australian perspectives on environmental ethics, a UNESCO project, typescript, Canberra 1989; revised text 1990. f I 92 Bouwsma, O.K., 'Philosophical essays', University Nebraska, Lincoln, 1965, 24-25. Bradford, G. 1987 'How deep is deep ecology?', Fifth Estate 22(3)(1987) 3-30. Broad, C.D., Five Types of Ethical Theory, Kegan Paul & Others, London, 1944. Devall, B. and Sessions G, Deep Ecology, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1985. Devall, B., Simple in Means, Rich in Ends. Practicing Deep Ecology, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1988. Drengson, A. "Review of Devall and Sessions, Deep Ecology", Environmental Ethics vol 10, nl, 1988. Edwards, J.C., Ethics without Philosophy, University Presses of Florida, Tampa, 1982. Fox, W., Approaching Deep Ecology: A Response to Richard Sylvan's Critique of Deep Ecology, Environmental Studies Occasional Paper 20, University of Tasmania, 1986: unless otherwise indicated all references to Fox are to this study. Fox, W., 'The meanings of "deep ecology"', Island Magazine 32(1989) 32-5; reprinted in The Trumpeter 7(1990) 48-50. Hinckfuss, I., The Moral Society: its structure and effects, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #16, RSSS, Australian National University, 1987. Johnson,L.E., A Morally Deep World, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #17, RSSS, Australian National University, 1987. Mannison, D. and others (eds.), Environmental Philosophy, RSSS Australian National University, 1979; referred to as EP. Naess, A., 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement. A summary', Inquiry, 16(1973) 95-100. Naess, A., 'Deep ecology disentangled?', typescript, Canberra, 1984. Naess, A., 'Notes on Professor's Sylvan's Critique of the Deep Ecology Movement', typescript, Canberra, 1985. Naess, A. and Rothenberg, D., Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, 1989. Nettleship, R.L. (ed.) Work of Thomas Hill Green, three volumes, Longman, Green & Co, London, 1889. Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1971; referred to as OED. Perrett, R.W., 'Egoism, altruism and intentionalism in Buddhist Ethics', Journal of Indian Philosophy 15(1987) 71-85. Priest, G. and Routley, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in logic and Metaphysics #1, RSSS, Australian National University, 1984; referred to as OP. Rolston, H. R. IV, Philosophy Gone Wild: Essays in Environmental Ethics, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1986. 93 Routley, R., 'The semantical metamorphosis of metaphysics', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1974. Routley, Rand V., The Fight for the Forests, Third edition, RSSS, Australian National University, 1975. Routley, R. and V., 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism', Ethics and Problems of the 21 st Century , (ed. K.E. Goodpaster and K.M. Sayre), University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, 36-59. Routley, Rand V., 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in EP; referred to EE. Routley, R., 'Ultralogic as universal?', represented in JB; referred to as uu. Routley, R, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, RSSS, Australian National University, 1980; referred to as JB. Routley, R. and Others, Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982. Session, G., 'Ecocentrism, wilderness, and global ecosystem protection', in The Wilderness Condition (ed. M. Oelschlaeger), 1989; to appear. Shepard, P., 'Introduction - ecology and man - a viewpoint' in The Subversive Science (ed. P. Shepard & D McKinley), Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969, 1-10. Smith, H., The Religions of Man, Harper, New York, 1958. Smith, J.W., Reductionism and Cultural Being, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1984. Stone, C.D., Should Trees Have Standing? - Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects, revised edition, Avon Books, New York, 1975. Sylvan, R., 'Windows on Science III, Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, #2, RSSS Australian National University, 1985. Sylvan, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #12, RSSS 1985; referred to as c. Sylvan, R., 'Mind and its misplacement in nature', typescript, Canberra, 1988; referred to asMX. Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, completed typescript 1990. Walsh, R.N., 'Emerging cross-disciplinary parallels: suggestions from the neurosciences', Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 11(1979) 175-184. Wenz, P.W., Environmental Justice, State University of New York Press, Albany N.Y., 1988. Wilber, K., Eye to Eye: The quest for the new paradigm, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City N.Y., 1983. ECOLOGICAL ETHICS and ECOLOGICAL POLITICS: turning John MCCioskey's challenge This essay comes first because it offers an advanced introduction to parts of environmental ethics, and to certain significant issues in environmental politics. It is hung, not altogether incidentally, on MCCloskey's little text on the topics, because that is a convenient vehicle for organising the material (it is also a text, written in haste, that deserves more criticism than it has received). Fortunately no one need attempt the onerous business of reading MCCioskey in order to follow the essay, should it succeed. Rather, for the purposes of this essay, MCCioskey and likewise his little work can both be regarded as characters in this piece of intellectual fiction; neither need ever have existed. 1. Conservative, reformative, and radical responses to the impacts of ecology on ethics. There are three broad kinds of responses to the impact of ecology on ethics according to MCCloskey's account, which adapts a standard political classification: radical or revolutionary, reformist, and conservative. Of course there are responses which lie outside this classification, not by disputing the impacts of escalating environmental problems (or the new awareness of nature and its fragility), but by questioning the relevance of the other end of the relation: ethics. Those responses target ethics, its role in evaluating and regulating conduct, or differently, its place in environmental philosophy (see other essays herein). As we too aspire to MCCloskey's elevated view of the importance, potential power, and effective ineliminability of ethics in rational evaluation and conduct, we set aside these gutter responses (which we have argued against elsewhere). Otherwise, the responses are these: Radical. A fundamentally new ethic is required, a non-human-centred nature-centred (or nonanthropocentric ecocentric) ethic and morality, a deeper environmental ethic, what MCCioskey and others call an ecological ethic. According to MCCioskey - who adopts the usual double standard, requiring conspicuously higher standards for new challenging theories than entrenched ones - no one 'has yet succeeded in stating or defending [an ecological ethic] in a systematic way' (p.29). Nonetheless it will turn out, quite remarkably, that MCCioskey himself, if he is at all successful, does, given but a small twist to what he does. 2 There are two standard components to any such ethic: meta-ethical and normative. According to Mccloskey, both components are 'more commonly alluded to than set out and defended in a developed, worked-out form' (p.29). There are, accordingly, two broad problems for an ecological ethics: devising a new meta-ethic, and furnishing a new normative ethic (p.30). Meta-ethics, as well as comprising the study of ethics or ethical systems, includes the logic and analysis of key ethical terms. For the new ethics a critical meta-ethical task is to 'explain valuation, and hence values, without reference to human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like' (p.30). Normative ethics involves the organisation, design and structure of systems themselves, their values, principles, constraints and the like. For the new ethics critical normative tasks include explaining and justifying the assignments of value made, especially to natural items independently of species Homo sapiens, and the principles adopted, especially concerning treatment of more natural environments, wilderness, and endangered species of plants and animals. Since all these requirements have been met, to some considerable extent (e.g. in works such as EE), the issue becomes one of adequacy. How adequately have these things been done, in particular in what is now called deep-green theory, and what of significance has been left undone? These are central questions in the on-going dialogue with MCCioskey; they will direct the questions discussed when shortly we get down to the real business of MCCloskey's more substantive objections. Reformist. Instead of a "new" ethic, standard ethical theories are reformed, modifying them or adjusting them at the periphery, 'so as to acknowledge new, specifically ecological values and duties' (p.30). Characteristically the adjustment is to the margins of normative theory, with standard meta-ethics left substantially intact. Animal rights theories which simply adjust utilitarianism to take account of the suffering of other sentient creatures than humanoids, afford a stock example of significant reformism. By contrast, differently designed and defended theories of animal rights may be radical in character. The classification is thus pretty rough and ready; given the comparative vagueness of "newness" and "standardness" as regards ethical theories, the divisions between responses is likewise blunt. Evidently too, the classification only overlaps other classifications of ethics with some vogue, for instance that into shallow, intermediate, and deep (used elsewhere e.g. TE). Thus while reformist utilitarianisms are typically intermediate, a reformist ethic (or even a revolutionary one, such as Nietzsche's has been taken to be) may be substantially shallow. The converse linkages are tighter: only an ethic which merely purports to be conservative can really be intermediate, as MCCloskey's intuitionism is, or deep, as "supplementation" of such intuitionism could 3 be. Conservative. No input from ecology warrants even so much as reform, let alone revolution, in standard ethical theory; all that is required is 'a more informed, more accurate thinking out of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29). MCCioskey claims to defend the stock conservative view that ecological considerations and 'findings ... do not necessitate a basic revolution in ethics but supply a more informed, more accurate thinking out, of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29, similarly p.31). Rather than looking hard at the conspicuous difficulties and inadequacies of prevailing ethics, unresolved after thousands of years of investigation, MCCioskey proceeds immediately to try to shift the onus of proof: ' ... no moral philosopher has yet succeeded in either stating or defending it ... a new ecological ethic ... in a systemic way' (p.29, insertion from same page). He alleges, to elaborate on a previous charge, that 'the problem of [a radical] ecological ethics is that of devising a a new meta-ethics, one that explains valuation, and hence values, without reference to human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like, and a a new normative ethics that explains both • the value of natural phenomena prior to man's existence and after the extinction of the species Homo sapiens and • why it is morally wrong for man to damage wilderness and endanger or render extinct natural species of plants and animals' (p.30, display inserted). As it happens, all these things have been attempted, as was said and as will become evident - though perhaps in too sketchy and too technical a way so far (it is still early days). For example, why it is wrong to damage pristine wilderness is, at bottom, because such wilderness possesses high intrinsic value - something MCCioskey does not really dispute. How then does he sustain his allegations? For the most part, despite the repeated rhetoric about "arguing" this and that, he doesn't. He simply assumes that 'concern for human well-being' must dominate, that it always has, well almost always has, priority (e.g. p.52). 2. A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism. Furthermore, MCCioskey, although he claims to be defending this conservative 'third view', does not state matters as clearly as he should: he only rules out the 'need for a specifically ecological ethic', not reformism. This constitutes one part of what amounts 4 to substantial cheating in MCCloskey's "conservatism" . 1 A further part consists in adopting an extremely unfashionable ethical theory, an intuitionism supplementing a now little known theory of the kind developed by Ross, as his "standard" ethical theory. Like the rare "ideal utilitarianism", such intuitionism can be much closer to proposed new ecological ethics, given appropriate ideals and intuitions, than standard "standard" ethics (indeed, given a deep tum, they can be tantamount to ecological ethics). But the most important dodge is incorporated in the "supplementation" MCCioskey makes of his "standard" ethic, which far exceeds what it is said to be: Ross 'supplemented by an account of the moral rights of persons' (p.31). For he also concedes himself such objectives as an open-ended 'promotion of good' and coupled 'prima facie obligations to ... promote good' (p.33 and p.31). Moreover, such promotion of good elsewhere expands to a promotion of good, beauty and knowledge (p.36), and to include promotion and preservation of what is intrinsically valuable (p.36); among 'recognised ethical values' is 'the securing of the intrinsically valuable' (p.8). Moreover, among what is intrinsically valuable are some (but not all) natural species, some wilderness (p.36), and other valuable natural items such as 'forests, lakes, rivers, seas' (p.31). Such critical "supplementations" mean that MCCioskey can proceed to argue for the preservation of wilderness or natural species in just the ways that most deep environmentalists do; for example, along the lines that an area of wilderness has not merely instrumental value, but evident intrinsic value, which can be felt or intuited (e.g. p.61 bottom). Such supplementations thus lift MCCioskey right out of the normal conservative camp in which he has misleadingly located himself: for that shallow camp does not recognise irreducible values in nature. What he is covertly assuming, in his considerable supplementation of an unusual noncognitive ethic, is at least a significant reform of standard ethics. MCCloskey's ethic is not 'perfectly familiar' historically; more, his insistence (ascribable not to modesty but to political purposes) that it is not 1 There is analogous, if less outrageous, covert cheating in another leading Australian conservative, with whom McCloskey aligns himself: Passmore. For example, Passmore helps himself to a notion of vandalism (deep vandalism involving depreciation or destruction of what has intrinsic value) to which his theory does not entitle him. It has not been much appreciated that Passmore, too, for all his apparently tough conservatism (early on) on ethics, also (characteristically) hedges his claims. A much-quoted passage, endorsed by McCloskey (p.37 italics added), begins: 'what it [the West] needs,for the most part, is not so much a "new ethic" as a more general adherence to a perfectly familiar ethic'. What that familiar ethic is, and how it is to be reformed, Passmore never really tells us. In any case the main conservative theme looks less and less plausible. It is increasingly dubious that better adherence to established ethical and political forms will prove adequate, especially to environmental problems unforeseen by these chauvinistic theories. 5 new is nowhere demonstrated, simply asserted. (In fact the claim is somewhat empty in the absence of sharpened criteria for newness.) How far removed MCCloskey's supplemented intuitionism is from its 'perfectly familiar' source is readily shown by a comparison of MCCioskey with Ross on intrinsic goodness. Ross contends (on the basis of reflection and using an interesting little argument from a then 'widely accepted classification of elements in the life of the soul') that four things, and basically only four things, 'seem to be intrinsically good', all of which are 'ideal states of the mind' (p.140). How far things ethical have moved since the nineteen thirties is also shown by the little argument Ross runs out, as if it was quite decisive, to refute people like MCCioskey who imagine they find intrinsic value beyond states of mind - in wilderness, forests and other material items. 'It might of course be objected that there are or may be intrinsic goods that are not states of mind or relations between states of mind at all, but in this suggestion I find no plausibility. Contemplate any imaginary universe from which you suppose mind entirely absent, and you will fail to find anything in it that you can call good in itself' (p.140). Ross no doubt reflects the conventional ethical wisdom, a narrow wisdom, of his time and place (essentially British ethics of the first half of the twentieth century). But many before Ross, and many more since, have not so failed in finding items of intrinsic worth in the absence of states of mind, in the Earth itself and its natural features for example. Such comparatively successful arguments as those concerning the Last Sentient (in EE), and the world before the rise of mental life, were designed to expose and reinforce such common findings. So much Mccloskey is sufficiently clear about (thereby shortening subsequent argument for a new ethics): 'The negative part of the Routley's argument, that traditional [Western] ethics and contemporary morality are human-centered, is substantially well based. The ecological moral intuitions they seek to explain and justify find no justification in terms of such ethics' (p.58). But in MCCloskey's ethics they do find some confirmation, or rather conformation, in the intrinsic ecological values discerned. Moreover, with but a turn in the intuitions admitted that intuitionistic ethics itself becomes properly deep - just allow the (over-malleable) intuitions to coincide with those of deep ecological consciousness: then deepened MCCioskey is deep ecology. MCCioskey even puts effort into explaining how conventional theories are 'heavily human centered', without appreciating how far it removes him from the 'perfectly familiar' ethic of Ross, and from his own professed conservatism. As a result too, those making too superficial a survey of MCCloskey's complex ethical position, especially if they came at it with preconceptions of what it amounted to, have been seriously misled. Goodin is one reviewer who is undone. By quoting MCCloskey's effort on conventional ethics right out of context, Goodin manages to 6 attribute to Mccloskey the very negation of what he advances, namely 'that all talk of intrinsic value must nevertheless be human-centered' (Goodin p.345). The same applies to what Goodin takes to be 'the punchline' of MCCloskey's position, 'that the environment per se has no independent moral claims upon it. All our duties to protect it must be derived from human-centered concerns' (p.344). Nor does such a punch line emerge from the admittedly convoluted passage quoted in support; for the passage makes the promotion of goodness, which includes promotion of intrinsic value independent of humans, a prima f acie obligation. But Goodin does have excuses. For not merely is MCCloskey's position hard to fathom, but it exhibits confusion and is internally inconsistent. For example, Mccloskey typically presents himself as having, and frequently operates as if he had, an entirely conservative position, when his position is in important respects at least reformist, making allowance for intrinsic values of natural items including wilderness, plants and animals (pp. 52-3); his position is both different, with new elements, and not different, with no new elements. Part of the problem can be traced back to a confusion about intrinsic value (likewise intrinsic goodness), which is both intrinsic, valuable in itself, and not intrinsic, because valuable for something else, typically beauty or human knowledge in the case of natural items. The confusion is manifest in the many intuitive judgements of intrinsic value of natural items advanced simply on the strength of judgements of beauty or ugliness, and appears in such themes as that 'a moral duty to preserve species and wilderness ... is ... based on ... the securing of the intrinsically valuable objects of knowledge and the beautiful' (p.110). It is no longer just 'the securing of the intrinsically valuable' as is earlier said (e.g. p.8); those "intrinsic values" somehow now reduce or answer instrumentally to supposedly human evaluations, i.e. are not "intrinsic" after all, whereupon MCCloskey's seriously damaged position reverts to the shallow conservative position it is often been taken to be. The main features brought out make MCCloskey's ethic, confusions apart, at least a reformist one, not a conservative one. Briefly, MCCloskey's "supplementation " of Ross's theory is so great as to make for a difference of kind. The features also render it what is called an intermediate position. For it admits values in nature, it assigns intrinsic value to some natural objects, while not however allowing values of natural things to sometimes override those of humans. The point is fundamental. 'However, as the theory developed here implies, ultimately, when there is a clear clash between human welfare and human rights on the one hand and the preservation of wilderness and of plant and animal species on the other, human welfare and respect for human rights must prevail ... ' (p.36). Why so? Why preserve this ancient ethical prejudice? Despite the assertion the theory sketched out, the supplemented Ross ethic, does not imply human 7 ethical supremacy. But even if the theory did imply this greater value assumption, the appeal to it in defence of the assumption would be indecently circular. It is no proper defence of proposition p that Shifty's theory implies p, unless Shifty's theory is shown to have independent merit, such as correctness, robustness (i.e. continuing to yield p under reasonable variations), etc. None of the requisite demonstration is attempted. The radically reformed Ross ethic is just assumed. In fact MCCioskey has adduced no decent case for this crucial assumption, which colours much of his text. For it is his repeated insistence on the supreme importance of things human, of Man over the rest of nature, that gives his work its undoubted antienvironmental appearance, which is obnoxiously exhibited at many places in the text. One revolting example concerns venomous snakes: 'today they are a nuisance and a danger to human life and health, concern for which dictates that individuals be accorded the freedom to kill such snakes, to rid their properties of these pests even at the risk of rendering them endangered species. (Sufficient specimens could be retained in zoos throughout the world, where they survive well ... )', perhaps along with dangerous subspecies of humans (p.116). MCCioskey is particularly concerned to put down arguments 'for the preservation of species and wilderness at the cost of human interests, human concerns .. ', even though these arguments 'appear to be correct about the intuitive insights of those who live in different countries in affluence. 2 Nonetheless it will be my concern in this work to reject this approach and the moral intuitions on which it rests' (p.36, italics added). Unfortunately the strongly proclaimed rejection is not backed up with requisite argument. MCCioskey, in a familiar intuitionistic predicament, is stranded without argument. Nor, in this case, could the rejection be so easily supported. For one thing MCCioskey feels obliged, almost immediately, to qualify his human supremacy claim: human interest 'must prevail, unless what it is proposed to preserve has great intrinsic value' (p.36 italics added). For another reason, the human interests involved often cannot justify preeminence; they are too often trivial, or unworthy, or just plain ordinary. So the ancient (unethical) prejudice in favour of humans can, and should be relinquished (as argued in much more detail in other places, e.g. EE). But then there is nothing to stop MCCloskey's intuitionism sliding to real depth, the ethic moving from reformist to radical. Call the resulting theory, MCCloskey's stripped 2 But the impression of McCloskey as a fighter for the under-privileged among humans, one who of course along with developers and colonizers makes human interests paramount, is deceptive. 8 of anthropic prejudice so to say, deepened intuitionism, intuitionism informed, again if you like, by deep ecological consciousness. The beauty of deepened intuitionism is that it answers, in MCCloskey's own terms, MCCloskey's challenge to radically new ecological ethics. A now evident "adjustment" to MCCloskey's own theory will serve. The trouble, of course, with this answer is the trouble with intuitionism in ethics generally; that, for instance, it is built on the shifting sands of intuition. That is why a direct response to Mccloskey will be offered, in terms of deep-green theory. 3. On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics, esp. that deep-green upstart. Part of MCCloskey's complaint is that the new environmental ethics demanded back in the early seventies, have not been presented sufficiently 'clearly and fully' as to admit proper examination and assessment (p.60). It is easy to level such charges at new proposals; and such charges did carry some force, and still do, though less as the new theories develop, among other things, to meet criticism. But MCCioskey would like to make a much grander charge, the sort of charge (discussed below) that Thompson recently did level: that such 'a new ethic ... is logically impossible to set out' (p.59 reordered). But Mccloskey, by contrast with Thompson who can slip into still fashionable noncognitivism, is poorly placed to press such a charge. For he considers that noncognitivism, which would logically tie all valuation to aspects of human (or creature) cognition and so would be bad news for deep environmentalism, is bound to fail. MCCioskey tries instead to push through an eliminative argument, relying upon the limited range of cognitivist (meta-)ethics 'developed to date'. He claims to eliminate all but intuitionism: 'Of the known, plausible, meta-ethical theories, the only one available to such ecologist ethicists is the ethical realism of intuitionism' (p.59), which regrettably they decline. But the elimination argument is radically defective, as MCCioskey is very far from exhausting the initially plausible options open to environmentalism. In addition, more satisfactory options will aim to discard not merely intuitionism but also both the ethical realism and objectivism that regularly (and to its intellectual cost) accompany it, but need not. While it would hardly be surprising should the quite limited range of ethical theories that have achieved much development to date prove inadequate to new environmental objectives, the situation is by no means as desperate as MCCioskey implies. Firstly, the options MCCioskey does offer, deviously pruned down (not 'ideal observer ethic' but 'Humean ideal observer ethic', not 'natural law ethic' but 'Thomistic natural law ethic'), are not all restricted in the way portrayed: 'All make human nature or personhood or features thereof basic to ethics' (p.59). Not so; the contention certainly does not hold for all the types of theory listed, e.g. naturalism or relativism, and insofar 9 as it does, it is sometimes easily avoided, as with natural law (e.g. set within pantheism). Secondly, there is a range of recognised ethical types, such as those distinguished by Broad, which affords scope for the elaboration of ecological ethics. Obvious candidates within naturalism include biological and evolutionary naturalism - typical examples of which 'are the following: "To be virtuous means to perform the specific activities of the species to which you belong efficiently" (Spinoza). "Better conduct means conduct that comes later in the course of evolution and is more complex than earlier conduct of the same kind" (Herbert Spencer)' (Broad p.259). No doubt such proposals exhibit deficiencies, but not per se of a human chauvinistic sort; and they admit of improvement, which they are beginning to obtain within the tradition of American naturalism (thus e.g. Rolston's work). More promising, however, are "non-naturalistic" theories, of which objectivistic realistic intuitionism such as Mccloskey is keen to offer and promote is but one kind. For there are other less demanding types of intuitionism (see, e.g. Broad p.270), including various "deep intuitionisms", which may be neither objectivistic nor realistic (in the sense of labouring under heavy ontological commitments). In particular, as Elliot explains (p.502), what entirely escapes MCCloskey is the feasibility of a meta-ethic which is nonjective, that is, not objective, like transcendental intuitionism, but not implausibly subjective either. Then there are moral sense theories and their more plausible variations including mixtures with rationalism. Further, there are analogous mixtures coherently building upon emotional presentation. Such a rational reconstuction, varying the Austrian theory of values as elaborated empirically and logically by Meinong, is in fact the ethical way taken by deep-green theory (for detail see TE and DG). And so on. There is logical scope, then, for quite a variety of ecological meta-ethics, and definitely scope for significant improvements upon those 'developed to date'. As much to the point, there have already been significant developments of some forms of ecological meta-ethics, notably of that theory in effect under criticism, deepgreen theory, which is already better articulated than most conventional ethics. There are several connected parts to this elaboration because it brings into meta-ethics new logical technology, especially world-semantics. The parts, furthermore, have not been duly separated because of a pervasive verificationism living on in Anglo-American ethical theory, which proceeds to equate semantic with epistemic, meaning with method of coming to know, and the like. A first step then in meta-ethical analysis is some proper separation of the parts, such as meaning, epistemic confirmation, and rational justification. Naturally the parts fit together into a larger whole, into the meta-ethical edifice, but simplistic positivistic equations do not satisfactorily explain the integration. 10 As to meaning, deep-green theory can already stand on its record of proferred semantical analyses. 3 Semantics both for axiological terms such as value and bettemess and for deontic terms such as obligation and wrongness have been provided through world semantics (see sv, MD). The deontic theory developed in the process (in MD) offers a considerable improvement over Ross's theory (which supplies no semantics), because it enables the theory-saving artifice of prima facie obligations to be removed and natural language discourse concerning obligations to be recovered. While such semantical advances do not pretend to offer a full account of meaning, as much more remains to be done within pragmatics, they do offer straightforward resolutions both of long-standing ethical puzzles and paradoxes and of several complaints about environmentally deep ethics. A major early problem for a genuinely nonchauvinistic ethics was to give a satisfactory account of ethical terms without reference to favoured biological species, above all to humans. On deep-green theory this was accomplished by a combination of an "annular theory", offering an ethically relevant typology of doers and receivers, with the semantical analyses (see EE and AP for details). By these means, deep-green theory proceeded to remove humans from an essential role in ethics. Humans enter importantly, of course, but only contingently, as certain sorts of valuers and agents, which sorts depending upon their relevant capacities. For example, humans do not inevitably enter, as too many had previously supposed, into every ethical picture, because there were no value judgements without valuers, and all valuers were humans. Both parts of this linkage fail. Most important, values are not tied to valuers or actual valuing. But possible valuers and therewith their valuing can always be dummied in logically. The reason is at bottom that any coherent distribution of values can be regarded as the values of certain possible valuers. Furthermore, contrary to MCCloskey's unsupported charge against such semantical analyses, this does not expose the theory 'to difficulties parallel to those encountered by phenomenalism ... ' (p.60). For phenomenalism attempts a reduction; the semantical theory makes no such attempt. The meta-ethic is non-reductionist; nor is it obliged to rely upon tricks like supervenience. Deep-green theory already had more up on the meta-ethical scoreboard in the early eighties than Ross's theory upon which MCCioskey purportedly proposed to reply. MCCloskey's criticism of ecological ethics as meta-ethically inadequate lapses. As to normative theory, the other prong of his attack, his demands are excessive. Few ethical theories have been stated 'fully and clearly' and 'developed in a systematic, detailed 3 Standing on records is hardly a practice I embrace with much enthusiasm, but sometimes it is inevitable if excess repetition is to be avoided. 11 form' such as Mccloskey appears to expect (e.g. p.60). To take some grand comparisons: Those that are detailed such as Confusianism are not particular systematic, those that are detailed and systematic such as Spinoza's ethic are hardly clear and are likely inconsistent, those that are fairly full and moderately clear such as Sidgwick's utilitarianism are also rather clearly defective; and in the twentieth century, nothing much, ecological or not, matches these grand examples. But to indicate a few details of what is accomplished normatively in deep-green theory:- Non-interference and like principles are defended (cf EE p.174); these afford a basis for integrating standard social justice principles (including obligations to the future), duly amended, with environmental principles. In this way, making use of the annular theory, much of prevailing social ethics, of a radical kind, can be subsumed. In an attempt to be helpful, Mccloskey quite erroneously suggests that 'the normative ethic appears to be base[d] on ... intuitive insights into what is intrinsically valuable and what is intrinsically obligatory, where what is intrinsically obligatory need not be tied to intrinsic value' (p.60, rearranged). What is obligatory, like what is right, does answer back to what is intrinsically valuable, though in more complex fashion than elementary ethical courses care to contemplate (see TE and MD). But what is intrinsically valuable is often not discerned through intuitive insights. The idea that is is part of what lies at the back of the expectation that instant answers can and should be given to any question as to what is intrinsically valuable or the like. Rather what is intrinsically valuable is arrived at through a process of reasoning and coherence-assessment, based at bottom on emotional presentation (for more detail see TE). We offered, furthermore, many examples of items - not only individuals, but species, such as the blue whale, complexes, and ecosystems - that are intrinsically valuable, valuable in and for themselves and not on other counts (such as some of MCCloskey's "intrinsic values" which vanish into economic or aesthetic values). Accordingly, the charge (p.60), 'Nor are the relevant values or principles explained or discussed', loses its force. As to the specific difficulties for an ecological ethic of deep-green kind that MCCioskey alleges, many of these are only encountered upon importing assumptions that the ethics do not include and should not supply. So it is with the assumption that an ecological ethic should assign intrinsic value to all species, even equally to each species, given that it does to some. MCCloskey's own intermediate ethic does not do this, why should an ecological ethic? Some-to-all arguments do not suddenly become valid in deep space. Deep-green theory, in particular, unlike deep ecology, makes no assumptions as to biospecies equality; rather it requires a certain interspecies impartiality. The extent of intrinsic value of a species is assessed in principle, through a multiple factor procedure incorporating value-making features of the species (cf. EE p.168). Mccloskey wheels 12 out the already exhausted examples of disease organisms and parasites, and offers his intuition, a strong human prejudice, that 'there seems to be no intrinsic value in the existence of such species and organisms' (p.61). No doubt such species and organisms do not exhibit intrinsic value in the way or to the extent that conspicuous species near the tops of food chains do. Their biological role and value is different. Their importance, consists, in part, in control, in regulation of the character and the numbers of more valuable species; their biological value is, to stretch a term, primarily facilitative, but often nonetheless, under present ecological arrangements, apparently essential. One reason why MCCioskey fails to observe how easy it is to shift the difficulties he finds so pressing is, of course, that he is trying to make a case against deep positions. Another reason is that he is operating with far too coarse a mesh, both ecologically and socially. Intrinsic value does not come in big indiscriminable unsieved lumps: all species if any, all pleasure if any, all knowledge if any. The need for discrimination becomes evident if added to MCCloskey's list of intrinsic valuables (e.g. p.108) are such standard goals as wealth and power (itself often linked to knowledge). Like wealth and power, human pleasure and knowledge4, for example, are far from invariable goods. Often, like much entrepreneurial information transmitted through expensive systems, they are trivial; sometimes they are positively evil, as pleasure in extensive torture, or practical knowledge of the means of excruciating torture. 5 A finer mesh is needed, and available, a mesh that can be usefully applied in the ecological domain to remove standard "difficulties", as it was applied by Mill, though in a failed attempt to repair utilitarianism. 4. Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics. Ecological politics is a structure grafted onto ecological ethics, in much the way that political theory more generally is supposedly built upon (or alongside) ethics. Politics is essentially concerned with groups, societies and certain social institutions; ethics, so it is said, with individuals. But the distinction is not quite so simple; ethics too concerns groups and interrelations of individuals, normatively. In fact, the exact 4 For these often shoddy goals McCloskey indecently contemplates destruction of the Rottnest quokka, a species McCloskey provocatively presents as 'useless' and 'ugly' (p.61). Judgements of aesthetic and utility are notoriously ideological systemdependent, and here McCloskey flouts his commitment to an old, damaging, and fortunately disappearing, ideology. 5 In any event, Western ethics and ideology much overrate knowledge and information; largely defunct Eastern theories, such as Taoism, have a better appreciation of the importance, and nonimportance, of different kinds of knowledge (cf. Sylvan and Bennett on Taoism). 13 interrelation of politics with ethics, though an issue under investigation since Aristotle sought to settle the matter, remains unclear. Judicious borrowing from logic can help a bit in clarification, in both the general and the ecologically restricted cases. With ethics and politics, or ecological ethics and ecological politics (of given sorts, e.g. utilitarian, deep-green), both considered as theories, the relation is that of extension: the latter extends the former, in fact extends it substantially. For comparison, logical examples of extensions are afforded by the relation of quantification logic to sentential logic, or set theory to quantification logic, or, a little nearer the mark in terms of complexity, classical mathematics to set theory. Ecological politics is not merely - or as regards the pure theory at all - an application of ecological ethics. It requires a considerable amount of further apparatus (typically primitives and defined terms in the extended theory) that does not enter into ethics proper, such as states, leaders, corporations, unions, organisers, and moreover (what correspond to axiomatic constraints) the manifold interconnections of these political items. What kind of extension politics is, or ought to be, of ethics is a more vexed question. In particular (depending on the matching of the politics to the presumed ethics it extends) the extension may not be conservative. For example, theoretical allowance has to be made for the Machiavellian idea that certain political components may be exempt from given ethical constraints, an idea that has proved unacceptable to most philosophers from Aristotle through Mccloskey. The prevailing conservative extension theme is forcefully presented, if in too shallow and individualistic form, by Nozick: Moral philosophy sets the background for, and the boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do [politically] through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus. The moral prohibitions it is permissible to enforce are the source of whatever legitimacy the state's fundamental coercive power has (Nagel p.199, endorsing Nozick). In short, should conservative extension be abandoned, rational justification becomes a serious, indeed insuperable, problem. As it happens, the way in which ecological politics proceeds to extend ecological politics (when done conservatively) is admirably illustrated by MCCloskey's practice and development of issues. In virtually every case, the approach adopted as regards the politics of the issue builds directly upon the results reached in the ethical investigation of that issue. However, in the political theory advanced, Mccloskey does not take full and proper advantage of his supplemented ethics, but lapses back into an old-fashioned chauvinism. (He thus resembles a logician, actual exemplars shall go unnamed, who 14 with all the underlying logical technology available to avoid the paradoxes and anomalies of classical set theory, lapses back into these when he makes the extension to set theory.) Once again this abysmal outcome is primarily a result of his tenacious adherence to that ancient greater value prejudice, which vastly overrates humans, their attitudes, freedoms and products, and undervalues natural things, even to the extent of undercutting previously granted intrinsic value (cf. p.111). Mccloskey proceeds to play humans off against environments, assuming of course that humans ought to win hands-down. The resulting theory is ecological only in addressing - in a decidedly unsympathetical way ecologically - ecological problems. Ecologically then, the proferred ecological politics proves exceedingly disappointing; politically, things are little better. A political theory is bound to add to an ethical theory further organisational structure, comprising further structural units (corporations, states, etc.), institutional arrangements (property, markets, etc.), and so on. There are a great many, still illclassified and largely untried, types of options here: options as to what gets added, and how it is adjoined. Among the enormous range of choice McCloskey opts, without much argument, for unimaginative arrangements like those prevailing in the West and North, for a statist and developmental status quo (for which he serves very much as an apologist). He opts for what he is pleased to call 'liberal democratic states' - though the veneer of democracy is thin (control typically being vested with a ruling minority) and liberality is sharply hedged (true-blue liberalism conflicting with statism, in ways thorough-going libertarianism has exposed). Practically, as we know from experience, it is a jerry-built structure; theoretically, as is insufficiently realised, it remains a house of cards. The status quo choice of "liberal democracy" gets confirmed, so Mccloskey imagines, by disposing of but two sorts of alternatives: primitivism, which he regards as substantially self-refuting in presently highly civilized highly warlike times; and totalitarianism, which he regards as the main and menacing alternative. It is a simplistic scheme, leaving out significant alternatives; but such a picture is remarkably widespread, even among academics. While, like most urbanised intellectuals, Mccloskey cannot resist sounding off about any proposed 'return to primitivism', to 'rural communities of the political imagination' (p.109), he does in fact confine his consideration of alternative political arrangements to totalitarian alternatives which would sharply increase the restrictiveness of present statist arrangements. Against totalitarian alternatives, even present inadequate arrangements no doubt look good; but against certain other political alternatives (e.g. decentralised organisation using advanced technology as appropriate), these arrangements look more like a recipe for on-going ecological trouble. Such other alternatives, Mccloskey does not really consider. He has sighted the far ecological right, 15 ecofascism as it is sometimes dubbed, and fires almost all his guns at it. However there is an ecological left, with a longer tradition than the right, which passes unnoticed; yet it offers a vision of new ecological communities in which liberal principles, on the face of it MCCloskey's main concern, are maintained or even enhanced. But, for all its shortcomings, MCCloskey's attempt to get to grips with ecological politics deserves a somewhat fuller discussion than indicated by Goodin's cavalier dismissal: 'The politics discussion just amounts to a bash at the authoritarianism of some of the more rabid ecological doomsayers, propositions which are quite sufficient reductios in and of themselves' (p.344). For one thing, that was how much of the field looked when MCCioskey was helping to put ecological politics on the philosophical agenda. Ecological politics still remained an unfashionable, and in some places dangerous, field at the time MCCioskey was writing. Liberal philosophers with respectable academic positions in North America tended to keep out of the field, which accordingly got left to practical environmentalists, over-enthusiastic in their appeals to the state for tough control and regulation, and to authoritarian academics keen to strengthen totalitarian and isolationist tendencies of states. As MCCioskey emphasizes, Much ecological political writing exhibits two disturbing features that undermine its value. The one feature relates to the readiness of many political theorists on the basis of the flimsiest evidence to waive lightly man's claim to recognition of his human rights on the ground that the ecological crisis is so grave and critical that only the most drastic, desperate measures will succeed. The other feature is the very great confidence in the capacity of states to take whatever action is necessary to avoid the ecological crisis. In fact, the states of the world today greatly contribute to various of the ecologically based problems that confront mankind. They are unworthy of the great faith and trust that many ecological reformers appear to have in them or in the state in the abstract.(p.108). Bravo! But rather than considering carefully dismantling states, in favour of alternative organisational arrangements, MCCioskey leaps immediately in the opposite direction, to the orthodox position that 'a major part of the ecological political problem is that of ensuring that states carry out their ecological responsibilities' - whatever those may be (states do not regard themselves as morally bound, and typically their constitutions are incredibly weak and unspecific, and sometimes evasive on such matters). Indeed he goes further: 'The nation-state needs to be not superseded but complimented by a world political authority' (p .107). Again there is little argument, and no due concern that such an Authority would be yet a further developmental agency operating with tanks and bulldozers. 16 For another, MCCioskey tried to open up or advance several issues in ecological politics (and would have, if his book had existentially impacted and had not been largely bypassed or dismissed). These issues include not merely the standard issues of overpopulation, pollution and unethical technology; more notably, they also include the issue, which has recently received much airing, as to whether environmental demands and regulations interfere damagingly with individual freedoms and other aspects of liberal principles. There are other facets to this that deserve further examination (do it decently, someone!): the extent to which liberal states do and can deliver on environmental matters, as well as the extent of interference with liberties (much turns then on how it is all done). MCCioskey has overestimated the abilities of states to deliver liberal ideals and guarantee liberal principles, such as individual freedom (in fact, to note some lesser infringements, they characteristically coerce citizens in many respects, forcing them into a money economy, to pay taxes and obtain licences, even to serve on juries, to vote, to fight, etc.). If the state promises liberties with one hand, it is busy actually taking liberties away with the other. While we may be stuck with states for the present, as an unpleasant political reality, it is not too difficult to see that there are better unrealised alternatives even from a traditional liberal angle, alternatives that pass unconsidered. And MCCioskey has grossly underestimated the severity of ecological problems states should be trying to solve. In some of his findings, MCCioskey is so wildly astray that his judgement on factual issues and his credibility has to fall under real suspicion. For example: ' ... it is evident that over the whole period of his existence man has only been one relatively minor factor bearing on species survival rates' (p.47)! ' ... man is simply adding more hazards to those created by nature itself for some species' (p.47 continuing). For the next example, by contrast with the previous, MCCioskey might seek refuge in the fact that he was writing back in 1982: 'Few suggest that man can or will destroy the ecosystem of the earth' (p.49). Even so, the news on nuclear winter had broken, and the Greenhouse effect was already worrying some scientists. "Man" appears able to do little that is very wrong; MCCioskey can only bring himself to engage in the mildest of censure: ' ... man could have used DDT to better effect' (p.50). No doubt he could have refrained from using it to significantly better effect. A due adaptation of that Old Testament idea that humans are characteristically radically flawed, regularly and perhaps inevitably sinning in their treatment of the Earth, does not break through in MCCloskey's approach. In fact anti-ecological themes strongly pushed by MCCioskey will break through again and again in what follows. 17 Nor did Mccloskey anticipate the rapid march of ecological history at all well. With his operational assumption that ecological reforms 'would not be popular' (e.g. p.156), he appears to have been swiftly refuted by history. There has been much popular movement in favour of ecological causes. The main resistance to far-reaching reforms has not been popular, but establishment resistance, together with that from business, wealth and privilege, and their hired economic men and thugs. Similarly with his assumptions that reform, or change, would not occur unless the ecological problems were believed 'to be real problems' (p.157) - which of course MCCloskey himself believed they were not by and large, something he deluded himself that he had shown. But popular beliefs have changed rapidly, taking MCCloskey's assumptions under along with old beliefs. In any case, MCCloskey's argument to unpopularity lacks cogency. It is that ecological measures 'may necessitate less convenient, changed lifestyles, many controls and restrictions, increased costs, additional taxes, basic interference with what now are seen as being matters of basic rights .... democratic legislators [cannot] hope to bring about the reforms ... and still retain office' (p.157). Whence, again ecological reformers may look to totalitarian political solutions. So far as I am aware, there have been no such proposals by ecological groups in Australasia. In small measure too, Mccloskey begins to meet his own argument. For measures of the type Mccloskey rightly finds distasteful, have already been run through in contemporary representative democracies; consider security and surveillance, foreign control and surveillance, nuclear power and surveillance, urban restructuring and surveillance opportunities, and so on. Secondly, there are important trade-offs; if these often minor inconveniences are not experienced now, much more drastic and dislocating changes will probably have to be undertaken subsequently. Thirdly, of course, if they are not undertaken now much of immense value will be lost. More direct democracies than we have today, where peoplegovernance and control of established elites is tenuous, would stand a better chance of limiting these losses; properly pluralistic systems would presumably manage better still. But Mccloskey does not address such issues as ecologically improved democracies. Instead he assumes, quite wrongly, that solutions to ecological difficulties will require strong and authoritarian central governments (perhaps both of states and of the world), but that such institutions run directly counter to liberal concerns: 'the enjoyments of many rights and liberties and opportunities to rectify grave injustices' (p.25). So he tears off to address the difficulties of ecological totalitarianism (pp.158-9), well-known difficulties (as Goodin observed) confronting Antipodean non-starters among political alternatives. 18 Without examining other alternatives than certain totalitarian ones, Mccloskey manages to conclude (to his own satisfaction) that 'the only realistic, feasible avenue to ecological political reform is through the political institutions of an open society that respects human rights', what he appears to think is offered by contemporary 'liberal democratic states' (p.159). Naturally deep environmentalists seek open societies that respect rights, including decently discerned human rights. The big trouble is that on these matters, as with environmental matters, contemporary liberal democratic states have performed decidedly sublimenally, i.e. well below adequacy threshold. 6 It is not unreasonable to contemplate alternative political arrangements that perform more satisfactorily. But it is perhaps unrealistic to expect such improved organisational structure to be got into place at all easily or at all. For liberal democratic states retain regional monopolies on violence and other critical control, which, for all the palavering about respecting rights, they do not hesitate to deploy when their power and security are threatened. Nor is Mccloskey, by contrast with libertarians, at all averse to regulations and restrictions and limitations on liberty - except when these put environmental things ahead of humans. For humans, if not animals, things material are supposed to be pretty good in MCCloskey's liberal democratic mixed capitalistic setting. Environmental constraints are not to impose upon or reduce human living 'standards or levels of enjoyment' (p.134) - unless that enjoyment should be profligate, for instance involving conspicuous consumption and waste. Certainly such constraints are not to interfere with morally acceptable human freedoms: such is one side of the proferred dilute liberalism. But unnecessary waste is another thing, and should be curbed, through state guidance and regulation; liberalism here parts company with libertarianism. 'The switch from a resource-profligate society to a resource-liberal one would involve an acceptance of much more state action, more state interference by way of incentives, disincentives, regulations, restrictive laws, and over all planning than now prevails. However, it would not require the loss of basic freedom ... ' (p.134)! Such double-talk certainly makes the heavy liberal case MCCloskey tries to mount against decent environmental concerns - as against decent human concerns - look thin and flawed. Because such regulation does make serious inroads upon capitalistic freedoms, much hangs on the term 'basic', which is not however explained in this context. If, being freedom-loving Europeans, we burn down an empty freeway at speeds in excess of wasteful consumption limitations and we are accordingly locked away for months, then the effect 6 Sublimenal is a satisizing analogue of the maximization ideology's suboptimal. 19 on our basic freedom to life at large is serious. The paternalistic states MCCioskey offers, in significant respects more paternal than those we already have in the West, do not sit so easily with liberalism; patently they are incompatible with libertarianism, which does not brook such restrictive regulation. The critical point is however this: what is permissible in rectifying a resource-profligate society is similarly permissible in reorganising an environmentally-profligate society. Again there need be no loss of basic freedom, where basic is now characterised in terms of whats ethically acceptable. Only the ethics is now a deep environmental ethics. 5. Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved classification of environmental problems. Environmental ethics and politics are regularly said to be engendered by environmental problems, increasingly severe and encroaching problems. Yet in MCCloskey's text, as in that of his main model, Passmore's establishment text, there is no well-organised classification of environmental problems, only a rather ramshackle list. We can however reach towards an improved classification by considering environmental impact in a dynamic setting (cf. the beginning of section 1). An impact of something is something which comes from somewhere, sources, into something, sinks, parts of environments. In a process diagram, it looks like this: impacts processes sources sinks types of environments participants distinguished agents of impacts recipients of impacts Expanding upon the elements of this process diagram will deliver the sought after improved classification. Firstly, given distinguished background experience, especially with environmental impact equations, a further two-way classification is suggested: in terms of • sorts of impacts, and • types of environments. The latter framework is wide enough (in obvious respects too wide for a tight classification) to include both special concentrated sources such as mines, power stations, factories, and the like, and special sinks such as rubbish dumps, sewerage outflows, and the like. But the framework is not quite wide enough; it is important to factor into types of environments, expected inhabitants of those environments, which are the recipients of impacts (impactees). These will include not only present inhabitants of 20 environments: animals, plants, native humans, for land-surface environments, but also expected future inhabitants, whose likelihood or very existence may be impaired. There are two ways of incorporating these sorts of elements in the general scheme: either expanding environmental components, by having zones and habitats with kinds of expected inhabitants; or distinguishing participants in the impacts, givers and receivers. Here the latter course is preferred; we distinguish also then • kinds of recipients, and as well of course • kinds of impactors. While the kinds of impactors is diverse, including such superagents and nonagents as Nature, Chance, God (as in "acts of God"), and so forth, as well as animals, the main impactors of interest are, presently, humans. Accordingly let us run out the standard environmental impact equation for humans in a region, though it applies to any class of impactors through any kind of impact: EI. Environmental impact (of ... through ... ) = Population size (of ... ) X Resource use per member (of ... ) x Impact (through ... ) per unit of resource use e.g. of humans in USA through atmospheric pollution. Such an impact breakdown leads directly to three major categories of environmental problems, namely a Population a Consumption and use a Technology and waste. Those components act in concert, and, despite well-publicized attempts to load problems onto just one component, evidently all are sometimes important. A more sophisticated environmental impact equation would reduce the aggregation of the equation, EI = P x C x T (in brief, and functional, form), by introducing distributional features, which indicated where and when impact really mattered. Suppose, for example, there are n sufficiently independent regions, as in the following regionalized impact equation: n EI = Pi X Ci X Ti i=l Suppose, for instance, we are investigating the environmental impact of present humans l through industrialization, i.e. EI (present humans through industrialization). Then, on an obvious regional breakdown, the impact is overwhelmingly dominated by three regions: North America, Europe, and North Asia (primarily Japan). If it were not that the rest of the world were locked into this system (and its humans encouraged to applaud 21 and emulate it), supplying much of the raw materials, taking too much of the expensive products and waste, and suffering the pollution effects that spill outside the offending regions, main problems of industrialisation could be isolated in the high latitude N orthem hemisphere. The regionalized environmental impact equation will also serve to better organise widespread assumptions as to how those impacts that are taken seriously can be eroded. Not only is there the illusory prospect of reducing impact to "acceptable levels" by variation of just one parameter - Ci is that invariably favoured by socially-oriented shallower environmentalists; Ti, in the shape of wizard technology, by economists and technocrats (but such technology is likely to have its own impact and thereby to add to environmental problems). There is also the possibility of moving further afield to new regions, where impacts are lower. There are familiar frontier practices ( and a corresponding frontier ethics), which can be seen as reapplied to elements such as industrialisation and its components, pollution and waste. Of course such frontier practices are impoverishing, and too often destructive of further environments and many of their inhabitants; but in any case they are now seriously limited by biospheric limitations of the whole Earth. Many significant types of environment obtain little or no consideration in MCCloskey's survey; e.g. deserts (too many the product of past human activity), urban regions, polar regions, atmospheric zones, and so on. To stay within reasonable bounds, however, not even all the areas of concern that Mccloskey does look at will be examined in what follows. For to try to track Mccloskey in all the areas he does delve into would require an extensive treatise, as he raises many fundamental issues in political theory: to mention two remarkable examples, a brief discussion of 'the right to private property' is tucked away under 'Family Rights and Rights to Reproduce', and of the 'right for education' under 'The Right to Respect as a Person' (p.75ff.) Instead a more detailed treatment of a few of the areas he addresses will be offered (in fact some of the other areas have been investigated elsewhere, in Green Series discussions, or will be). 6. Population impact: the fact of human overpopulation. A major and very conspicuous impact of humans upon the Earth comes through their sheer numbers, which, though already huge, are still growing rapidly, and are overwhelming environmental and social bases for reasonable support in many parts of the globe. MCCloskey's first thesis, which sets the agenda for his entire population discussion, is this (pp 146-7,p.97): that there is no world population crisis, indeed further, NP. The world is not threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future. 22 But instead of coming out directly and cleanly with this preposterous thesis, MCCioskey approaches the business in a typical oblique way, designed to shift the onus of proof, claiming that he has 'argued that a tenable, plausible case had not been made out for believing that the world is threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future' (p.146). It is fair to wonder about his experiential basis, whether, for instance, he has travelled through India or visited the vast urban slums of many third-world countries. It is fair to wonder what would make a "tenable plausible case" - proper theoretical business for philosophers, which philosophers have generally steadfastly avoided - or, of immediate relevance, what would constitute a "population crisis", and what counts as "overpopulation". On the last at least we do have a proposal from MCCioskey, 'to use overpopulation to refer to population sizes that exceed a country's or the world's capacity to feed adequately and to make it possible for all to enjoy their basic rights' (p.97). While the proposal is no doubt very convenient for the argumentative route MCCioskey will try to take, a route it already signposts, it is a decidedly chauvinistic and exceedingly shallow suggestion, which is ecologically entirely unacceptable. First, it takes no due account of future humans, or other creatures. But present capacity is achieved, so far as it is, too often through running down present biological and other systems, thereby jeopardising future capacity; decent sustainability is required even by shallow ecological positions. Secondly, the proposal is indecently chauvinistic; it takes account of naught but humans, their basic rights and their feeding. It thus violates the framework MCCioskey elsewhere professes to have adopted. For instance, high populations, which are not MCCioskey overpopulations, may lead, and are leading, to promotion of evil and to gross reductions in intrinsic value, including types of value MCCioskey earlier (somewhat reluctantly) acknowledged. But like all the political applications of the potentially generous ethical basis, that on population takes an ugly anti-ecological tum. It is all humans and humans, humans first, last and only, though humans at brute food subsistence levels or less as it turns out, and is turning out in many regions. Now really the proposal should be relativised, to 'overpopulation of a region', as the awkward disjunction, between country or world, makes evident. Many regions and countries are already seriously overpopulated (even by MCCloskey's slack standards), as he goes on to say. However, so he immediately asserts, 'the world as a whole is not overpopulated' (p.97). Whatever the case for this claim - a defective and disreputable case as will soon appear - plainly some large assumptions go into the proposition that a whole or summation can enjoy certain distribution properties when many of its parts do not: assumptions about the role of international trade, regionalism and self-sustainability on the one side and about summative features on the other. If clothes, for example, are 23 dirty or shabby in many parts, so are they as a whole. Suppose some parts are overpopulated because of constant infringements of basic human rights, infringements presumably traceable back to excess population sizes (though the connection is not made clear enough). Then the whole can hardly but be overpopulated, as it stands, whatever the future prospects for redistribution, reorganisation, and so forth. To evade such problems and to scramble to his conclusion Mccloskey firstly weakens 'basic rights' to 'basic needs' (but rights normally demand more than need satisfaction), and then drops 'basic needs' out altogether. Thus what he finally gets down to is the bare food issue, all else set aside: of whether 'if the food actually produced were distributed and used to the best advantage of all persons in the world' every human could be fed. But, so he claims, 'it is widely accepted' that all can be amply fed (pp 97-8). It is evident that, even if what is so "widely accepted" were true, the outcome would be insufficient to show no Mccloskey overpopulation. Suppose the world has the capacity (and will) to redistribute food to the most advantage. Still, basic food is no assurance of basic rights. Further argument, not supplied, is essential; argument to showing that regional overpopulation, stayed however by bread (but not circuses), does not lead to basic rights infringement, through such media as unemployment, poverty, inequity and so on. Furthermore it is very doubtful that this can be established, for the simple reason that there are connections between these human conditions (however difficult they may be to push into quantifiable or law-like form). Humans do not survive or depend upon food alone. To keep many of them even partly contented, so inflated have their wants and needs become under ideological pressures, will require a very large and very environmentally destructive pie. Humans are now an extraordinarily greedy and destructive species. Though one animal species among thousands, and one biological species among tens of millions, they have taken over most of the Earth and most of its products, so far as they can, for their own uses and purposes. More than 80% of the fruits of photosynthesis, for example, now flow to this one species. Yet perhaps 10% of the world's human population are malnourished, and many millions at least lack other subsistence needs. Even the bare food claim, upon which MCCloskey's whole case depends at bottom, is no longer so widely accepted, since the shock of the North American and other droughts; it was being questioned as MCCloskey wrote. Now however we have available the Brown University study of world food supply in relation to human 24 population. 7 The study is based on the 1986 harvest, which was a world record. The findings were that, with this supply, assuming perfect and equal redistribution, 6 billion humans would be fed a vegetarian diet. Thus by the end of the century, present record supplies will not be able to sustain the world's human population even at vegetarian levels. If the somewhat better South American style diet, with 15% meat, is considered, then only 4 billion humans can be fed; that is, less than the present world population. While if a rather better Australian style diet is contemplated, the number that can be fed declines to 2.5 billion, that is half the present world population. So much for ample feeding. It might reasonably be anticipated that the rest of the argument to NP, no foreseeable population crisis, is hopeless. And it is. All we are offered are, firstly, some reasons, of very variable quality, 'to suspect the most confident, brash predictions' (p.99) - suspicions which seem to include NP within their scope, along with MCCloskey's next speculative thesis. Secondly we are offered the speculative thesis that world food production will grow at least sufficiently to match world population growth. It is a thesis floated largely on technological optimism, a thesis that should be regarded with heavy suspicion given recent serious declines in biological capital: fisheries, soils, forests, and so on, and given apparently increasing climatic instability. To give him his small due, MCCioskey does assert, repeatedly, that there is little ground 'for complacency and inaction in respect of the world's population growth' (e.g. p.99 ); and as well as firing moral shots at 'alarmist predictions ... based on the flimsiest premisses' countering NP (for no problem), he makes heavy moral noises about morally assessing the situation. In any case, he needs to say something like this in order to pull off convincingly his big discussion of the ins and outs of, ethics and politics of, human sexuality and population control. 7. On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations. Hitherto received opinion, in modem Wes tern civilization, has taken the line that culling animal species is perfectly alright, but that culling humans is not, because humans have an unalienable right to life (a right regularly neglected however in times of war, in regressive criminal justice systems, and now questioned as regards poachers of significant animals). Received opinion, which MCCioskey tries to shore up, is now being challenged. Alternative methods of controlling populations of wild animals, to 7 The study is regularly cited by Ehrlich in his talks, lectures and works: see reference. 25 previous technologically primitive ones, are being seriously considered. Another gulf between humans and other sizeable intelligent animals is beginning to close. Unlike some dangerous Christian thinkers, Mccloskey does not cede to humans an unlimited right to procreation. As he says, 'there is no recognised moral, social or legal right for consenting parties to reproduce at will', but 'few philosophers today would seek philosophically to justify prevailing recognised ... restrictions on procreation' (p.150). Mccloskey wishes to impose a restriction as regards adequate provision for offspring; there is no right to reproduction where a requirement of reasonable prospects of adequate provision is not met. This bears heavily, as he realises, and perhaps also inequitably, on impoverished parents in poor communities; the issue is not really resolved (see p.101). But otherwise, in richer countries, the duties of those who would undertake human parenthood are presented as slight. Individuals, acting on their own, have otherwise no duties to restrict the size of their families (for the unMCCloskeyian consequentialist reason that it will have limited practical significance and achieve little). Where overpopulation is an issue, political, not individual, action is what is required. Where overpopulation threatens, individuals 'adequately fulfil their duty if they have only that number of children for which they can adequately care and [very differently, and with major political implications] if they foster and support world action to stabilize the world population and [confirming a right previously hedged] to ensure that all persons enjoy the right, equally with themselves, to have offspring if they so choose' (p.104 ). Otherwise the issue is dumped in the (too hard) political basket, for states and world organisations to try to handle. All this is decidedly unsatisfactory. Most important, there is no right to production of children without limit, even given that they can be "provided for". One reason is that new children produce impacts, and children in quantity seriously interfere with others; so result in significant violations of liberal principles regarding noninterference with others. In rough analogical terms, as the Macs' new building interferes with their neighbours' views, so their new children interfere with the neighbours' freedom and lifestyles and environments, beginning with local noise and crowding and continuing, much further, through taxes for family allowances, for schools and so on, through crowded and polluted parks and beaches and so on. Those assuming (conditional) rights, to reproduce for instance, tend to forget that rights require justifications (they cannot just be pulled out of thin air). But here any straightforward justificatory pattern is upset, because of a very familiar neglect of relations: namely, impacts of new people on environments, and interference of new people with in-place people. A change in attitudes and practices is accordingly warranted. Parties producing larger numbers of children should be regarded as socially and ecologically irresponsible; they should no longer gain special financial support, but 26 perhaps should, on the contrary, be duly penalized. These themes run counter to the main thrust of MCCloskey's discourse on population control, an extensive discussion premised on what he takes to be the improbable hypothesis that a world population crisis eventuates (pp.147-155). It ought to be enough to pull the plug on that discussion, sending intellectual babies with soiled bath water. That voluntary methods of limiting human births 'will not succeed' is MCCloskey's prime thesis (p.147). The support offered for it is characteristic and characteristically inadequate. First the thesis is weakened, and then some restricted and contestable empirical evidence is advanced as suggestive. 'That voluntary methods of checking birth rates are unlikely to be adequate is suggested by the relatively limited success of family planning projects even where [well] backed ... ' (p.147). On the contrary, voluntary methods of checking birth rates, mostly independent of family planning projects, have been substantially successful in many better educated, less impoverished communities. Some of these might even count as spectacularly successful, and more would be if they achieved some real, and sensitive, state support. But there are many powerful interests, especially those emanating from organised religions, operating against delivery of support designed for success. There is a conspicuous difference, again connected with ancient prejudices, between the attitude shown to human populations and the approach MCCloskeyians take to animal populations. Humans have the right, but socially constrained, to continue on their expansive and environmentally degrading course; animals have no such right, because, among other things, they have no rights. 8. On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof. The argument to the conservative result, that animals cannot enjoy (moral) rights, attempts to trade off an argument on which great emphasis is put, that 'there is a vast gap between rights and interests' (p.66). But that attempt depends on a confusion between what rights are - certainly not interests - and what can hold rights significantly - perhaps only items with interests. With that confusion out of the way, MCCioskey still has two main arguments to his shrill conclusion, that 'animals do not, cannot possess moral rights' (p.66 and several other places): a tight redefinition argument, and an environmental chaos otherwise argument. The tight redefinition argument proceeds, by appealing to special features of rights, to tighten up the notion of right so that unwanted (if commonly recognised) classes of right-holders are excluded. Such an argument, widely deployed against animal liberation, takes two main forms: less plausibly, that rights require interests, which 27 animals are alleged to lack, and, more plausibly, that rights have to be suitably exercisable and claimable, feats beyond animals abilities and capacities to perform. Though formerly among the ageing afficiandos of the less plausible Cartesian nointerests approach, MCCioskey now pursues the more plausible form. He appeals first to typical features of rights (though really some combination of these must form an invariant cluster for a decisive argument), such as their being 'foregone, insisted upon, exercised in or contrary to one's interests. For possession of a moral right to be meaningful, the possessor or his/her representative must be able to claim it, exercise it, or the like' (p.66, italics added). Unfortunately for his argument, MCCioskey proceeds, at crucial points, to leave out the representative alternative. Thus while an animal may not be able to claim its rights, a representative can; whereupon talk of claiming a right is not empty (pace p.66). Thus the argument so far is broken-backed. Having recanted on his earlier contention that animals cannot have interests (see p.65), MCCioskey is no longer in a position to preclude the attribution of rights on that ground, that interests are a necessary condition. 8 'We can plausibly claim to have some idea of what is in the interests of an animal. We can have no knowledge concerning how it would exercise its moral rights, if it had any' (p.66). Surely we can. A wombat can exercise its right to proceed along a way in the same way that a human can, namely by proceeding along it, setting aside obstructions, and so on. But MCCioskey proceeds, in a way characteristic of high redefinition strategies, to heighten the requirements. He appeals to features of what he takes to be 'paradigm cases of the possessors of rights, persons, rational, morally autonomous beings' which he couples with the characteristic exercise of rights (p.66). There are, however, other paradigm examples of right holders, such as small children, senile humans, imbeciles, etc. Despite the suggestions, rationality and a high level of autonomy are not required for the possession or exercise of rights. MCCioskey asserts that 'it is capacity for moral autonomy, for moral selfdirection and self-determination, that is basic to the possibility of possessing a right' (p.66). That is a high redefinition, substantially exceeding the requirements normally expected, especially where guardians or representatives are appointed or envisaged. MCCioskey-rights are a quite proper subclass of rights as ordinarily conceived. Even so it may well be that animals can hold them; it all depends upon how much gets pumped into the elusive term 'moral'. Wombats, for example, are not human, do not read and write, are not much given to calculus, do not enter into contracts, and so on; nor do 8 Elliot is quite mistaken in saying that McCloskey's views have not changed since those espoused in 1979 (p.503). Admitting animal interests represents a major change. That animals do, of course, have interests is argued in detail in my 81. 28 many primitive peoples, though humans, engage in any of these activities (though some of them perhaps could with education). But wombats are, by and large, decidedly autonomous, self-determining and self-directed; they exhibit much more independence than most modern humans. Similarly with whales. Despite such familiar findings, MCCioskey takes the following proposition as decisive: 'Consider how we should respond if it were to be determined that a whale or dolphin possessed moral autonomy' (p.66). He does not address the issues raised in this queer pronouncement, but immediately leaps to his sought conclusion against animal rights. Given that moral autonomy is not to the point, except for MCCioskey-rights, the proposition is irrelevant to and not supportive of the conclusion. Without the elusive term 'moral', the proposition is, furthermore, decidedly not a discussion stopper. Most dolphins exhibit a high degree of autonomy, the exceptions being primarily those (improperly) held in captivity, injured in fishing activities, sickened by pollution, and so on. The trouble with the infiltration of morality is that it normally (if wrongly) suggests human activities and human communities - whence what small force MCCloskey's proposition enjoys, as whales as agents fall outside that setting. The argument to environmental chaos, to entirely untoward environmental implications, if rights were ceded to animals, comprises several facets. They are facets that have been seen before, with every legitimate struggle for extensions of rights, such as, most memorably, allocation of rights to enslaved humans. That latter certainly brought some desirable dislocation to social arrangements; so will legitimating animal rights. But it need bring nothing like the complication and aggravations of social and environmental problems that MCCioskey fearfully envisages (p.69, p.122). A first facet concerns conflict of rights. There are of course conflicts of rights between humans and groups of humans, but MCCioskey fears the situation with animals would not merely be more complicated (as it would with much greater numbers) but that 'the difficulty and complexity of this rights calculus' would make it unworkable (p.67). But again he fails to show anything like this. Indeed he immediately weakens his position of apparent strength by looking to an 'easier calculus' where 'man simply protects animals from human violations of animal rights' (p.67). That would be a fine start, though politically virtually all nations and peoples would have to advance a long way to achieve it (Sweden less than most others). While the "easier calculus" does not mean that animals have lesser rights than humans, as MCCioskey implies, what is suggested is important in escaping from difficulties MCCioskey tries to amass. For not all right-holders are on a par, much as not all types of creatures are equal in abilities or capacities. In particular, to get to critical and divisive issues straightaway: it does not follow then from the fact that animals have 29 rights that some of them, domestic ones, cannot be kept, or used - any more than it follows from the fact that humans have rights that some cannot be kept, or employed, for instance as servants. Nor does it follow that dead animals (or humans) cannot be eaten. Nor, most controversially, is it incompatible with animals having rights, that some are killed. For not all rights stand or fall together; a right for continued existence is very different from a right to a decent life or treatment while alive. Furthermore, MCCloskey's invalid arguments to ecological chaos succeed in turning animal liberation into animal libertinism. They do this by familiar slide strategies from some to more to all, from some rights, to many other rights, to the same rights as fully-competent persons. The strategy is coupled with that of assigning to humans more rights than they have, or should hold. Examples include the right to be absolutely where they like or to breed at will. But one human does not have the right to be in any other human's house or bed or space.9 No more do animals, like feral animals or 'disease-carrying pests such as rats and mice'. So, for example, the major conflict MCCioskey alleges with human rights to health dissolves; it depends upon granting excessive rights to rats and mice. With a sensible calculus of rights humans need not be overwhelmed by either animals or other humans; given due constraints on human populations (more than any other animal populations), interference by others could be stabilized at a low level. A further large facet of MCCloskey's argument to chaos doggedly pursues practical and ecological costs of vegetarianism, costs which he considerably exaggerates. But whether he is right about these costs, or not, is a separate issue - irrelevant to the main issue of animal rights. For admitting or stressing animal rights most emphatically does not 'dictate acceptance of vegetarianism as a moral position or practice' (p.68). There is no valid route from rights for animals to vegetarianism, for reasons that have already been very briefly indicated above. 10 MCCioskey has linked the question of animal rights much too closely with positions like that of Singer (an evident target on pp.68-9 of the text). But many more ordinary people and even some philosophers, 11 both before and after Singer, have assigned rights to animals, without commitment thereby to vegetarianism, and without evident (or any) fallacy. As a result or this flawed linkage, 9 While writing this I heard a local airforce contingent claiming its right-to the freedom of Canberra. Plainly it only has a right-to the freedom of only certain cities, and to quite limited things within those cities. 10 A much more detailed case, along with counter-models, can be extracted from my previous work, esp. the Green Series, number 13, i.e.TE (essay 3), and number 2. 11 A neglected early philosopher is Maclver; see esp. his remarks on p.69. 30 MCCioskey makes another interesting mistake: namely 'that the two movements, animal rights on the one hand (the view that some animals possess moral rights) and conservation and preservation on the other', so far from being 'complementary, mutually supportive positions', 'in fact are fundamentally opposed and are such as to be calculated to lead to many major clashes' (p.69, rearranged). While there are major clashes, for example, between moral extensionisms, such as the expanded utilitarianisms of Bentham, Sidgwick and Singer on the one side, and deep environmentalism on the other, there are no clashes of an animal rights position with deep environmentalism . For, very simply, such deep positions accord animals rights. As elsewhere, so with animal rights, errors in the ethical treatment intrude into the supposed political implications. Unremarkably then MCCioskey sees 'the ecological state' as committed to ecological chaos, all of which 'would very seriously curtail human liberty in many ways' and 'create massive theoretical and practical political problems' (p.122). No doubt decent treatment for animals, codified in rights, would restrict human liberty somewhat, as abolition of public spectacles such as hangings, floggings or throwing Christians to hungry lions, curtailed spectator opportunities and freedoms. But the desirable elimination of factory-farmed fast foods and animal-tested cosmetics, or the curtailment of circuses and reformation of zoos, are hardly very serious restrictions on human liberty, or what MCCioskey is thinking of really. He is again thinking of his house full of rats and his garden full of copulating animals, of vegetarianism and protection of rabbits made legally obligatory, and so on (for many such fantasies see p.122). But no such consequences, ensue, without repetition of the errors already exposed in the ethical treatment: inferences from some rights to excessive rights, and so on. Because side-tracked by his own production, by this pantomime of absolutely unconstrained, rampaging, warring and rapidly-multiplyin g animals (i.e. like some humans when ideological controls are lifted, not like most animals), MCCioskey does not address at all the very serious abuses in prevailing present treatment of animals, abuses on farms and in laboratories, at home and in the wild, abuses that should be politically addressed from ethical bases, issues well addressed through rights. An institutionalisation of animal rights would not produce the big problems MCCioskey envisages; after all most people are now represented by professionals in many of their dealings concerning legal rights, a professional paternalism increasingly operates, which 31 subsumes many professionals themselves. On the contrary, such institutionalisation of animal rights, properly done could make for very desirable changes. 12 9. Two other critical features of dominant political ways: the shibboleths of extensive private property and high technology. The orthodox assumption, which McCloskey makes, is that a liberal democratic state will have a mixed (or marginally socially constrained) market capitalist economy. Under the simplistic equations that tend to distort much modem political discussion, even the inadequate qualifications occasionally inserted are forgotten: a liberal democratic state is often equated with institution of market capitalism, indeed too often market arrangements get equated with capitalism. Evidently, however, these equations fall apart under but slight disturbance. Logically they come apart entirely. There are severe logical problems with the very idea of a liberal democracy, which is a dialectical union of individual liberal with social welfare and democratic ideals. For a democratic state, especially should it take popular majoritarian form, can seriously curtail the freedom of minorities (the well-known "tyranny of the majority"). Liberal ends may be better served by a benign dictatorship than by democratic arrangements. Liberality and democracy part company. Similarly individual liberty and statist social welfare. And so on. Certainly liberality, which is the most free ranging of the five big political league players being disentangled, 13 does imply some significant limitations on arrangements, but they may not favour democracy, or capitalism. Fully liberal arrangements should enable a community to opt for democratic organisation, should it wish; but similarly these arrangements should allow the community to choose otherwise, should it want. Also liberal arrangements of a social cast (with decent freedom of the servants) would mean winding back of capitalism. Despite the immense damage illregulated capitalism and market structures can, and do, separately inflict upon ecological and social systems, there is practically no discussion of such matters in MCCloskey, and again little investigation of improved structures or regulation. 14 12 For one thing, it challenges factory farming, as infringing animal rights, in an obvious way. McCloskey avoids the issue when it arises (p.140). 13 In fact four of the five substantially independent players we are reflecting upon market, social welfare, capitalistic, democratic, and liberal arrangements - do not receive an index listing in Mccloskey, while the fifth, liberal, collects many citations and much discussion. 14 A major contemporary myth is that markets and capitalism can flourish without regulation, indeed that they flourish best in a fully deregulated setting. Both 32 As with liberal democracy, so with market capitalism, the components separate. Markets can flourish without capitalism, where for instance agents have sharply limited and bounded budgets and capitalistic accumulation cannot operate. Markets require no liberty in other parts of social life than those involving exchange of certain material goods; they certainly do not require a democratic framework. Capitalism can function without a vibrant free market system; indeed in advanced capitalist states it increasingly does so, with oligopolistic arrangements in place of competitive output markets, vertical integration and contract delivery replacing former input markets, and so on. Capitalism too requires neither democracy nor liberty, indeed too much of either could seriously undermine it. It does however depend upon property, for control and as a store for capital accumulated. In principle, of course, a very limited capitalism could work without private ownership of land and resources, so long as some exchangeable stable form of wealth, such as a sound currency or gold, was available for accumulation and payment of labour. But smart capitalists would rightly feel excessively vulnerable under such arrangements; for they could be wiped out by an outside devaluation of the currency or outside increases in rents on resources and land. In any case, many capitalists (virtually all people of substantial wealth in Australia), and a large array of parasitic middle parties, agents and hangers-on, would be duly despatched along with free-for-all property markets. Having glimpsed MCCloskey's unquestioned commitment to mixed capitalism, it is piquant to behold him begining upon undermining an institution fundamental to historic capitalism, namely private property. Most of MCCloskey's brief discussion of rights to private property (pp. 78-80) focusses upon the labour theory of property, descended from Locke and others, upon which he effects a full demolition job. In fact he severely weakens the case for a substantially unfettered ("free") institution of private property, upon which however the type of liberalism he advances depends. For strong property rights and guarantees are basic to present liberal democratic arrangements, as they are to proposed libertarian alternatives. MCCioskey even tries to close off discussion of the 'political desirability of allowing property rights by way of patent rights to discoveries' in plant and animal breeding, particularly through genetic engineering, on the pretext that these 'cannot reasonably be objected to without the whole private-property system of institutions depend for their operation and for their very survival on regulation, on an appropriate enforceable legal setting. Otherwise, in communities where a certain egalitarianism counted for something for instance, a capitalist would be rash to bank upon holding onto substantial surplus wealth for long. 33 liberal democratic states being questioned' (p.139). Now peripheral cases do not generally threaten the centre, unless, perchance, it is already in some doubt. The extent and character of property is a quite critical, indeed a watershed, issue for environmental politics. For excessive propertarian rights and powers constitute a very serious impediment to sound environmental practice. The reason is simple: the proprietor may be less than well disposed to the environment, and may well permit or enact unsound practices. Yet propertarians often now appeal to a purported need to strengthen and expand the institution of private property - rather that to let it naturally contract - in order to combat environmental problems. Thus such dubious proposals as saleable rights to pollute environments, dump wastes, etc. - licences which look even to the uninitiated like ways of extending, not contracting, pollution and like environmental problems, and which look to the more cynical as ways of circumventing costs and limits environmental constraints impose upon economic activity. 15 The liberal democratic structure to which MCCioskey commits himself to, with its uncritical approach to population and consumption - like market capitalism, with its commitments to expanding populations to ensure growth and profit, expanding markets, enhanced consumption, and cheap labour resources - forces an unduly heavy dependence on technological wizardry. In particular, it requires a technology that will facilitate greatly increased cheap food supplies, without however too rapidly depleting "biological capital". Given recent experience it demands a faith in technology, and the smart science that underwrites it, that is increasingly difficult to justify. Like all too many academics, MCCioskey has that faith. Science should be given entirely free reign, and technology pushed to the hilt. There is a naive optimism in MCCloskey's attitude to science. 'It is not improbable that ultimately, through the investigations of the sciences, we will come ... to have a full understanding of the earth's weather and climatic patterns. Man will be able to use this 15 Such saleable rights also appear to get another foot-in-the-door for bargaining utilitarians, who claim to want no absolute prohibitions, but want to put the whole environment up for negotiation - and ultimately for sale. What are not up for negotiation are the underlying propertarian and utility maximization principles, the insufficiently examined sources of many of the problems. In any case, the evidence now coming in shows that market approaches to pollution, such as saleable rights and pricing controls (like company fines), do not work at all well. Making directors of polluting firms directly responsible, and putting offenders in jail, apparently does. 34 knowledge for his and the earth's best advantage' (p.137). We, the total managers, will know what is "best" for the earth! Despite the 'dangers of misuse', major disasters, global warfare, climatic destablisation, and so on, 'this fact constitutes no reason for holding back the pursuit of knowledge ... ' (p.137). Maximum speed ahead in the glorious pursuit of science, with full anarchistic enthusiasm there. There is, as well, 'no reason ... for entrusting rulers with the control of science' (p.137); science at least is utterly free in MCCloskey's liberal democracy. While Mccloskey wants the state kept out of science (except as a money pump presumably), he wants it actively intervening in technology, not to limit it, but 'acting to ensure that new technologies be developed and used and their benefits widely enjoyed' (p.138). The liberal state is to be actively and heavily involved in technology promotion and delivery - which puts into serious question its presumed neutral regulatory function. Also espoused is a quite insufficiently discriminating attitude to technology. Like most apologists, Mccloskey emphasizes the possible - but generally unrealised - benefits of technology, that technology 'can release persons from much mindless, degrading work. Hence some, even many persons may never need to work' (p.138). For all the talk about the possible benefits of technology, many alleged benefits seldom or never accrue, for instance to shorten substantially people's working hours and give them more worthwhile leisure; and benefits that do accrue are often not well used. Rather technology is primarily funded to maintain or increase market share and profits (which too often end up in conspicuous consumption and waste), thereby inducing cycles of production and waste, more technology to help control the waste, and so on and up. Technology itself is merely of instrumental worth, with many of its instruments and techniques defective, destructive or dangerous, either directly or through eventual side-effects. While some technology is no doubt instrumentally good, much is not. And the balance of good over bad has been systematically exaggerated in Wes tern culture, where more technology is now looked to or required to rectify gross economic and social mismanagement in liberal democratic states. Technology is however no universal panancea. Both on its record, and in terms of its theoretical prospects, the faith being put in it, to "deliver us from evil", is misplaced But, as remarked, MCCloskey has the faith (such episodes as the Green Revolution are seen as unmitigated successes), and enthusiastically expects great things from technology ('genetic engineering ... constitutes a dramatic, exciting breakthrough of major proportions, one that opens up vastly wider possibilities for developing new plant and animal organisms', p.139). Naturally he concentrates on the sunny side of technology, scarcely touching upon the darker aspects. We merely glimpse one darker side of genetic engineering (for which perhaps no further engineering is needed), the edifying spectacle of mass-production of human drones for 35 industrial slavery (p. 139). As to the big problems with this engineering, we are fobbed off with an evasive throw-away, of the kind more typical of politicians, as to 'the need for relevant controls and checks', and no doubt balances, presumably determined by state masters behind closed doors. Instead Mccloskey tries to divert attention by yet another attack on the hypothetical totalitarian ecological state, and the threat of its coercive methods, not those of your normal corrupt intimidatory democratic state, to human liberties. But the smokescreen quickly subsides, our factional text degenerates into notes: 'Relevant point here include ... ' (p.139). Mccloskey would have us locked into state systems that are delivering increasingly negative results for increasing numbers of humans and disastrous outputs for nonhumans and natural environments. By changing political directions significantly, environmental and human affairs could again have an opportunity to flourish. But for much of the environment at least, there is not a lot of time left. REFERENCES D. Bennett and R. Sylvan, Damn Greenies: Australian Perspectives on Environmental Ethics, typescript, Canberra, 1989; referred to as AP. C.D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, Kegan Paul and Others, London, 1944. R. Elliott, Critical Notice of MCCloskey's Ecological Ethics and Politics, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 63(1985) 499-504. P.R. and A.H. Ehrlich, The Population Explosion, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990. R. E. Goodin, Review of MCCloskey's Ecological Ethics and Politics, Ethics 94(1984) 344-5. A.M. Maciver, 'Ethics and the beetle', Analysis 8(1948) 65-70. H.J. MCCioskey, Ecological Ethics and Politics, Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa N.J., 1983; all page references not otherwise indicated are to this work. T. Nagel, 'Libertarianism without foundations', in Reading Nozick (ed. J.Paul), Blackwell, Oxford, 1981. W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good, Clarendon, Oxford, 1930. H. Rolston III, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1988. R. Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals', Inquiry 24(1981) 387-417. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions', now in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1989; referred to as MD. 36 R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', Nous 17(1973) 441-456; referred to as sv. R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', in Environmental Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian National University, 1979; referred to as EE. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, 'Tao and deep ecology', The Ecologist 18(4/5) (1988) 148159. R. Sylvan, Three essayes upon deeper environmental ethics, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, (Green Series) #13, Australian National University 1987; referred to as TE. R. Sylvan, 'On the value core of deep-green theory', typescript, Canberra, 1988; referred to as DG. DEEP ECOLOGY AND DEEP-GREEN THEORY. Deep-green theory is a deep pluralistic environmental position, underwritten by a deep metaphysical theory. It is intended as an alternative, less fraught with problems, to deep ecology. Deep-green theory has developed, in significant part, through fruitful interreaction with deep ecology. Many of its leading ideas can thus be more rapidly introduced by contructing and comparing them with ideas of deep ecology which are already widely diffused (if often in a muddy or muddled way). As a spin-off then, this outline will offer a simple exposition of central ideas of deep ecology, and further criticism of many of them. In any practical showdown, however, deep ecology and deep-green theory are not antagenistic positions but close allies, both deep positions within a wider environmental alliance. Though the rudiments of deep-green theory go back about as far as deep ecology (to around 1973), it remained unnamed until the early 80's (and only achieved initial investigation in Bennett 86). Moreover, it has not hitherto attained in any fuller platform and slogan formulation, such as deep ecology has benefitted (and suffered) from almost since its inception. The term 'deep ecology' was coined by the Norwegian intellectual, Ame Naess, to label an emerging environmental movement. But, despite Naess's commitment to pluralism, it was from the outset constrained to a certain style of environmental position. The notion has since been elaborated and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several Northamericans, particularly Bill Devall and George Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with Naess (their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end). The notion has caught on outside narrow academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in contrast to Wes tern Europe, significant areas of natural environment remain and are becoming of increasing public concern. Deep ecology is a radical environmenta l position, which goes far beyond resource conservation positions (which are typically concerned with the management and stewardship of resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to prevailing attitudes and practices (of the dominent social paradigm), especially those which concern more or less natural environments. (Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several sources; e.g. Rodman.) 2 Deep ecology takes off from value theory themes which stand in diametrical opposition to mainstream Western ethical and social theory.1 The first of these themes, the wide values theme, is that what is valuable in or for itself is not confined to human beings or their features (such as their interests, concerns, pleasures, consciousness, etc.), but extends much more widely to other beings. The value of these other systems or creatures of their features is not merely instrumental, aluable as a means to human objectives, but is independent of human concerns; it is in brief nonanthropic. Indeed deep ecology goes further, rejecting the greater value assumption, according to which anthropic values always take precedence over such natural values. How then is value distributed, in particular across the things of the world? It is here that deep ecology and deepgreen theory part company. Deep ecology takes value to be restricted to things that are alive (in some attentuated sense, so it turns out); this is the theme of biocentrism, life-centredness. And it assumes that these things with life are all of equal value; this is the controversial theme of biospheric egalitarianism. A unique assignment of value results. Deep-green theory rejects both these themes. For reason to be given, Deep-green theory is much less specific as to how value is distributed. But it is spread on to things - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals which are not alive, and it does not cover all things that are living. Nor is it distributed onto those things that have the quality in an equal fashion, except in the trivial sense that all have or partake of value. Some things that have value are much more valuable than others; there is some weak (and partial) ordering of things with value. It is these things that are worth conserving, preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they are. Thus Deep-green theory is axiocentric, value-centered. Value in nature is regular coupled with some mix of value-making characteristics, including such defeasible ecological universals as richness, rarity stability, resilience, diversity, and so forth. But there are considerable constraints on how values are derived from any such "objective function". One over or thing constraint, that of impartiality, substitutes for that of egalitarianism. According to the requirement of biospecies impartiality, which excludes certain types of class chauvinism, a thing cannot be ranked as valuable or ahead or another simply in virtue of belonging to some species (e.g. being human); such features are not in themselves value-making characteristics. 1 There are some who account themselves deep ecologists who would repudiate such an approach through value theory, most notably Warrick Fox. 3 Figure 1. A compariso n of Deep Ecology and Deep-gree n theory, in capsule form. 2 Deep ecology biospheric egalitarianism Shared themes or goals I I I I I Deep-gree n. theory wider value theme rejection of greater value assumption, +through ➔ biocentrism ecological universals as defeasible value-making biospecies impartiality , and rejection of class chauvinism axiocentrism characteristics extreme holism natural systems as integral, irreducible cosmic identity moderate holism ultraperson al identificati on maximal satisizing on value self-realisation determinates limited interference only with natural systems; restricted rights thereto commitment to implement principles applications to economics, politics and policy, especially in bioregional ism ➔ environmen tal areas; e.g. regionalism and federalism +- ecoregionalism human population reduction A major difference between the theories lies in the distribution of value (from which much else of ethical consequenc e arises: rights, obligations , and so forth). Deep ecology, like simpler utilitarianism, proposes a unique initial distribution (over a given atomistic base class): each living individual is assigned equal intrinsic value, and nothing else has intrinsic value. Values of other things, complexes, systems and so on, are then in principle open to determinate s by a calculation. It is a type of recipe to which intellectual s bent on numeration and calculation are regularly attracted; pseudo-obj ective variations are to be found not only in utilitarianis m but in economics and in democtrati c political theory, and also in probability theory, where elements of suitable 2 Most of the capsule theses of deep ecology are explained in detail in the critique, CD; many of those of Deep-green theory are explained in FE. 4 initial esembles are assigned equal probability, through a principle of indifference. The practice is also as problematic as indifference principles (cf. CD on deep ecological egalitarianism). Deep-green theory rejects the assumptions upon which the deep ecological distribution depends. It rejects the latent atomism, the idea of ultimates upon which value devolves. More dangerously these days, it rejects the equality assumption. Much as some humans are more valuable than others (on most moral and other counts), so some creatures, some systems, are more valuable than others. DG theory is, quite deliberately, much less specific as to how value is distributed. Often enough, especially in difficult cases, assessment of value is a complex matter which may call for much reflection (for some details see TE, first essay). But certainly value is an unevenly distributed feature of a variety of things, not just at bottom altimates. It is a quality of many items - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals - which are not alive; and it does not extend to all things that are living, e.g. malignant virases engineered in biochemical laboratories. Nor is it distributed onto those things that have the quality in an equal fashion, except in the trivial sense that all have or partake of value. Some things that have value are much more valuable than others; there is some weak (and partial) ordering of things with value. It is these things that are worth conserving, preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they are. Thus the theory is at least weakly axiocentric, value-centered. In fact it is more strongly axiocentric, in two important respects. Firstly, deontic notions such as those of obligation, rights and duties, answer back to axiologic ones (see TE, essay 3). Secondly, more difficult to explain, value penetrates the metaphysics, including what is accounted fact; most strikingly, the choice of actual world itself depends upon value (see DP). AUTHENTIC DEEP ECOLOGY: expositio n, critique, alternati ves PREFAC E No longer is there so much need to chronicle and document the major and serious environmental problems confonting the Earth and its ecosystems. Much of the relevant information - details of the damage, difficulties, devastation, disasters, and dire threats of more - now appears in later chapters of biology and geography textbooks, often in striking pictorial or diagramatic form; and the information is regularly updated by articles, too often environmental horror stories, in popular perodicals or newspapers. While many of the problems are abundantly and glaringly evident, others are more subtle, sometimes more insidious, hidden from view, but bound to emerge in not so long term. So we can take the problems, and further problems, "for granted", though with little comfort or ease. Many were, and are, foreseeable; many were, or could be, avoided or mitigated. Serious though these problems are they are still not being taken with full or due seriousness by those who exercise some control over how relevant things happen. 1 Most states are busy attempting more of what has landed us in some of the worst of these problems: more growth, of economic products, of people, of consumption2 , of energy; more or "better" militarisation; more productivity, of agriculture, with environmental cost-cutting and short-cutting, more development and more consumption thereby of biological capital. Growth remains at the top of most national agendas; it is seen as a panacea for all other problems, economic and security problems of course. Serious environmental problems are still mostly treated as economic "externalities", peripheral but growing nuisances, that we shall have to learn to live with3, but not the "real" problems. We have lived under this dominant destructive ideology for much too long already. It has already led to the devastation of much of the planet Earth, to the loss of much of value, many species, While there is a power structure, and a power elite, in all states (virtually as a corollary of features of the state, such as its monopolies on coercion, currency, etc), it cannot be pretended that there are any impressive control systems. So some of the problems are unintended. Given the propensity for human-developed control systems to function in undesirable ways, e.g. to tend towards militarism and totilitarianism, the lack of satisfactory system is no doubt to the good. 2 So, for example, the USA is pressuring Japan to consume more, internally, to ease American balance-ofpayments problems, and soak up excessive production; there is no pressure to produce less. 3 So, for example, prestigious scientific organisations are preparing to teach us how to live with and love the Greenhouse effect. Many communities have learned to live with damaging and noxious pollution; no doubt they would miss it if it were gone. 2 much irreplaceable wilderness, and has left us with an immense, and sometimes hopeless, clean-up and restoration task. Moreover things will rapidly get worse environmentally if we are not rid of it and its variants. Plainly we need several strategies: a strategy for fundamental change, a strategy (needed first) for what comes after the change, and so on. Deep ecology offers a strategy and an initial structure for addressing these environmental problems, along with proposals for addressing the menacing array of other problems confronting modern industrial societies. It is a strategy which goes much deeper than the pathetic patch-up the damage after it's largely done (pollute, then cleanup or pay a bit) approaches that prevail. For this reason alone, deep ecology deserves to be much more widely known. But there is still no satisfactory text on the topic. This book, while hardly an easy introduction to the subject4 , aims to fill a part of the gap. Perhaps too, it can help serve as a basis for that introductory text that still needs to be written. This text tries to do what the title promises. It begins with a sympathetic exposition of deep ecology. That is necessary. It remains hard to find out what deep ecology (DE) is, as it means so many different things to different expositors and exponents. The matter of different visions and elaborations of DE is taken up in the second part, which provides a detailed critique of DE in its main versions. In the final part, other criticisms of DE, from its rival social ecology in particular, are (negatively) assessed; an alternative to DE, deep-green theory is outlined; and some of the political connections of deeper environmentalism are investigated, including strategies for appropriate revolutionary change. Deep ecology is the most exciting deep environmentalism on the present intellectual market; for all its sortcomings, it is still the most thoroughly worked out widely accessible position. That is one reason why its worth a fair bit of time, my time, in struggling with it and trying to improve it, and your time, in getting to know it. This text grew from a critique of DE along with an unpublished expansion of that critique (called 'Continuin g the critique of deep ecology') and sundry associated articles on deep environmentalism. As an expanded version of critique5 remains the centre of the text, some of what I wrote in prefacing the critique should be repeated. I think, I hope, it merits repetition, as amended. 4 There is a need also, as will be explained in subsequent chapters, for a text that measures up to recognised academic standards, sufficiently complex and full of (bad) argument, in order to put deep ecology firmly on academic agenda, to try to ensure that it is not merely a crude popular movement that can be intellectually ignored. 5 'A critique of deep ecology' Radical Philosophy. 3 It was with considerable ambivalence and some serious misgiving that I first undertook a critique of DE, as it risked offending many friends in the deep ecology movement. It succeeded. The trouble was that when I got down to trying to explain what deep ecology was all about (for a seminar, at which N aess and Devell were present, some years ago), I found myself confronted by the following predicament :- While I applauded much about the deep ecology movement, and what it stood for, I could not find my way to accept deep ecology as formulated by any of its main proponents. The reason was not merely that deep ecology is less than a fully coherent body of doctrine, with, furthermore, many problematic sub-themes, but worse, that much of it departed from the ideals I felt it should be expressing, and that some of it was rubbish. Yet I had no doubt that deep ecology was a worthwhile enterprise (carried on by dedicated and good people), and that something along the lines of a replacement for deep ecology - revamped deep ecology if it is simply a matter of repairs, deep-green theory for more - was very much on the right track. Or to put it slightly differently, while rejecting every formulation of deep ecology, I agreed with the general drift of much of deeper ecology, and with virtually all the careful applications of deep ecology. My attempted resolution went along the lines of critical rationalism (for which I have been criticised). The method was to subject deep ecology to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining thereby an improved, more acceptable formulation, which at the same time met other desirable criteria. However to resort to such critical methods was already to type oneself, as old consciousness and old paradigm still, and to risk alienating part of the deep movement. The risks have been taken: but there are some concessions. In the end, when it comes to applications, to lifestyles and policies, the rational ladder has to be enlarged and also supplemented; for it offers only one distinctive way among many. Though the applications of deep ecology to real-world problems are very important, as already indicated, we shall only reach them and not attempt to develop them very far. However a detailed listing of various important applications that have been made will be given.6 Naess and others have complained, with some justification, that I have not gone out my way to find generous interpretation s of deep ecology, which remove apparent rubbish from it (see Naess RS p.3). It is true that, following the prevailing philosophical mode (by no means always to be applauded), I have not been very charatable (here or in other philosophical critiques). I have treated DE as a find it, hopefully in an expositionally straightforwar d and honest way. I do, however, try to 6 The final part of the background paper on population (Routley 84) provides one application in detail, an application expanding on some remarks of Naess (in 83). And several other examples which Naess has outlined (also in 83) can be similarly elaborated. Gare has attempted a major elaboration applying to science. 4 offer alternatives to DE and improvements upon it when I discover them. Deep-greep theory can be seen as a fairly comprehensive alternative. / ON SOCIAL ECOLOGY A heavy attack on DE, a tirade really, was launched recently by Bookchin. It caught leading deep ecologists - who had rather foolistly seen Bookchim as one of them, though it was obvious enough that he wasn't - off-guard, entirely stunning some of them 1 . Bookchin furthermore went about his frontal attack in a most ungentlemanly and less than American way, using practices and methods that Americans do not use as regards decent fellow countrymen, but reserve for communism and its representatives and others engaged in un-American activities. 2 Intellectual exchanges are supposed, otherwise, to proceed in a nice, collegial way (the knives come out in the back rooms, not on the front pages). Bookchin broke American cultural conventions (which is a main reason why several people, e.g. Sale, failed to comprehend what was going on). There is heaps of straight mudslinging in Bookchin, name-calling, attributions of guilt by very thin associations, ad hominen moves. We shall bypass this unworthy material, much of what there is in the attack, because anyone with decent basic training in logic can document it for themselves, if they can obtain copies of the work (not at all easy in the peripheral world). We shall try to isolate the much slimmer intellectual content of Bookchin's criticism. Should we dig under all the dirt, we find there are some core criticisms of DE, which are for the most part defective, but as well some interesting suggestions, which are worth fossicking out and displaying. There are two key issues. In both Bookchin's criticism repacts, but focusses upon DE, the old-fashioned erroneous socialist condemnation of environmentalism of all types - as not only getting priorities wrong in not putting human societies absolutely first, but worse failing to appreciate that environmental problems are the product of social problems and removed with them. • Ecological problems are at bottom nothing but social problems. This rival reduction theme, which is what justfies the social ecology terminology and approach, also gets stated in various, often weaker or slacker forms: For instance, ecological problems have their 1 The phrase 'off-guard' is from Naess. As to the extent of Bookchin's depth see the Critique. 2 This nasty face of American intellectual activity is well exposed in Chomsky's political writings. For the most part American philosophical periodicals permit only the nice face to be exhibited. For my part I enjoyed some of this outrageous stuff of Bookchin's, which was livily and refreshing after the flatness and dullness of much in Naess's notes, and also by contrast with Bookchin's earlier papers, which are mostly repetitive and often rather vacuous diatribes. 2 roots in social problems, ecological problems have their ultimate roots in society and social problems, etc. But DE, 'despite all its social rhetoric, has virtually no real sense of' this; that is a major (disgusting) trouble with it. The correctness and tellingness of social reduction themes vary more or less inversely, depending in particular upon how far the operative term 'social' is stretched. If all problems concerning "groups" (including single member groups) of "individuals" of any sort (including volcanoes, hurricanes, seiges, etc.) are "social" problems, then evidently all ecological problems become social problems, as these are all concerned in some way with individuals and their relations with their surroundings. But such a misleading adjustment to the theme, rendered near-tautologous by a low redefinition of 'social', is not what Bookchin and other socialists have intended. They characteristically intend by 'social' 'human social', and what they intend to convey by 'the social roots of the ecological crisis' is that it is 'the gross inequities in [human] society' - which should be attended to first- 'that underpin the disequilibrium between [human] society and nature'. 3 Now this strong social bias thesis is interestingly false. Consider counterexamples of the following sort:Imagine mixed capitalistic and welfare socio-economic arrangements had worked and succeeded in eliminating the gross inequities in society, at least in some relatively independent regions of the world, and perhaps even globally. There were, it still seems, real prospects that this could have happened in the 60s, had energy and funds been redirected from military-industrial enterprise to social-industrial activity. A welfare safety net is stretched right across the regions concerned so that no longer is any human homeless or without sufficient nourishment or basic eductional opportunities and so on, so that poverty and all other grosser inequities are eliminated. 4 It is sufficiently evident that even if all this is achieved, many ecological problems will not be addressed, but may be aggravated by the increased industrialisation and economic development involved. The lot of factory farmed animals or of threatened wild species would not be removed, but, if touched at all, 3 Bookchin 87 p.10 where the thesis is inaccurately associated with Kropotkin. 4 Naturally, finer inequities, such as unsatisfactory job relativities, race relativities, etc., will not thereby be eliminated and are perhaps part of "the human condition", some of which many societies will be prepared to live with or ignore. The relatively easy opportunities of the 60s for societies free of grosser inequities (for good or even great societies) may have passed, as certain new social problems have much complicated matters. 3 likely worsened. There is no guarantee that the position of wild and natural regions would thereby be improved, that these regions would be freed from constant inroads by human developmental activity, that the Antartcic would not be citified, and so on. In general, no environmental damage and degradation that did not rebound upon the relevant human social situation would be halted or resolved. Furthermore, not only is the strong social bias thesis false, as well human social concerns do not always come first where ecological depth is attained. Bookchin suggests an historical basis for the strong social bias thesis, that the notion of the domination of nature arose in the first place out of social domination of people by people, women by men, and so on. But that is pseudo-history; for the domination of nature and some appreciation of its operation, reaches as far back, so far as we can see, so far as our records go, as other forms of domination. What is more, even if a real history were like Bookchin's it would offer little support for strong social bias thesis. All it would reveal is that some ecological problems were glimpsed by anology with social problems, not that ecological problems are at bottom social problems and so resolved with them. • • "Second nature", constituted by human society, is uniquely different from first nature, and so naturally and justifiably interferes substantially with the processes of first nature. The unexploited play on "second nature" does nothing to support such intervention; or the contrary, second nature follows nature rather effortlessly without specific reflection. However, the two "natures" distinction, inadequately introduced and incapable of bearing much weight, is applied, in social ecology, to support much human interferenc e and substantial separateness. 'Natural evolution has not only provided humans with ability but also the necessity to be purposive interveners into "first nature", to conscously change "first nature" by means of highly institutionalized forms of community we call "society".' 5 Given the highly artificial and rather accidental social forms now in place, that many humans now suffer or swear under, this is very far from obvious. This second nature vs. first nature division would re-erect the old division and separation , Man vs. Nature, in old-fashio ned football-m ilitary terms, that deeper environmentalism has been concerned to remove. It is human chauvinistic; it ignores the continuity between humans and other creatures, the overlap in incapacities and skills (remembering all the capable animals able to live skilfully off the land and all the incapable humans). As regards relevant skills and capabilities, there is no uniqueness, or singularity, of humans as a whole. It would chauvinistically try to convert being human into a 5 Bockchin 87 p.21. 4 significant moral category, when it is not. 6 It would induce an inverse, obnoxious ranking among biological kinds; first class, matching second nature, and second class, matching first or primitive nature. The division would accordingly offer a springboard to a range of further interference of the sorts of which we have already witnessed much too much. The main thrust of Bookchin's attack is thus an old-fashioned socialist criticism, which fails any longer to impress because of its excess anthropocentrism. Social problems, which are of course often but not always intertangled with environmental problems, are no longer top of action, political, or other agendas; nor are their standard modern rivals, similarly entangled with environmental problems, namely economic problems. There is a third set of problems, neither exactly left nor right, neither exactly social nor economic nor reducing in approved fashion to those would-be universal categories, nor yet forming an entirely independent dimension: namely, environmental problems. Bookchin faithfully rolls out other elements of routine socialist criticism, against deep ecology. Some of these are telling enough, but mostly not new. They include:• a seriously flawed pantheon of heroic figures. Bookchin gets stuck into DEs favourable mention of Heidegger, of course, but he also tries to convey quite by association with Woody Guthrie (p.6), Malthus (p.15) Ehrlich (p.17) and others. Problems with the heroic figures and historical pedigree of DE had already been observed by others, e.g. Sholomowski. • a thin and inadequate historical genesis and setting. In this regard Naess's work is, of course, primarily in the perfectly admissible tradition and company of systematic philosophy and of most science. Deep environmental has, no more than science, to supply at the outset a full historical context in which its ideas are placed (pace. p.5 bottom). 6 So it is argued at length in EP. INTRODUCTION Deep ecology is a major environmental position and movement, one of the most important of contemporary times. In name and in assemblage of themes it is a recently elaborated position, dating back only to about 1973; but most of the themes are older, some of them much older. It is the assemblage, package and the way that has been put to environmental work that is newer and different. The initial assemblage and the name are due to Naess, a principal character (in all senses) in what follows 1. 1. On the deep ecology movement and ideology: their intellectual standing. The expression 'deep long-range ecological movement', of which 'deep ecology' 1s a subsequent abbreviation, was minted by N aess to label an emerging environmental movement . Naess was then (sociological) finder ather than founder of this emerging movement, a movement concerned primarily with the natural environment. In explaining ideological features of the movement Naess set down a number of what he took to be characteristic themes. It is from these themes, with much elaboration and considerable variation, that deep ecology, as a doctrine, has grown. It is with the evolving body of doctrine, the position, that we shall primarily be concerned. Control such as it was, of the doctrine did not long remain with Naess. Like many good promising ideas it was quickly imported into California, where it was modified, and to some extent converted into a further individual consciousness-elevating exercise. Thus the doctrine has been elaborated and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several North-Americans, particularly Devall and Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with N aess, and more recently by various Australians, most notably Fox and Seed.NI Deep ecology has caught on largely outside No attempt will be made to give an account of Naess's philosophy, except insofar as it bears directly on deep ecology, though such an attempt would be worth making. We commend the work (which could simply be entitled Naess ) to others; a smell beginning is made in Naess and Rothenberg. Naess was already a significant, influential, but maverick, figure on the European intellectual scene well before deep ecology was discerned. Naess had been professor of philosophy at Oslo since 1939, a chair he obtained when 27. In early days he was a Norwegian Ayer, likwise basking in reflected glory of a disinfecting logical positivism; but how much Naess subsequently diverged from empiricism can be gauged from his 1971 debate with Ayer (recorded in Reflexive Water). In fact Naess had already began to move out of an empiricist set as a result of his early interesting attempt to carry it towards its logical conclusion, and to do philosophy itself empirically, recorded in Truth as Conceived by those who are not Professional Philosophers. Subsequently Naess traversed a wide and unusual range of philosophical enterprise: scepticism naturally; many of the then fashionable areas, such as communication, semantics and interpretation; and several others that were much less philosophically fashionable, but politically significant, such as Gandhi and pacifism, ideology and failure of objectivity, and of course pluralism. These investigations form the complex backdrop to deep ecology. Unfortunately, despite Naess's longstanding commitment to pluralism, deep ecology was from the outset constrained to a certain unduly narrow style of environmentalismm as will appear. 5 narrower academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in contrast to Western Europe, significant areas of natural environment still remain; these are rapidly becoming of increasing public concern. Deep ecology is a radical environmental pos1t10n, which goes far beyond resource conservation positions (which are typically concerned at best with the management, husbandry and stewardship of resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to prevailing attitudes and practices (of the dominant social paradigm), especially those which concern more or less natural environments.N 2 Deep ecology (hereafter is an ideology in the respectible older sense, a system of belief and ideas. It is not an ideology in the post Marxion sense, of such a system characterised by an inflexibility and an unwillingness to listen to other points of view. Quite the contrary. Radical DE may still be, though its radicalness is in decline as it ages and as informed opinion on environmental issues advances; respectable, it is not. In particularly DE is not a respectable academic subject. Though it is arguably the most important movement in environmental philosophy in recent times, it is fl:Ot even mentioned in several recent texts on the topic. There are several reasons for this, ranging from the conservation and close-mindedness, snobbery and bigotry almost, of much contemporary philosophy, to evident presentational deficiencies in DE, its mouldeness, its lack of discriptive and argument, its popular appeal. DE is particularly weak weaker than environmental ethics, which do poorly on these academic indicators - on a run of things that are taken to matter in contemporary ethics; analyses of meanings of key ethical terms, reductions of ethical terms to few primitives, smart arguments, utilitarian-style justifications, etc. That is one reason why it is not part of Anglo-American analytic philosophy; another is that it challenges so much of what analytic philosophy represents and (politically) presupposes. DE scarcely represents, then, many of you will be relieved to learn analytic philosophers' philosophy. N aess believes has been through and seen through that sort of philosophy early in life; and seen that it does not contribute very much to the real features of life and living that philosophy should make significant contributions towards, but mostly does not. As a result you will find very little analysis in DE. Also there is remarkedly little argument, though argument is often taken to be what is distinctive in philosophy. (But that is an Anglo American idea of what philosophy is all about; you find comparatively little argument in much Continental European philosophy - what you do find, even in authors like Kant and Hegel who look superficially as if they are arguing, is mostly patently bad argument, poor at best. DE is much more like European philosophy in tone and style, which helps explain why it is neglected and denigrated in American schools; by contrast, in British philosophy curricula the environment is only just beginning to win any satisfactory attention at all.) 6 These are some of the reasons why, despite its importance, DE goes largely unmentioned in most texts on environmental philosophy and ethics. This says a good deal about the texts, which are mostly not offering satisfactory coverage of their fields (see further chapter 2). But it indicates something too about DE, which is not as intellectually accessible as it could or should be. Moreover, presentation of DE often go out of their way to violate (questionable) academic standards, expecially those for clarity of statement, extent of analysis, and level of argumentation. Deep ecology is an amophous doctrine, as anyone who tries to set down from its sources in a clear and crisp way what its themes are, will readily enough discover. Of course compared with much French philosophy, it is clarity itself; but French philosophy does not provide an acceptable benchmark. A good deal of the obscurity concerning DE results from its varying and different presentations by different expositors. To avoid this problem, we shall, for the most part, follow Naess's elaboration of DE, taking that as fairly authoritative. But the problem is not thereby resolved. Naess's views on deep ecology, its place and importance, and its themes, have changed over the years. Nor are the themes always, sufficiently clear though many of them are succinctly stated. Some of them are said, by disciples or by N aess himself, to be metaphorical. Furthermore, as some important matters go largely unelaborated, for instance the issues of satisfactory methods for achieving ecopolitical change. To surmount these kinds of difficulties, we shall (somewhat presumptuously no doubt) offer our own exposition and elaboration of DE, what we call authentic deep ecology. At least under Naess's conception of DE we are entitled to do this. In part II however, which offers a critique of DE as it has been variously presented, we shall look at the genuine article in its various formulations. Rather than becoming easier with the passage of time, DE has become more and more difficult, and less intellectually tractable as it picks up or toys with environmental fashions, often zanier environmental fads. It is complicated by New themes, often muddy themes, and its solidity is removed by modification or erosion of old themes. Among the new themes picked up, several to be examined critically (in part II), are the Gaia hypothesis, according to which the Earth itself some sort of organic living system. DE is thus an irremedially vague object. Its vagueness has increased with its popularity with its becoming on the green fringe a fashionable, not to say vogue, item (a Foucaultian object). Vague and vogue, a common concotenation. 2. Types of environmental positions: deep environmentalism. 7 What distinguishes an environmental position is a certain level of constraint with respect to the environment, the natural environment especially: not anything goes with respect to nature. In this regard environmental positions contrast with a dominant theme of Western cultural heritage; namely, provided it does not interfere with acknowledged people such as property holders, that people can do more or less what they like with the land, and with what grows and lives there. It is even therefor humans to exploit or manage. This unrestrained position imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment itself. Under it there would, for example, be little compunction about using up material resources, forests, fisheries and so on, immediately or even destroying them. But, because it grants such entitlements to exploitation, the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly moral positions. 2 For it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of independence of person, place or time, a requirement which implies that persons of different races, colours, sexes or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously disadvantaged. Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and even destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very serious disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local (or national) interests, rather than assessments appropriately based on long-range transnational values. Opposed to the unrestrained position are various environmental positions (what Leopold saw as the land ethic is just one of these). Such positions can be classified - conveniently for subsequent development but in a way that already refines and extends Naess's classification - into three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. Unlike the unrestrained position, all these positions would conserve and maintain things - materials, creatures, forests, etc. The shallow (conservation) position differs from the unrestrained position primarily in taking a longer-term view and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so forth. It is more enlightened than the unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective: hence its alternative description in the literture as resource conservation (thus, e.g., soil conservation organisations). Though this conservation position is only a step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass the test of morality in that future people are not treated unfairly; so it is a very significant step. 2 This is a substantial and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity unethical in the narrow or semse, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case for obligations and commitment to future humans, see e.g. Routley 81, and other essays collected with it in Partridge 81. This section is drawn from my People vs the Land (84). 8 The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they share and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature and the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus they take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values reduce to these. It is in this respect especially that these shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource and management and exploitation oriented, positions. According to deeper positions, humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value in the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to human concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to human concerns. According to an intermediate position serious human concerns always come first; and while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right, their value is outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and maintains that even serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values. Figure 1. The positions separated, and separating principles SHALLOWER UNRESTRAINED DEEPER SHALLOW IMMEDIAIB DEEP MORALITY SOLE VALUE GREATER VALUE REQUIREMENT ASSUMPTION ASSUMPTION (of human apartheid) (of human supremacy) The watershed principle which divides the shallow from the deeper positions is the sole value assumption . According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western social theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the value of all other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another. This assumption is build into most present political and economic arrangements; for example, only aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in democratic political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and natural items are presented at best through the preference or votes of interested humans. 3 3 The points are explained in more detail in EP, where too, account is taken of the shift from humans to persons (which would be important were it taken seriously and adhered to) and also of the inclusion of 9 Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive theories which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of humans. Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as standard utilitarianism. 4 According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is determined through what affords maximum satisfaction (preference-fulfilment, pleasure, absence of pain, and so on, for other satisfaction determinates) to the greatest number of individual humans. In theories like utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct inputs or outputs, but only insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals. Such ethical theories are appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man is, or is treated as, apart from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land enters only as a remote experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and interests. However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example, volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies. At least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in economics, ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the environment, have been appended (thus, for example, externality theory in economics, some allowances for "side" constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the environment remains treated as an awkward or tiresome afterthought or backdrop, a (re-)source and sink, when it is considered at all. There is, however, another approach also with historical standing, vying with (and indeed often confused with) human apartheid, which can accommodate secondary theories a little more satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which Man, though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it.N While human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain in the shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable greater value assumption; other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than other things; the value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This assumption allows that other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value; what it insists upon is that, at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never exceeds that of humans. What super-humans. With value for natural items goes, of course, concern, respect, and sensitivity, towards them; but the reverie connection may exhibit occasional failures. 4 But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely contractualism and libertarianism. More broadly based historical utilitarianisms, which allow for some input from other sentient creatures, are considered below. 10 is generally presupposed is that other objects - animals, plants and their communities - are never of very much importance compared with humans. Though human supremacy has appeared in variants upon utilitarianism (from Hutcheson and Bentham on) where animal pain is taken into consideration along with human, Wes tern ethics and associated social sciences such as demography, economics and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form. So in practice does most utilitarianism. 5 It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position 6 is that of Animal Liberation, in the form in which individual animals (but not plants, forests, ecosystems, etc.) are taken to have value in their own right, though in any play-off with humans, humans win. Under the deep position such an outcome is by no means inevitable and not alway assured; in cases of conflict of animals with humans or natural systems with humans, humans sometimes lose. There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that humans do not always matter7 and, more pertinently, that humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one takes the following form:- Some humans voluntarily lead worthless or negative lives, lives without net value. The point, though not uncontroversial, 8 can be argued even from a shallow utilitarianism. Take for instance a life of pain and suffering and little or no happiness: it has a substantial net negative utility. However, some small natural systems do have net value; one example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a live example might be a tropical island before Club Mediterranee depradation). Now consider the situation where the considerable value of a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on behalf of a set of humans whose lives each have no positive net value. For instance, the system is to be exploited, just for the continued maintenance of these humans, or for their addition (as new settlers) to an established population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the natural system takes precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the 5 There practice contrasts with what the theory allows or requires. Utilitarianism is like much pollution control, where regulations are on the books or are part of the law, but are or never only very occasionally applied. Utilitarian double standards are further discussed and referenced in DEP #7. 6 Other examples are considered below. Two of the four form of ecological consciousness considered by Rodman fit here (as Rodman has remarked). For instance, falling into the intermediate range are the types of environmental positions adopted by Birch and Cobb, and by Attfield and by many other consequentialists. 7 See the argument of EP, beginning the Last Man argument, p .... ff. See also the initial example of Routley 2 79 .. 8 The point is argued in detail in DEP #3. 11 integrity of rich natural environments. This simple result cuts deeply into (standard shallow) consumer theory, to take just one example of the impact of deep environmentalism. Authentic deep ecology is a type of deep environmentalism. A genuinely ecospheric egalitarianism, such as deep ecology offers, is bound to reject the Greater Value assumption. For under egalitarianism, larger collarations of significant eco-objects outweight smaller groupings of undistinguished humans. Notes 1. All their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end. 2. Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several sources; e.g. Rodman. 3. Here authenticity is important. As will become evident in part II, certain proclaimed deep ecologists are not prepared to scuttle the Greater Value assumption. As will also become evident, the egalitarian arguments upsetting the Greater Value assumption are build on defective foundations. CONTINUING THE CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than most ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is how the label often functions, honorifically, for instance in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which gives deep ecology none but a nebulous content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as the interview with Soleri) in diametrical opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by the intellectual "leaders" of the deep ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular appeal of deep ecology has been obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic forms and the slack or nebulous forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some of those who calls themselves 'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes from the more detailed platform (thus e.g. Fox). Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous banner. 1 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the march. Purchasing or growing organic vegetables, having spiritual experiences in a special natural place, or practising some oriental art or exercise routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental position, though it can be a step on the way. While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as biological egalitarianism, have already been criticised in sufficient detail in the original critique. But other features of authentic deep ecology (hereafter mainly DE) were left largely untouched in the original critique, and new features have emerged. The critique thus needs continuing. Since the critique was produced, it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp what DE is all about. Even Naess, the founder of the movement, who now tends to adhere much more closely to the platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to this sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I didn't expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously reduce information sources. 2 apparently large concessions to opposition changes, which however he subsequently more surreptitiously withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he withdraws with one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other. The oscillation can be partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the desire, stronger in the founder of DE, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophels, to create a wide constituency, to tum no one away if it can in any way be avoided. But, on the other there is an evident desire to make deep ecology a very select position, for a chosen few, a place to be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and involving some difficult life adjustments. Deep ecology lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its religious sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict. I.Further problems with the platform and core platform of deep ecology. It is the platform (at level 2 of the organising "double pyramid" of DE depicted below) that constrains, delimits and defines deep ecology, so far as it is well-characterised. For even this level is not very precisely characterised to put it mildly. Some exponents or practitioners of deep ecology (some of them self-nominated or self-proclaimed) appear to repudiate even the core themes at level 2 (e.g. Fox on axiocentrism). In the face of criticism, Naess himself backtracks as far as he plausibly can, and sometime further. Not only does he considerably muddy the clear waters of doctrine of occasional prosentations, but the doctrine itself begins to disappear, to be qualified away (see e.g. Naess's performance in Resurgance , discussed below). The response to intellectual criticism, which DE has been increasingly encountering as it spreads, has not been an appropriate one of clarifying, and where requisite expounding, the core theory; it has rather been one of retreat and digging in, of trying to hold the temple under seige, through diversionary activity (or by broken-record techniques: simply reiterating parts of the messge not under heavy criticism over and over again). When the critical raid has passed, the priests (and very occassional priestess) of deep ecology reemerge, bearing the original doctrine essentially unchanged. The practice resembles christianity (and too much of the practice of dominant science, the rival Western church). Dealing with deep ecologists is very like dealing with devout christians; some of them one feels sure have only recently changed positional hats, from evangelism to deep ecology (correspondingly, my own position has become that of a black sheep). A good deal of the argumentative practice of deep ecology appears to be explained by its evangelical, and even messianic, character. There is genuine effort to tum no-one, except the most incorrigible moneylenders, away from the temple. Everyone else (except perhaps philosophic critics) is welcome, and encouraged to join in worship. Much like the churches, the founder of the 3 De movement seeks as large a flock as possible. In these democratic days, numbers count (at least under the "right" polling conditions); earlier numbers overted for taxing or tithing purposes. Other high priests are not so sure: there are some critics of the movement, who may be beyond the poles; and surely it should be a little more exclusive. But, in any event, DE is a much more liberal doctrine than one of its sources, christianity, has ever been; it admits coupling not just (so it is said) with all the great religions, but with all the more benign positions and practices that achieve fashionability in California. All not ill-disposed to the natural world and duly acknowledging its value can march under the banner of deep ecology, whose main citadel is Nature. N aess casts the net of deep ecology wide, catching therewith not only many remote supporters, but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly Bockshim (p.6). Naess now considers the 8 point platform, formulated by himself and Susians and published in several slightly different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of Deep Ecology'. Naess 'look[s] upon the formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all supporters of the movement have in common' (23.6.88). Thus the 8 point platform (condensed in box 1) provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the core, the core platform, of DE. To get around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to the principles of the core (in some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They are adherents in (simply and literally) holding to the core, the common (intersection of the) platform. They may not be members of the movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because appropriate intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let alone made any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is neither necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockshim, or myself, can be an adherent without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not be an adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not adherents. The De movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep ecologists', who do not adhere to the core, even more or less. Many of these supporters are shallow environmentalists, who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside humans, or try to evade it (e.g. by redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextrically in relations to valuers). Since there are, in my experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts who turn out to be of this shallow sort, Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here 'almost all supporters'? Which isolated exceptions does he have in view? Box 1. The core 8 point plat/orm, in capsule form. l. Non-human and human life have intrinsic value: The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth have intinsic value, inherent 4 value, etc. These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. 2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues : Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation of these values and are also values in themselves. 3.Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues: Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. 4.Human (values compatible with) population decrease: The flourishing of human life and culture is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease. 5. Human inte,ference with natural world excessive: Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive and the situation is rapidly worsening. 6. Policies and basic structures must be changed: Policies must therefore be changed. These policies will affect our basic economic, technological and ideological structures. 7.Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living: The change in our attitudes will bring an appreciation of the quality of life rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great. We will have a great society with no bigness. 8. Obligation to attempted implementation: Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement necessary changes. Most of the core platform is no longer demanding; none of it, except for the last point, specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any commitment in the past of adherents. Mainly adherence to DE, and support of DE, would be very considerably increased were this requirement evaded. A strategy common to econonical practice and sociological research 5 readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent adherents as those who adhere to the core platform, more or less, except that they make no requisite effort to implement it (they may of course have some vague failing of obligation, should they ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit of scholarly survey work, it is evident that De would now have a large number of silent adherents, many of whom are not however adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions or social situations, or simply uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively many excessively interferring humans of Caucasian stock). The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as to envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go into detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' (R p.7). The reasoning does not hold up; a range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be defined by constraints well-known ones as it happened. Naess should be encouraged to go on and delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and neighbouring environmental positions. For instance, 6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of a highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a change in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not implied by point 7. 6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky and polluting technology. 6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated regions. Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly included in principle of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration. Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the core platform itself, which is pretty wishy-wasy when contrasted with what is happening out there environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much further, and to witness some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments, such as extensive clearcutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of range-lands, extensive strip and beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on. 6 Deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE program, and the issue is (perhaps wisely) avoided by some leading proponents of DE. But deindustrialization - a considerable reduction in the levels of industrial activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive prolluting types of industry that conspiciuosly contributed to the first industrial revolution - would emerge from the alternative futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, with a much smaller, less consumption-oriented,terrestial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important environmental objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially, in obtaining some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters as the greenhouse affect, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out. The idea of progress is, like industry, also under a cloud. It is now naive to assume that progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism of something is that it would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating (in some respects); there is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much that was progress, and still is in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for instance, elimination of wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The 'previously ... dominant [assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress towards the industrial state and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly rejected (cf. Naess, on the "status of mythology"). So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select hand, philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded, philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human chauvinists, led by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative persona) and McCloskey. Many of these excluded philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core platform, as weakly interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that there are severe environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly farreaching by conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who becomes inmersed in a spread of these problems, and who does not develop some environmental commitments, even if a liberalish social agenda continues to dominate an environmental one (and it is fast becoming hard to avoid observing the interpretation of social with broadly environmental problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics (now ......... of reaction crises), tended to become progressively more accomodating to what was only a short time ago radical environmental drought, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep 7 ecology has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing pluralism with broad consensualism, and lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental pluralism is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep or an ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the joining of different positions. Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:- Example 1. Among extensionists, both utilitarians and ratonalists. Among utilitarians are Singer, and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed. Utilitarians in the Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences, sometimes a or the like, and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures. Accordingly they satisfy point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much non-human life'. It all depends upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both are quantified with 'all', the theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured abominations as intrinsically valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists. If the terms are more weakly quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are admitted. An evident dividing line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough to exclude shallow philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate positions, which do not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension positions, almost invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of rationalistic persuasion, grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have gradually move away from a utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including those of vegetarianism, can be reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent thinking (thus, it is really a coherence theory of morality). Example 2. More far-reaching informediate positions, which do assign intrinic value less stingily throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some non-individuals, such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which human values always take precedence over non-human assignments. Examples of this sort the postions deliminated (so far in insufficient theoretical details) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions so far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Rolston's case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral extenionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive classificaton of positions). Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1, though not in this formulation. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an adherent of DE, 8 despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism however, only what has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this restriction as very like that imposed by ulitarians, to sentience, or unwarranted, unnecessary and arbitrary. Deep-green theorists, like enviromental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Facters, now see the DE platform as much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism of DE has been excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an environmental consensus (in place of a genuine pluralism), the religo-political quest for a large support Base (which could however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and the input of conservatizing academic thought and aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE which does not make much ground academically, as compared with its success outside academia, especially with book-reading environmentalists, would better forget academic success, where it has made progress only among outsiders, not power-players and return to its more radical mission (academics form only a small minority, though one dangerously and influentially supportive, one the whole, of most past environmental excesses and assaults). 2. Variability, antiquity or dubiquity of main themes of deep ecology omitted from the core platform. Some themes have been retained by letting them undergo extensive change. Nowhere is this more conspicuous than with the difficult principle of "biospherical egalitarianism in principle", central to earle DE, which has taken on some remarkable new guises. In Naess, it becomes a curiously qualified principle of rights: that every being has a right to live - unless the basic needs of other beings overrides its rights. In Devall, who prefers to avoid the term 'rights' (the use of which he asserts is metaphorical in Naess, not at all what Naess, who appeals to childrens" usage, asserts), the principle is emptied of main egalitarian content: 'Properly understood, the principle of biocentric equality means that humans are members of the biotic community, not its masters' (p.58). So understood, the principle can be accepted by many shallow thinkers; it is not incompatible with chauvinism, nor with conciderable inequality, nor with greater value invariably assigned to humans, only with a certain domination. It is a sell-out. Few of the supporters of deep ecology (DE) appear to realise how old-fashionedly defective and sometimes inappropriate some of the elements, and most of the methodology, of deep ecology really is. 2 The organic and organistic image, for instance - heavily deployed by one of the heroes of deep ecology, Whitehead - is as old as Aristotle (for some of the history see Berlin). Despite much valiant effort, no one has so far got the image (now redeployed in the extravagent Gaia 2 Recently, Sholomowski has re-emphasized some of these features. 9 hypothesis) - valuable as it may be, chauvinistic as it characteristically is -to work in a very fruitful way. Likewise the drive for self-realisation, is both old-fashioned - it was fostered by the Enlightenment and had its heyday in the 19thC, was decidedly human chauvinistic in its emphases. But perhaps the heaviest residue of old-fashioned inappropriate material is to be found in the methodology of deep ecology, which is mainly transferred from positivism with little alteration. The hypothetico-deductive methodology, for example, appears essentially intact in the double pyramidal diagram (now called 'the apron' by Naess), which one is supposed to shuffle around and descend by deduction. Having descended so, the way back to the top is by intuition of hypotheses, by the hypothetical part of the method. First principles at the top admit of no proof or derivation - because of the character of the one inferential relation admitted, deduction. In other respects, the double pyramid strait-jacket, which is Naess's way of trying to infuse a certain pluralism (a pluralism of fundamental positions at first principles) into deep ecology, is insufficiently specific. It does not explain, for example, how at a practical lower level, either an environmental directive or environmental action is forthcoming. Indeed given restriction to deduction, it cannot explain how these things come about. DE lacks any requisite theory of environmental action. 3 The double pyramid gets stylized in the way on the left; an alternative representation is that on the right (and Naess now has a representation awkwardly superimposed on a mandala):Needless to say, there are problems lacking within DE's easy pluralism. Noone has ever explained how to get the unretracted DE platform derivationally out of - what looks incompatible Christianity. For that matter no-one has shown how to deduce the platform from any of the other, sometimes more congenial, great religions or philosophies. The nearest we seem to get is Naess's sketch of how we derive parts of the platform from his own specially concocted ecosophy. 3. Further flowing of the DE gospel: its heroes, its arguments, .... Deep ecology is a seriously flawed gospel, not only as regards its doctrines and their coherence, but in other surrounding evangelic respects as well. Virtually all the patron saints of DE, the past philosophical heroes (all male) are deeply flawed. Spinoza's views on the place and treatment of animals, for instance, should be entirely disowned by any deeper environmentalist. Even the later "reformed" Heidegger is conspicuously human chauvinistic, too complacent in a human-dominated and tamed landscape, and, (apart from some new-fangled technology and 3 Various old-fashioned, and again defective, models are available to DE, and could be tacked onto the theory, e.g. the belief (or information) and desire (or value) account of intention and action conventionally attributed to Hume. 10 industrialisation) with the established rural way of things in Germany, including significantly racist and sexist ways. The pervasive background four-fold, fitting the cosmological scheme of things in, includes only divinities and humans; wilderness and its creatures are not part of the fundamentals. Whitehead, despite the apparent bounteousness of his philosophical scheme, was a practising christian, committed to a great chain of being with humans at the top of the chain (and thus to a greater value assumption antithetical to DE); he took no significant interest in nature or nonhuman creatures at all, and was very comfortable in the ways of a socio-political order which directly produced present environmental impasses. 4 No doubt the heroes should be differently viewed. Not as patrons, not even as forerunners; but as deep thinkers, from whom certain elements can be drawn in elaborating an environmental philosophy (e.g. parts of a theory of nature, features of process theory, elements of a critique of technology), while much else is discarded. Most of this theoretical work remains to be done. Regrettably the calibre of the arguments for proceeding to a DE position has not improved. N aess has now resorted to making his case in a very conventionalistic populist fashion. People are inclined to respond in such and such a way (favourable to environmental concerns) to so and so questions. Thus, for instance 'there is reasonably widespread agreement that animals, and even plants, have rights' (EIJ p.3). But surely it is largely as a result of environmentalism, which must (and should) be based on something else that people have began to respond thus and so. Naess also argues from the the concern of many people about nature and natural phenomena for their own sakes (the data is however not all that clearcut) to several other conclusions, for instance that political and stilist approaches to the environmental crisis (etc) should be less anthropocentric (EIJ p.5). The arguments are thus close in character to those widely used in arguments in economics and democratic theory; they are none the better for that. The fact that people used to respond favourably to damming up every nearby river and draining all the swamps is not a solid recommendation for such practices. Moreover, such populist considerations hardly win out, as Naess himself explains (p.4). Pressure groups pedalling narrow and sometimes destructive economic ambitions often succeed against democratic opinion. 4. But much criticism of DE is even more seriously flawed. Despite the growing constituency for core princles. De, which Naess will correctly have alluded to here, DE has been portrayed as extremism - especially from the US political right (which tends towards extreme right). What is extreme depends, of course, on where a carping critic is 4 He appears to have owed his appointment to a philosophy chair at Harvard in significient part to the fact that he was in no way a radical, but suited to the conservative scene established there. 11 situated. Gung-ho growth economists are extremists from a deeper environmental situation. No doubt such GG economists would claim that they have reason, not emotion, on their side; but it is a narrow flawed reason, tailored and biassed to their cause, reflecting a different class of emotions, primarily preferences of business communities of humans. In present deteriorating environmental circumstances, clever "extremism" is sometimes exactly what is required - ideas and action that upset, disturb, interfere with, subvert, and eventually overturn, the dominant military-industrial social ethos. Extremism presumably amounts to being isolated on the outer margins of some politically or socially sensitive (more useless) normal distribution, without respectable companions. On many environmentally important issues, DE is no longer in such a position (often instead the power elite would be if it were not so entrenched). Where it is in such a position, then generally it needs to be, and needs to try to swing the norm in its direction or else to gather respectability for that position. What, if anything, supports the charge of extremism, levelled against DE? Such emotionallycharged criticisms from the right tend to be particularly vague. Sometimes DE itself, portrayed as radical environmentalism, and compared with radical feminism, is dismissed as extremist, without indicating where it is considered extreme. In fact, while better developed, less accommodating DE is radical, at least literally in going, as one aspect of its depth, to root issues and assumptions, it is not very politically radical; it does not seriously challenge present political arrangements in the way that ecoanovehism, or even ecosocialism, does. What has infuriated some critics is undoubtedly the DE removal of humans from absolute centre stage, and above all the cavalier or callous way in which some environmentalists have portrayed the demise of unfortunate humans, from the God-given position to having to share the world-stage. There are many different issues tangled up here, and the charges of extremism depends on retaining the confusion, as well as ascribing to DE claims it does not make. DE asserts that irreducible value is not confined to humans, that life other than humans has intrinsic value. Although such a claim is indeed incompatible with the dominant social paradigm, it represents an old challenge, going back in utilitarianism at least to Bentham. As some of those who held or now hold such a position were not, by any means extremists or even radicals (e.g. Sidgwick) the charge against this part of the DE platform, lapses. Similar points apply against any charge of extremism based on the DE assertion (carefully avoided in the core platform) that a substantial decrease in human population is desirable, especially for conservation of the biosphere. Such a theme is increasingly widely maintained, by many respectable figures, far from any fringes. Nor need any extreme, threatening or dangerous, action result from such DE themes. Human population reduction can occur (and is envisaged by Naess to occur) by such unthreatening means as a 12 reduction in birth rates, a demographic transition brought about for instance through improved education and contraception. Yet some coupling to "extreme" action, and adoption or preparedness to adopt such, has to be established if a proper charge of extremism is to sustained (cf. also the OED definition of 'extremism'). Deep ecologists propose no extreme action to reduce human population, no wars, no genecide, nothing macho. Indeed the idea is ludicrous. Deep ecologists tend to be gentle people, who are opposed to violence; they care about humans, who are part of nature (even if too many of them are trying to set themselves above and apart from it). There are individuals and groups, more evident in America than elsewhere, who do adopt an uncaring, and sometimes brutal attitude to other humans, especially those outside America. Ecofascists, like Hardin, to the right of environmental thought, who think that the time for triage has already arrived, and that starving humans in third world countries should be left to fend for themselfes, offer a striking example. But eco-fascism is far from deep ecology, and has been severely criticised by those close to DE (e.g. Bennett and Griffin). It is no doubt troublesome for deep ecology, and convenient for opportunistic critics, if environmentalists with eco-fascist prodivities present themselves as deep ecologists (as has happened, a prominent example being the present editor of Earth First). It is no doubt troublesome for a charitable organisation if members of a mafia present themselves as agents of it and collect on its behalf; it has long been a problem for democracy that fascists can present themselves as democrats, and even put an end to democracy through seemingly democratic methods. Political movements admits of much infiltration, by both well- and evil-intentioned. ANNEX 1. Interesting proposals continue to emerge from the deep literature. One is for an environmental organisation, which might could be called Environment International, parallelling Amesty International , and adopting a similar role with regard to the environment that Amesty does with respect to human rights and political processes (Naess p.4). 2. There are many false "virtues " in contemporary political life that green politics, such as DE is coupled with, will eventually help remove. These include:- • Unity, united front. All that has merit is a certain limited unity in diversity. • Balance. Balance is achieved by resolution of many forces. To shift 13 the balance, then, environmentalists should be as far out as they can (while still being counted in the resolution, not written off). For end political purposes, citing especially credibility doesn't matter, by contrast with countability. Advice to offer more balanced statements and work should be courteously ignored: it is oppositional, political advice. • Two party ideal REFERENCES A. Naess, 'Environmental ethics and international justice', Ecospirit Quarterly IV (1) (198.) 1-7; referred to as EIJ.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 16, Item 1224: Draft chapters and papers on deep ecology Subject The topic of the resource Typescripts draft of contents (2 pages) ; Part 1 Critical exposition, Chapter 1 At the pyramid’s junction: the basics and creed of deep ecology (11 pages) ; Part II Critique of deep ecology, Chapter 5 The initial problem: what on earth is deep ecology? Who is and isn't a deep ecologist? (21 pages) ; A critique of (wild) western deep ecology: a response to Warwick Fox's response to an earlier critique (56 pages) ; Ecological ethics and ecological politics: turning John McCloskey's challenge (36 pages); Deep ecology and deep-green theory (4 pages) ; Authentic deep ecology: exposition, critique, alternatives: preface (4 pages) ; On social ecology (4 pages) ; Introduction (11 pages) ; Continuing the critique of deep ecology (13 pages). Description An account of the resource Papers housed in folder marked "Deep Ecology". Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 16, Item 1224 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [160] leaves. 157.42 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:20027f1">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:20027f1</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University Office - Typing Table at End of Desk Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Typing Table at End of Desk Box 16: Green Projects in Progress https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/a5431730967f5a55642e84ae70be7f65.pdf 8572c81a727a336ad42efcebe6b136f5 PDF Text Text DEEP-GREEN ETHICS Contents PARTS CHAPTERS 0 I II III IV Prologue DEEP, GREEN, ETHICS, and PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND 1 Deep [and] green fundamentals 2 Ethics without humans; philosophy without humans 3 Philosophical setting: deep-green plurallisms 4 Inhibiting presumptions and myths AXIOLOGY: value core 5 Value and its varieities: basic theory and its development 6 Alternative primitives and theoretical beginnings DEONTOLOGY: necessary moral structure 7 Obligation and its deontic circle, and moral dilemmas 8 Rights, and justice VIRTUE and INACTION 9 Environmental virtues: what they are and something of their theory 10 V Environmental ethical practice NATURE of ETHICS 11 Ethics, its new character and revised foundations 12 Principal questions of reoriented ethics, and proposed answers 13 Epilogue �17 .5.96 DEEP-GREEN ETHICS PROLOGUE Philosophy and its branches, ethics especially, are among the last places where prejudice would be found, found alive and thriving, so it might be imagined. Wrong. In the first place, prevailing ethics all exhibit heavy prejudice in favour of humans, human chauvinism. So they are one and all defective, wrong in a deep way. An adequate ethic will remove the prejudices involved. That means, in turn, a radical transformation of prevailing ethics, from the bottom up. Such a transformation constitutes a main objective of this book. Deep-green ethics aims not simply to reform present arrangements and systematizations, but to replace them. Abolition of prejudice has early priority. Prejudice in philosophy, privelege in prevailing ethics. There are only about two and half millenia of recorded philosophy on Earth. To a disconcerting extent, those millenia represent two and half thousand years of prejudice-partial exceptions occurring and prejudice subsiding somewhat only when ideological empires were fractured (e.g. fruitful periods of "warring states" in ancient China and Greece). Ethics is far from alone within philosophy in exhibiting serious deficiencies, in incorporating prejudices that should not figure so prominently in what is ideally an impartial subject. Much the same holds for other branches: politics obviously (partly through its interdependence with ethics), metaphysics and logic perhaps less obviously. Yet prevailing metaphysics display a deep prejudice in favour of the actual, against what does not exist. In logic the prejudical situation has in fact been accentuated through the rise of modern symbolic logic. Regrettably mainstream symbolic logic is wrong. All its forms validate incorrect principles (such as implicational paradoxes), these results flowing primarily from an underlying prejudice in favour of the consistent, against the impossible. 1 Several of the systematic prejudices embedded elsewhere in philosophy impact upon ethics. The prejudice in favour of the actual has served to distort, very seriously, the issue of obligations to future creatures for example, in this fashion:- Remoter future creatures do not exist, and therefore, according to prevailing prejudice, cannot have any relevant features, any preferences or desires, self-traits or satisfactions, to be taken into ethical account. Therefore All the themes are presented and defended in detail elsewhere. As regards metaphysics, see JB; as regards logic, see e.g. BGB and generally in philosophy , see TM. There are several coupled prejudices and prejudical drives, as will appear; for instance the drives to power and to maximization, strongly manifested in logic, see e.g. RLR. Prejudice in ethics was explicitly recognised by Bentham, almost two centuries ago; unfortunately however he imported his own very influential prejudical framework. �2 "they" can be discounted entirely. The same prejudice also enters in a very different way. All the standard positions concerning universals, all of which reflect the metaphysical presupposition that discourse concerns existent objects, show up in ethics. They appear in vexing issues as to the ontological status of values, such as the good, and of deontic notions, such as obligations and the right. These are not only difficult items to discover in the world, but they do not seem adequately housed in conceptual or linguistic apparatus: where are they located? Whence derives immediate pressure for many mostly bizarre reduction exercises; for instance of values to human constructs, contructs from social preferences or from sociobiological drives, and of obligations from veiled contracts. The initial question of location makes, however, the defective metaphysical presupposition, and lapses therewith. Values, though significant items, do not exist; so they are not located, anywhere. Prejudice rooted in established logic has impacted differently, upon a variety of issues in ethics. The absolute requirement of consistency upsets a straightforward treatment of obligations, general sets of which are typically inconsistent, thereby leading for instance to awkward theories of hierarchies of obligation or of merely prima facie obligations. Running parallel with this, the requirement utterly distorted an initially straightforward theory of ethical dilemmas, treatment of which is a significant part of any comprehensive ethical theory. Established logic has also impacted heavily on such different issues as fact-value inferences (e.g. the prescriptive fallacy) and regarding the extent of pluralism in ethics. The assumption behind the rationalistic critique of relativism is that there is a single correct logic, governed by requirements of consistency, namely standard logical theory, which (when combined with the facts) will eliminate various ethical stances as incorrect, indeed which may, given sufficient critical thought, lead to a single correct ethics. 2 But the assumption fails; for it too depends on ancient prejudice. Pluralism is one most important component in removing prejudice generally, certainly in reducing it generally, by admitting alternatives, and allowing some to flourish. 3 Elaboration of deep-green theory is another important direction in removing prejudice, in favour of humans, persons, or like agents from ethics especially but not only. The main development that follows will take both these directions, though focussed upon ethics: it will track and investigate pluralistic deep-green ethics. Human chauvinism is not the only major prejudice damaging ethics. An extraordinarily privileged position given to egoistical considerations is another. Western ethics in particular has 2 3 The approach involved, that of traditional rationalistic ethics, is regularly deployed by Singer (e.g. his Encyclopedia conclusion to Companion to Ethics); the strengthened version features in Regan. Of course how it is supposed to proceed, the details of how reason works this miracle, is never revealed. See esp. TM, epilogue. �3 recently been deformed through a substantially unquestioned axiom of self concern, that agents are interested in and motivated by their own (self) concerns and only by them. (Of course an agent's self, or extended self, may be grander than the agent's soul or person or body or whatever; it may include the agent's family or even the agent's tribe, or differently it may comprehend the agent's land or environment. But under such extensions the axiom is already beginning to disintegrate.) Such an ubiquitous, but largely unquestioned, presumption has lain behind reductionistic exercises that have distorted much of modem ethical (and political) theory. The leading idea is simple enough: given that action is justified through human self-interest, and only thus, if ethical theory (and likewise political superstructure) can be justified through some construction or modelling on that basis (bringing in only indifference and like neutral assumptions) , then justification will be transmitted, it too will be justified. Thus those contractual and utilitarian exercises which have loomed so large in recent theory. 4 The same dubious presumption also features large elsewhere, for instance in the acclaimed derivation of Deep Ecology from the ultimate norm of Self-realization! It is not just prejudice and allied presumption that have damaged and distorted ethics. Narrow ethics, parading as universal or absolute in defiance of pluralism, ethics often underwritten by religious or papal presumption, have severely disadvantage d ethics. Furthermore, connected therewith, ethics has been destabilized, and cast in an unfavourable light, by • a quest for absolute foundations, and in tum connected therewith • an invidious comparison with science, which is supposed to have such foundations. The quest is quixote: there are no such foundations. Nor does science have such foundations, so the comparison is misplaced. Not only is absoluteness for science increasingly disputed, but it is becoming apparent that science is in the same sort of pluralistic situation-pre dicament some, still questing for the old false certainties, would say-as ethics. 5 Through the assumption, or pretence, that it can deliver (whether from religious, rational or other resources) certainties of a type that it cannot deliver, ethics has become discredited. But that is only part among reasons why on the contemporary scene ethics is not the force that it has mostly been in bygone times. At least as important as such intellectual reasons are matters like removal of social and political pressures to conform, redirection of indoctrination practices (into consumerism, etc.), and so on, some welcome and some definitely not. 4 5 Roughly, ethics, knocked down to what's in it for everyone (some aggregated base class), is justified through what's in it for each me. Prima facie the grand construction is based on a simpler fallacy of aggregation: an invalid each to all inference. The theme is argued in detail in TM chapter 10. The quixote quest is strikingly engaged in by Williams, for a entertaining criticism of which see 'Bernard Williams and the Absolute Conception of the World' in Putnam 92. �4 Aspects of the discreditation have in turn been exaggerated. Ethics, it is said, makes no difference, even can never make a difference; it never effects change. Such claims are seriously astray, as examination of elementary examples like human slavery and treatment of animals quickly reveals. Environmental ethics too can make a difference (perhaps, when coupled with other practices, a major difference), and they are beginning to do so. But naturally they cannot compel change; nor should they be capable of doing so, as that would exceed proper roles of ethics (and other proper practices). 6 Rectification of ethics requires, then, not merely removal of now conspicuous prejudice and presumptions, but deflation of pretensions. What results-hardly unique naturally, but one selected for good reasons among many, hardly entirely exclusive but overlapping and admitting others-is an ethics which differs from standard ethics in the following respects at least: Such an ethics is: • deep-green, removing prejudice in favour of humans, and in favour of certain (egoistic) agents, in an affirmative fashion; and • Pluralistic in a thorough-going way, accordingly not pretending to absolute or objective status. The run of prevailing ethics, including so-called "applied ethics" and "environmental ethics" are chauvinistic; a satisfactory (environmental) ethic is not. The run of prevailing ethics are absolutist, or otherwise relativist; a satisfactory ethic is neither. However the conditions so far presented are but necessary conditions; they are not jointly sufficient for adequacy. Even among theories that are nonchauvinistic and duly pluralistic, reductionism may persist. Such reductionisms come in striking variety; thus, on just one dimension, individualisms, sentientisms, vitalisms, (i.e. all that has value is alive, somehow), and so on. To avoid such reductionisms, another blanket condition of adequacy is: • non-reductionistic. The main task consists in elaborating in detail an ethic, with other preferred features, that meets these conditions of adequacy. Regrettably, removal of prejudice cannot be accomplished in ethics alone, as a separate pollution-free zone. Prejudice in ethics flows through from other regions, religion especially, but also from psychology (which in the past made little gods of humans with sacred souls of their own, justifying very differential treatment for them in the world), and from elsewhere. Removal of these latter sorts of prejudices requires a severe erosion of belief, in regions strictly outside ethics, but heavily exporting into it; of beliefs fostering intellectual prejudice. Nonetheless ethics has a role in removal of prejudices elsewhere, because, very simply, these prejudices ought to be removed. The basic principle, which can also be presented as one 6 These points are developed at some decent length in GE part IL �5 of rationality, runs as follows: belief ought not to exceed warranting evidence, but should be appropriate to it. None of this is as clean and clear-cut as it may initially appear, because source waters have become very muddied. Sources for instance take a range of forms (this is part of the ancient issue of the criterion reput in more contemporary terms). Sources include not merely empirical evidence, perception especially, the favoured, or even exclusive, source of empiricism. They also include such sources as: emotional presentation, or emotion; postulation or presumption; reason; authority; a range of psychic and extra sensory perception (ESP) forms; and, differently, a range of intuitions. Some of these sources overlap; consider for instance divine relevation. Plainly those sources are very different kinds, quality and calibre. Some such as reason, which includes itself a disputed variety of forms, are more processing of information kinds than sources (thought reason becomes a source, of sorts, in pure rationalism, and a degenerate source of necessary truths in classical logical theory where theorems are proved, by paradoxical means, from nothing so to say). While some of these kind of sources are not important or at issue in ethics, for instance controversial kinds of ESP giving information on remote (spatially distant or past or future) items, several are. It is not going too far to say that ethics is severely vexed as regards sources, and many distortions such as naturalism can be seen as coming about as ways of trying to secure reliable sources (if some naturalistic reduction were correct then ethics would be brought within the orbit of science and even empirical perceptual bases could be adopted, as in science). But ethics does not resemble science; its sources are not (except incidentally) primarily perceptual, thus breaking any very close analogy between epistemology and ethics. A major source in ethics is emotion, by contrast with epistemology where the major source is perception. From there already derives a major difference between the fields, as perception tends to be less variable, more intersubjective, less culturally dependent across the range of subjects usually taken into account. Accordingly, in any quest for a more objective ethics, more has to be drawn out, out of the processing substructure, whence the emphasis on coherence, good reasons, ethical on coherence, good reasons, ethical argumentation. Ethical inputs, sources, and processing are assessed in detail in the text. Although this work is focussed upon ethics, it does not, and evidently cannot, merely concern ethics. Since the ethical theory is itself approached primarily (though not exclusively) by way of value, it bears upon other areas, such as normative-infected social sciences, where value theory features. For another example, it also impacts upon aesthetics, heavily. For, according to the theory advanced, there is no sharp boundary, indeed really no division at all, between what has been dubbed "aesthetic value" and "ethical value". Value is value, without these artificial divides. Evidently too, as will appear, the work intrudes in normative reaches �6 merging into ethics, in particular, wherever normative or deontic dilemmas are encountered, such as reaches of social choice theory and legal theory. Differently, the work includes much, though indirectly, upon philosophy of nature. For it is especially concerned to supersede an old defective philosophy of nature, which included a heavy devaluation of nature, and aided and abetted a manifestly chauvinistic ethics. The ethical theory to be elaborated fits with, and in significant respects presupposes, a·different theory of nature. 7 Although investigations in this text are primarily theoretical, they have significant practical implications. Putting the theory to work in various environmental fields is something that happens elsewhere (see further in the Epilogue). Some of this has already occurred, in essays in the Green Series, and some is reserved for other texts on field ethics. 8 Notes on terminology In this text several familiar terms, such as 'green' and 'deep', are converted into quasi-technical terms. That is to say, special uses of the terms already in currency, such as the use of 'green' to mean environmentally committed, are further refined. The result could be signalled by deloyment of appropriate new terminology. Something like that is assumed done, except that the familiar terms will be retained-onl y now they are to be read in the quasi-technical way. To put the point differently. Let 'grene' (Olde English) or 'gre-een, (Newe English), for example, be the quasi-technical explication of 'green' in the relevant sense. Then in the subsequent text, 'green' will normally signify gre-een, or equivalently 'green' operates as (effectively abbreviates) 'gre-een. Why such a strategem? One reason is that people are now rather conservative regarding terminology. Indeed they are often turned off by new terminology (despite regular ruination of established terminology). As a result, established terminology gets revised for all sorts of new purposes (witness the bizarre high-school reuses in advanced physics), with a resultant overloading of senses. By contrast, recycling of old terminology (words or spellings), that has fallen into disuse would be rather more commendable. Here, rather than pressing our luck with explicit recyclings like diep and chalowe, we resort to the fiction that the terms 'deep' and 'shallow' deployed throughout the text stand in for the technical recyclings. As a result 'deep', as figuring in deep approaches, deep green, deep theory and so on, has no connection with profundity, or 'shallow' with superficiality. As several have said, in several respects deep/shallow terminology is unsatisfactory, execrable it is sometimes said. Founder N aess did a disservice introducing it, and subsequently 7 8 Such an appropriate underlying theory of nature is advanced in the companion work on metaphysics, namely TM. Green Series is a popular label for discussion papers in environmental philosophy, published from Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. One of the other texts is tentatively entitled Green Ethical Fields .. �7 in explaining it, so slackly. While it is too late to easily change the terminology, some undesirable associations may be shaken off by resorting to older or variant spellings, and simultaneous ly refining senses intended. That we do. But then we concede to the general intellectual will, by the substitution or "abbreviations" strategem. Even so, we have risked a few neologisms, and we shall chance, just here, one or two more. One we risk, is euthics, for universalizab le ethics, that is an ethics meeting universalizability requirements (in some appropriate fashion). This bit of terminology helps in resolving a significant ambiguity in philosophical usage of 'ethics', and making an improved start on the vexed issue of why an agent should adhere to an ethics, or differently to an euthics? One we chance is viridology (from Latin virides, green, and Greek logos, study of, in modern palance) for: theory, principles and practices of deep-green; that is, a single classical word for diep-grene theory. A purer alternative we contemplated, from among many, was prasinology (or should it be prasinomics) from Greek (and Latin) prasinus, dark green, leek green. Acknowledg ements and antecendents: personal development and conceit. The production of this work owes much to other humans, with of whom I have little or no acquaintance. The debts are both intellectual and practical. On the heavily practical side, I am most grateful to Frances Redrup for the processing of reems of rough scribble. On the broad practical front I am pleased to acknowledge the continuing support of my research endeavours by the Australian National University. That academic support, while generous by often niggardly world standards, has recently declined, through contraction of research support and expansion of alleged accountability practices. In this little respect, there has regettably been interference in my research, dur the earlier stages of work on this book, by no doubt wellintentioned academics occupying supervisary roles who have deemed by performance less than satisfactory. It is with regret too that I record that, in part owing to biassed appointment practices within the University, there has been negligible imput to the present work from any of my academic colleagues there. But outside imput there has been of course, of two main sorts: from recent activity in environmental philosophy and from past exercises in value theory. While environmental issues have operated as a main stimulus in my recent work in ethics, my own interest in and investigations in ethics reach back to my graduate work in Wellington, New Zealand, where I produced a characteristic ally initative work on ethics, entitled Moral Scepticism (I do not suggest that anyone read that work, which it is far too late to suppress). In New Zealand, I was educated in the 20th century British type and style of ethical theory, primarily Oxbridge material, with not antipodean influence of any significance what cover, except in the obscure background Prior' s quocit little book Logic and the Basis of Ethics (although my professor at Wellington, George Styles, had ethics as a manfield, I learnt only a �8 certain technigue from him; I do not recall one position, little theorem argument or there I must attribute to him, for the very simple reason, (suspect, that he never advanced very much). Among Oxbridge characters, Moore revoided the dominant influence though much of Hume and his near contemporaries-N eurall-Smith Tomlesia and others-was scround up to a tiny circle of ethical enthusiants and fellow academic travellers. Moore is still an influence in this book; in my occasional more conceited moments, I like to envisage the book as an appropriately greenish update of Principia Ethica. At least it may be as near as I ever come to producing such a work: Principa Ethica Virida. What on excessively ambitious idea, sheer hubris! Yet, for all the fuss, Principia Ethica is not really such a good book; rather it enjoys other advantageous features. A few companions with Principa Ethica will be ventured. But, by and large, other ethical theories will not be investigated in much detail. For one reason, that has been done, to a sufficient extent elsewhere (in others' work more than my own). For another, in the wake of accumulating evidence, notably from environmental awakenings, revealing their narrowness and prejudice, they scarcely justify further post mortems. More than Moore and Priest, the present work is indebted to Meinong, and through him to the tradition of Austrian value theory. The theory elaborated in fact fits, more or less, into what has been called critical cognitivism .. The evil of ingratitude, for example, ... Here and there, the present text draws, heavily sometimes, on my own past work, especially concerning environmental ethics. As much of the work, for example in the local Green Series in Canberra, is rather inaccessible, such borrowing may not matter much. There remains a small overlap-ideally vanishingly small as revision proceeds-betwee n this text and better circulated complementary works, notably essays in Environmental Philosophy and parts of The Greening of Ethics. �INTRODU CING DEEP-GR EEN THEORY Deep-green theory aims eventually to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. While it stands on its own, it is alternative because it stands in radical ideological opposition to dominant ways, nowadays predominantly industrial. It offers a philosophy both in the contemporary narrower sense, and in the older sense of an intellectually informed and critical way of life. That philosophy is centred on an ethical theory (upon which this issue concentrates), which is in form centred upon a value theory. But the ethic issues, in a fashion broadly associated since Aristotle, in a politics and political economy. But the output of the value theory in fact reaches much further, into practical decision making in a range of environmentally impacting areas such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. The value theory is also intertwined with philosophical issues which are often considered more fundamental, those of astophyism and epistemology. Indeed there is no part of philosophy that remains untouched. Therein lies part of the claim to comprehensiveness. The particular form of deep-green theory elaborated is by no means independent of (acclaimed) advances recently made elsewhere in philosophy (those in object-theory, and relevant and paraconsistent logics especially). But though the theory given is influenced and sometimes in fact shaped through these developments, deep-green theory more generally can avoid them (The type of theory given could easily enough be recast in a more classical Platonistic form - undoubtedly a much less plausible form. Nor will these background advances intrude, it is hoped, in the given elaboration of deep-green theory; the background will remain, fairly directly in the background, and not come to dominate proceedings or know proceedings depend upon special new controversial features of it. Where more technical agreements are required, they will be relegated to appendices. 1. As to deep theory. Deep-green theory is the environmental branch of a much larger affair, deep theory. There is a point, in fact a real expository need, to place deep-green theory in the larger setting of deep theory. For deep theory influences several of the choices made in deciding upon the way deepgreen theory goes, the shape it takes. Although the influence will become evident, particularly with the intertwining of truth and value that .... , it is worth giving an example. Too much of the Anglo-American discussion of intrinsic value and of obligations to future generations is taken up with - hung up upon - ontological questions, about universal items in the first case, and as how there can be obligations regarding future items which do not (yet) exist in "suitable" determinate �2 form in the second. Deep object-theo ry slices straight through these issues, removing the problem generating ontological assumptions. Deep-theor y is a grander theory lying in the background , which significantl y influences the philosophic al approach taken in deep-green theory, as well as being influenced by it. There is no reason why that grand backdrop should remain hidden; there is no hidden agenda. The backgroun d theory, of which deep-green theory is a part, is called simply deep theory. For it represents the confluence of several deep positions with deep-green theory: deep pluralism, depth relevant theory, deep item-theory, and so on. As a theoretical endeavor, deep theory aims to pull together, into a unified coherent theory these various deep positions. It thus draws together and integrates as well, several other interrelated efforts (on dialethism, process theory, anakyrie, etc. With deep theory I aim to supply eventually a fairly comprehen sive philosophical package. I used to imagine that with moderate comprehen siveness as regards present philosophic al problems would come a certain completene ss; but I've come to think that a total philosophy is an illusion, like pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and rainboweri a themselves. Deep theory is no doubt a presumptu ous title (there are worse about, e.g. 'total philosophy ', 'ecosophy' ), not it is altogether satisfactory given the problems and obscurities, to be encountere d, lacking in the notion of depth. My main excuse is that I did no exactly choose the title myself, but had it thrust upon me: problemati c, presumptuo us, it looks to good to refuse. It emerged from a terminolog ical confluence of several areas in which I'd been struggling to assemble ac. capirred theory - deep-green theory (itself a union of green thought, or environmen tal philosophy with a revised deep ecology), deep relevant theory, deep pluralism (which deepened radical pluralism), and deep item-theory (which deepens object-theory). To give a picture of deep theory, it suffices for present purposes to indicate some main features of deep positions, some of their integrating interrelatio ns, and some of their revolutiona ry potential. Deep theory overturns or subverts very much of what has been assumed or presuppos ed in Western philosophy , and particularl y in Enlightenm ented contempora ry philosophy. For example, it overturns the following widespread assumptions:• the Ontologica l Assumptio n, that truth, and also, meaning, are functions of reference, and thereby presuppose existence. On the contrary according to (deep) item theory, we can perfectly well talk and think truly about items that do not exist, and also about items that are not individual but are complex but perhaps indetermin ate wholes, and finally what items are impossible . Therewith repudiated also then is an occasionall y favoured full-back from onticalism, namely possibilism , which assumes �3 • the Possibilist Reduction, of everything that counts in discourse to possible individuals; there are no other genuine subjects, all else can be analysed (or thrown) away. Bound up with possibilism are • the assumptions of modalism, of the correctness of classical logic, and of the absolute requirement of consistency. Under more throughgoing transconsistency (or paraconsistency) these connected assumptions are one and all repudiated. The transconsistent connection assumes an important role in the straightforward treatment of moral and other dilemmas, in showing for example how an agent may coherently operate under inconsistent obligations or with incompatible needs. Important special cases of modalism are such theories as that • entailment is strict implication (or its metalinguistic analogical) and that conditionality amounts to a modal function of material implication 1. The rejection of such themes and their courses is part of what motivates deep relevant logic. While the parts of deep theory are integrated and are intended to be materially reinforcing, nothing prevents their fairly independent elaborations. The holism conceded does not exclude separation or analysis. In particular, deep-green theory is amenable to independent development and analysis. Material implication is the implication defined in terms of truth-functions thus: A materially implies B iff not last A and not B, or equivalently, iff either not A or B. Strict implication is the necessitation of material obligatory i.e. A strictly implies B iff necessarily A materially implies B, or equivalently, iff it is not possible that not A and not B. �ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GR EEN THEORY This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions. Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value. From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact, without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate �'relation-to-values', in which inconvenielt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of valuers. A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something "projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like. The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will trip over shadows or mere shapes. Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby �3 more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approxima ted by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation thereof. The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism, which leave no space for immaterial values. As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility; or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary development as value; • consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes; • straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgement s into reducing statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all. Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive. In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce. Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist �4 fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter. The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuou sly failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape. For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow, aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by coherence methods. The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independe nt, coherence processing , which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an �information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however, that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed. Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they �do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality, universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new information and experience. The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation. The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice, insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant �7 destructive ideologies, which (each of them) assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely, • not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason; • not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such �from the centre of the ethical stage (or ~xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories, and the institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans). Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values. Richard Sylvan* RMB 683 Bungendore NSW 2621 * Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra. This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not features they had at any time requested), for their magazine. �I \. '1 11.10.95 CHAPTER 1 DEEP AND GREEN AND PRESUPPOSED FUNDAMENTALS It soon emerges from preliminary exploration that, under natural characterisations, relevant notion of both ethics and green presuppose the notion of agency. So with something on agency, enough to get started, we shall begin. In terms of agency and proclivities to environments, green can be characterized, and in turn green approaches. Then, within green approaches, three relevantly different types can be distinguished: shallow, intermediate, and deep. It is the last, and really only the last, that matters for the ethical theory that follows. 1. Action, agency and agents: a summary . 1 Action theory is grounded in process theory. For actions are types of processes, agentascribed processes. processes are directed functions, ordinarily time-directed functions, 2 ? framing of certain functional sorts. All the ordinary sorts of processes-ec lipses, transits, removals, reflections, and so on and on-are processes (and ordinary processes can be separated out logically, such as by applicability and inapplicability of certain predicates, e.g. they take place, they are not facts, etc.) Processes themselves in no way require agents. Actions, however, as distinguished within goings-ons and taking-places, do require agency, and so agents. There is no reason at all why these agents should be humans. Many agents are not humans, some humans are not agents. But it is often quite erroneously assumed agents are humans, or persons. Excess requirements on agency are partly to blame, the mistaken idea that agents have to be purposeful, responsible, rational-feat ures that can be added to distinguish subtypes of agents. Rather, actions can be roughly delineated through answers to questions like What is so and so (the relevant agent) doing? How is so and so acting? The result reached following through this route is this: process a is an action iff for some agent x, a is properly ascribed to x, it is x' s doing. To break residual circularity, it remains to define agency. Agency is defined, such is the proposal, in terms of exercising a causal role (which may be misdirected or similar), through the following circuit. First, x is and agent as agents a iff, for some p directly partinent to a, x causes Pbut x is not caused to cause p. In terms of agency-regarding, other notions can be defined as follows: x is a sometime-agent, someties an agent, iff for some a, x is an agent as 2 As full an account of processes as so far worked up from notes appears in 'Process and actions', which does provide detailed background for this section. �'2 regards a. Agency is a characterizing attribute of sometime-agents. An agent is a sometimesagent that establishes a history of agency (a small reputation therefore). 2. Explaining Green. In characterizing green we start with agency. Such relevant features, of greens (or environmentalists), as being positively concerned about nature of natural things, supporting environmental causes and similar, are closely tied to practice and action; they are features of agents. In an original central sense of 'green' so redeployed, an agent was green if that agent firstly believed that some parts of the natural environment should be protected, and secondly took some relevant action. 3 In short, a belief-action analysis emerges, which can be recast as a standard belief-desire-resultant action account. For instance, the agent believes that some natural environment is worth protection, desires that it should be, and acts (in some way, perhaps feebly) accordingly. All the parts of this sort of account call, however, for some elaboration. To remove a certain circularity, resulting from characterising "green" through terms like "environmen t", 'natural environment' can be replaced by 'parts (surface configurations) of the Earth substantially uninterfered with by humans'. To specify protection satisfactorily, protection/ra m what should be indicated. And so on. But there is a little point in elaborating this already weak characterisation, which can be satisfied by an agent interested in saving a few square metres of the Earth's surface from exploitation. For the notion has been further weakened, almost from its inception. To characterise this laxer, but ubiquitous notion, let us insert the intermediary notion of an environmental cause. Such causes include not merely protecting natural environments, but limiting impacts on environments, which may not be pristine, for instance by pouring less sewage or detergents, CFCS or Greenhouse gases, into them, or conserving items, which could be exploited or consumed now for future use or for future human generations (to use or conserve, etc.). The first of these further causes beyond protection, original green, is a largely consumerist notion of green, the second, an economistic notion (it takes in such beloved constraints as intergerational equity). There are other related causes of importance also, such as restoration of something that has been over-exploited or damaged, such as agricultural lands, waterways, urban air, soils (soil conservation), or even human artefacts such as monuments or buildings. The shallow green cause of fighting pollution, for human health reasons, can fit in here. Needless to add the restoration may not be to pristine conditions, but to quite low 3 Although we are explicating terms that are now in widespread usage, in a way substantially faithful to that usage (but not some of its dilute or corrupt expansions), we shall regard the terms as quasi-technical. We see these terms, as the discerning reader also may, as spelt not with a double 'e' but a triple 'e', as 'greeen' and 'greeening' (insert hyphens as need be for appropriate pronunciation, e.g. 'gre-een' _. The effect is to peel off dilution and corruption of 'green' (e.g. so to include every politician, at least when any confronts concerned constituents) and to discard all those unwanted and often undesirable senses the colour term green has accumulated. �standards. In sum, causes include as well as protection, such matters as nondestruction, conservation, maintenance, restoration, and so on. Now substitute supporting an environmental cause for protecting a natural environment. Then an agent is green in this expanded laxer sense if the agent believes in supporting an environmental cause and takes some relevant action in that direction. Such an action component is essential: green does imply some practical, if utterly token, involvement. The lax account connects in the right ways with testable sociological criteria. For instance, believing in supporting a cause can be cashed out in terms of joining an organisation working for that cause, or even, reducing the slight action component still further, considering joining such an organisation. 4 The appellation green applies not only to individual agents, but also to groups, coalitions, institutions, even corporations and governments. As a green government can, meet similar lax conditions, it is evident that there really are very few requirements, even weak sponsorship may serve. Many there are now trying to take advantage of green movements-adve rtisers, vendors, politicians, professors, merchants, even generals (with "defence forces" retooling as environmental defence forces). Cashing i in on the movement by producing a goods or services presented as environmentally friendly does not thereby make parties doing so green, especially if what is supplied adds to overall environmental impacts (as do "environmental markets" delivering environmental junk, sometimes portrayed as "green goods"). The requirement of serving environmental causes has been lost. The excessive generosity of the account arrived at, which allows agents with only passing or slight active beliefs in some cause to count as green, does not matter. For firstly, it corresponds moderately well to current lax usage, which allows almost any sort of concern for environments, coupled with an action component as slight as paying a token subscription, to serve. Secondly, it still exercises quite enough exclusive power. Many agents are not green. For instance all those exclusively tuned into possessive individualism, mainstream economics, or similar creeds are not green (i.e. not even lax green). Thirdly, needed discriminations can be made within the class of (lax) green. An important subclass of green comprises ecological green, where the causes include maintenance and protection of natural ecosystems (including wilderness) and these causes enjoy some primacy. "Ecological green" is by no means a tautology. 4 In a study entitled 'GREEN PACKAGES IN AUSTRALIA', greens were picked out from the whole sample of respondents to the Australian Election Study of 1990 in terms of answer to question: How likely are you to join groups campaigning to protect the environment, or are you alrady a member? Permitted answers: (1) I am a member, (2) I am not a member but I have considered joining (3) I am not a member and I haven't considered joining, and (4) I certainly would not consider joining. Those giving answer (2), perhaps token greens, were accounted green. �4 To be green in more than a token fashion is to have some commitment to containing or reducing the environmental impact of humans on the Earth or regions of it. By virtue of the environmental impact equation (for a given region) that means commitment in the immediate future term to either • human population reduction, or • less impacting lifestyles for many humans, or • improvements in technology to reduce overall impact. Most humans in a region can do little to implement the third requirement, except to hope. Accordingly they cannot satisfactorily demonstrate their commitment in this way. A genuine green will meet both the other conditions. But since as big coalition as feasible is sought for a green coalition, marginal greens who meet only one of the requirements, perhaps in weak form, will not usually be excluded (from almost any green church). Issues of population afford a simple test (a necessary condition) for a genuine green in Australia; for that agent fails who suppoes that while efforts (including the agent's contribution) to effect human population reduction should be invested elsewhere, as in parts of Asia or Africa, Australia can keep on growmg. From filling out the conditions delimiting green commitments, a green platform can be derived. Specifically it will include, along with the action clause, derivative directives as regards curtailing population, refining and limiting consumption, adjusting technologies, and consequent thereupon altering administrative, political and economic arrangements and institutions accordingly. What so results is a proper subplatform of the Deep Ecology platform. A fair approximation to the full Deep Ecology platform can be derived by adjoining requirements for depth to those for genine greenness of the action platform; so result themes concerning intrinsic value in nature, and commitments deriving therefrom. In short, the wellknown Deep Ecology platform accounts (as a fair approximation) to a deep green platformwhich can accordingly supplant it. As genuine green and green platform can be characterized given the initial notion of green, that is lax green, so similarly can other green compounds and modified forms be explained (in a preliminary way). For example, a green ideosystem is an ideosystem (an ideology, in the unbiassed sense) that coheres with green commitments, and typically organizes and guides them. As genuinely green, it is a system that includes a green platform, and it could be defined in that way, as an ideo-system coherently extending a green platform. Similarly for green ethics, and for green philosophy (and also for other green notions that could be defined but are not presently needed, e.g. green goods, green consumers, green parties, green ideas and so forth). A green ethical system is a green ideosystem which is an ethic. Green ethics comprises �5 such green ethical systems and their theory. 5 Green ethics thus comprise a decidedly restricted subset of environmental ethics. For an environmental ethic in the broad usage, an ethics that addresses environmental issues, among others, may well contain themes that could not be adopted by a green agent, that may even operate against environmental causes. In consequence, a green ethics is an ethic that could be coherently adopted by a green agent, that does not run counter to environmental causes. 3. Different approaches to the environment: shallower and deeper. People can do more or less what they like with the environment, with the land and the sea, and with what grows and lives there-such was and, in only slightly modified form, remains a dominant theme of Wes tern cultural heritage. It was not the view of other cultures, such as some of the American Indians or Australian Aborigines; nor was it the only view included in the Western cultural package. But it has dominated, especially in colonial and imperial expansion. It is only recently, for example, that some social or governmental restrictions with teeth have been imposed upon what Australians can do with the land they occupy or claim, and these lag far behind advanced green thinking as to what is required. For the most part there has been little weakening in the Wes tern assumption that people own the land, that it is their possession, to mould to their purposes and whims. 6 This unrestrained approach proved damaging enough while the land was wide and humans comparatively few; now that human populations are expanding more rapidly, perhaps to critical limits, now that much land is damaged and less fragile land is in increasingly short supply, it is time to re-examine older attitudes and the accompanying practices. Any deeper reassessment has to look at the presupposed land ethic, and more generally at the underlying ethical and ideological assumptions. A land ethic, according to Leopold, who introduced the term, is 'an ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' .7 Thus a land ethic amounts to a nature (or environmental) ethic, with land a symbol for the whole of nature (or the more comprehensive environment), and man a symbol for all relevant agents. The unrestrained position, which imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment, affords a land ethic of only a degenerate sort. The unrestrained position would, for example, have little 5 6 7 Although we are anticipating here-as ethics and ethical systems are explained essentially reportively however, in the next chapter, there is no circularity. For ethics is separately and independently characterised. Indeed, with the renewed libertarian movement emanating from industrial north-eastern America, this assumption has gained in strength. Foreign "resources" are not to be hoarded but should be saleable to the highest bidders for "free" economic use. And sometimes it is broadly hinted: or else! A. Leopold, A Sand Country Almanac with other essays on Conversation, New York, 1966, p.238. �6 compunction about using up materials, forests, pristine environments and so on, immediately or even destroying them. In the end the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly ethical positions. 8 For it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of independence of person, place or time, a requirement which iplies that persons of different races, colours, sexes or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously disadvantaged. Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and even destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very serious disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local interets, rather than appropriately based on long-range values. Opposed to the unrestrained position are various conservation ethics; what Leopold saw as the land ethic is just one of these. Conservation ethics can be classified, conveniently for subsequent development, into three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. 9 Unlike the unrestrained position, all these politions would conserve and maintain certain things-materials, creatures, forests, etc. The shallow conservation position differs from the unrestrained position primarily in taking a longer-term view and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so forth. It is more enlightened than the unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective: hence its alternative description as resource conservation. Though this conservation position is only a small step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass one test for morality proper in that future people are not treated unfairly. Most of the big rush into fashionable environmentalism does not get beyond shallowness. The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they share-and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature and the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus they take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values reduce to these or similar human on closed notions. It is in this respect especially that these shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource and exploitation oriented, positions. 8 9 This is a substantial, and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity unethical, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case for obligations and commitments to future humans, see e.g. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future' in Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental ethics, (ed. E. Partridge), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, and other essays in this book. This classification refines Naess's non-exhaustive distinction of shallow and deep ecology, and extends it to render it exhaustive. For the original distinction, see A. Naess, 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement' Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100. An elaboration on Aess's position, to which this discussion has some debts, may be found in his 'Philosophical aspects of the deep ecological momvement', Environmental Ethics, to appear. �According to deeper positions humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value in the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to human concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to human concerns. According to the intermediate position serious human concerns always come first; and while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right, their value is outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and maintains that even serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values. FIGURE 1. THE POSITIONS SEPARATED, AND SEPARATING PRINCIPLES SHALLOWER UNRESTRAINED DEEPER SHALLOW INTERMEDIATE I I I I J, J, J, DEEP MORALITY SOLE VALUE GREATER VALUE REQUIREMENT ASSUMPTION ASSUMPTION (of human apartheid) (of human supremacy) The watershed principle which divides the shallower from deeper positions is the sole value assumption. According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western social theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the value of all other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another. This assumption is built into most present political and economic arrangements; for example, only aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in democratic political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and natural items are represented at best through the preferences or votes of interested humans. Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive theories which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of humans. Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as utilitarianism. 10 According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is determined through what affords maximum satisfaction to the greatest number of individual humans. In theories like utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct inputs or outputs, but only insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals. Such ethical theories are appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man 10 But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely contractualism and libertarianism. These theories, along with utilitarianism, are explained in most modern American introductions to ethical theories or moral problems. �is, or is treated as, apart from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land enters only as a remote experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and interests. However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example, volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies. At least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in economics, ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the environment, have been appended (thus, for example, extemality theory in economics, some allowance for "side" constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the land remains treated as an awkward or tiresome afterthought, when it is considered at all. There is, however, another approach, also with historical standing, vying with (and indeed often confused with) human apartheid which can accommodate secondary theories a little more satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which Man, though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it. While human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain in the shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable greater value assumption:: other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than that of other things; the value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This assumption allows that other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value; what it insists upon is that, at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never exceeds that of humans. What is generally presupposed is that other objects-animals, plants and their communities-are never of much importance compared with humans. Though human supremacy has appeared in versions of utilitarianism where animal pain is taken into consideration along with human, Western ethics and associated social sciences such as demography, economics and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form. It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position is that of Animal Liberation, in the form in which animals are taken to have value in their own right, though in any playoff with humans, humans win. Under the deep position such an outcome is by no means inevitable; in cases of conflict of animal or natural systems with humans, humans sometimes lose. I I There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one takes the following form:- Some humans lead worthless or negative lives, lives without net value. The point, though not uncontroversial, 11 So too for some men and some sparrow. So we should reject the intermediate ...... : A man is worth more than a sparrow! (Drungson/ Ralston etc.) �9 can be argued even from a shallow utilitarianism.1 2 Take for instance a life of pain and suffering and little or no happiness: it has a substantial net negative utility. But some small natural systems do have net value; one example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a live example might be a tropical island before Club Mediterranee depredation). Now consider the situation where the considerable value of a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on behalf of a set of humans whose lives each have no positive net value. For instance, the system is to be exploited, just for the continued maintena nce of these humans, or for their addition (as new settlers) to an establish ed population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the natural system takes precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the integrity of rich natural environments.13 Let us look ahead to glimpse paradimatic expansions of the positions indicated (in figure 1). For the positions soon expand, when applied to real life issues, to more comprehensive positions; indeed they have expanded all the way to what are now called social paradigms, that is to full social perspectives. For example, the deep position has expanded from the two core theses-a s initially reformulated, values in nature, which is a positive counterpart of the sole value assumption, and biospecies impartiality, which is a positive elaboration of greater value assumption 14-to fuller deep ecological positions which involve as well many other themes. 12 13 The point is argued in detail in R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of life?' Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy #3, Research School of social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982. There are significant cross-classifications of environmental positions. Some further dimensions are included in the following diagram. Environment not taken I Environments is taken into account I into account p 14 --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --- shallow intermediate I dogs I ////// I I E I individual I I H I holistic I I Another dimension is the static/dynamic. But no one want to be just stauc, really. According to the values in nature theme natural items other than humans and human artefacts have intrinsic value; while according to biospecies impartiality members of one species, humans in particular, are not favoured or valued over members of another simply on the basis of species. The danger of favouring one species is encouraged by the species fallacy, commonly invoked in favouring humans. This is the mistake of concluding that because a few members of the species have accomplish ed something of (immense) value, all members of the species therefore are (highly) valuable; all members of the species manage to free-load for the ride, obtained by a few members, so to say. The assumption, once challenged, usually falls back on an argument that goes by way of capacities: the remaining members of the species have the capacity to achieve these sorts of things also. But, firstly, that isn't true: intelligence, skills, and the like, vary somewhat within species, and from our narrow perspective, very considerably among humans, some of whom have no capacity for advanced mathematics or music. Secondly, it requires more than capacity: it requires circumstances, a favourable environment to exercise them, (hence, in part, the folly of �lU The expansion is not uniquely determined; there can be various different deeper paradigms. However it characteristically includes a fuller statement of themes recognised as in the spirit of "deep ecology", in particular ecological themes, but also interconnected economic and political themes. In a similar way shallower positions are subsumed in shallower perspectives, and principally in what is called the dominant social paradigm, some relevant themes of which are indicated in figure 2.1s FIGURE 2. RELEVANT COMPONENTS OF THE ENCOMPASSING PARADIGMS. DOMINANT SOCIAL PARADIGM DEEP ECOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVE Dominance over nature Natural environment a resource Harmony with nature Values in nature/biospecies impartiality Less material goals/less growth orientation Earth supplies limited AJ?propriate technology/limits to science Doing with enough/recycling Regional/decentralised/small-scale Material/economic growth Ample reserves/perfect substitutes High technological progress/ scientific solutions Consumerism National/centralised/large-scale SHALLOW f----------------------------- ➔ DEEP 4. Criticisms of these beginnings and other beginnings A main challenge we shall have to meet is that there can be no deep ethics, ethics and axiology are inevitably shallow, because they must answer back to human valuers. This challenge we presently set aside (until the next chapter). But it should already be apparent how we can start to upset the challenge (already taken up by deeper utilitarianism), namely by displacing humans by relevant agents. Other challenges grant that something might answer to deeper ethics, but contend that nothing should-objectio ns of substance-or that making anything much out of it is unwarranted, for example because preliminaries in making out the distinctions have not been 15 more humans in decidedly suboptimal cities), together with a will and drive actually to follow through appropriately on capacities. Much fuller accounts of the dominant social paradigm and environmental alternatives are given in S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, New York, 1982, and in R. Routley 'Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action' in Environmental Philosophy (ed. R. Elliot and A. Gare), University of Queensland Press, 1983. The linkage of the dominant paradigm with maximizing, and the deep alternative with sufficing, is elaborated in R. Routley, 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984. �11 properly accomplished-objections of form and from technicalities (cf. challenges to the analytic/synthetic distinction). We consider examples of both sorts of challenge. The misanthropy charge. Deep environmentalism has been criticised for what it does, so it is alleged, to ethical treatment of other humans; it leads, it has been alleged, to neglectful, negligent, or downright callous treatment of other humans, to inhumanity. The actual impact of deep environmentalism affords but little ground for such allegations. Nor does the theory. Deep environmentalism could leave intrahuman ethics, standard morality virtually entirely intact. If it did so, deep environmental ethics would provide a conservative extension (in the familiar technical sense) of standard intrahuman ethics. In this event the allegations would fall; for the ethical treatment of humans would be in principle just the same as before. But it is unlikely that any deeper environmentalism will leave standard morality entirely intact in its own prime sphere of operations, that restricted to humans. For instance the evolution of humans, and attributions of virtues or vices to them, is bound to be influenced by how they act or respond towards nonhumans and the environment. A virtuous puritanical oldstyle industrialist who makes his affluent living through environmentally damaging practices will no longer obtain the virtuous ranking that would have been accorded to him on the older prevailing morality. (Of course that morality too is changing, but it hardly changes rapidly enough to keep pace with a deeper ethic). The change in the evaluation of and moral standing accorded to hard-working but environmentally exploitative business people, technologists and engineers reflects a more far-reaching adjustment; that of removal of special privilege for humans (or persons). Even in the more austere of standard ethical positions, such as duty ethics in the Kantian mould, it is very easy to gain the impression of persons (usually males on traditional ethics) as kings. There will be a club of kings, that was where more egalitarian industrialism was proceeding also, to make us all kings - with the rest of nature as subjects. While the unwarranted privilege accorded to humans under conventional ethical wisdom will topple then, the treatment of humans by humans need not. To the contrary, if people develop a more respectful and careful attitude to the environment, then they may well develop a better, different and more careful, approach to other people as well. Here the awful Kantianstyle theme that decent treatment of animals will trickle down from a decent treatment of other humans is partially reversed; a better treatment of other humans (a decent treatment is already ethically required) will percolate up from a more gently and respectful treatment of natural environments. Nor finally then need a deeper environmentalism abandon the quest for social justice. 16 Deep-green theory certainly does not; the ethical-change agenda is much wider than social 16 There are two American groups where the quest for terrestial social justice appears to have been abandoned or comprised: eco-fascists and nature greens, as they are sometimes called from outside. �12 change alone, but social and human concerns do not thereby fall off the agenda. They remain, but no longer in such isolations. What they do lose their unchallenged preeminence, and they may also lose priority. Problems with the Greater Value assumption (after Attfield). A prime alternative to a shallow/deep distinction is (what is sometimes considered no alternative, but a variant on it) the anthropocentric/ecologic distinction. Notes: 1. Not the same distinction. While shallow positions are normally anthropocentr ic, converse does not obtain. 2. Distinction never made out properly (really degree issues), and leads to typical 4-fold outcome. 5. Domination and chauvininism. The greater or sole value accorded to humans, as compared with (other) valuations, justify the domination of nature by humans. The main argument is simply that what has lesser or no value should give away to what has greater value, the conventional assumption being that what has greater value is better (analytic) than what has less, and should prevail over it (substantive assumptions of conventional ethical themes such as utilitarianism). Domination and associated class chauvinism are justified not only directly through consideration s of greater or supreme value, but also less directly by pointing to highly valued features possessed by the favoured class. Similar appeals to prized features are of course likewise used to justify class chauvinism. Appendices : 1. Deep ethics are not automatically acceptable as satisfactory. Consider e.g.whole chauvinism, where Wholes are intrinsically valuable, each and every one, and their value much exceeds that of everything else, humans included. So wholes come first. (This is a doctrical some superwholes may hold). Two rough comparisions: cows in India, humans on earth. Other unsatisfactory deep ethics, apart from those that aberate one species, are those that focus exclusively on certain elements. Those e.g. individualisms, strong holisms, etc. 2. Arguments to shallowness. 1. Simplistic (from one James O'Connor of Canada). ' ... the word "value" is a human word, with human meanings, in this case transposed to non-human nature. Hence to say that nature is inherently valuable means that it is inherently valuable to humans'. Ecofascists, who follow a route pioneered by Hardin, call for a triage of nations on lifeboat earth and abandonment of those nations, such as Bangladesh, seen without prospect of recovery. But the position is not deep, it is certainly not a properly moral position; for due criticism see Griffin and Bennett. �u 2. Problem with shallow/deep terminology, e.g. acquired too many associations for comfort. Intellectual offensiveness shallow, etc. 3. Shallowness involves a reductionist exercise. Making (trying to make) environmental issues in all that matter environmentally-answer back to shallow concerns. Series of arguments advanced to try to establish ..... . Counter argument. These do not succeed and can be counter-evolelled. 3. Cross-classifications reformism/revolation is, like anthropocentrism, a poor classification. It can be shallow without reformism and unethical economism with reformism. DE itself is largely reformist in character (and excessively personal).: Anthropo-/ecocentric. No doubt 'anthropocentricsm' meaning what its etymology implies 'centring in man' (OED), is a useful term. Theories such as Coperican and Copenhagen quantum theory can be criticised (or praised) as anthropocentric. What is in doubt is the new contrast of antropocentric with ecocentric. While the vague anthropocentric-ecocentric distinction is alright, so far as it goes, as a starting stage, it is no place to stop. For there is a need for a value specific distinction, antrhopocentr can be any sort of human centredness. 'Anthropocentric' is a poor choice of contrasting terminology, for several reasons. One, which may be convenient to some, lies in its vagueness. There is no sharp cut-off in what is human centred. Similarly for its supposed contrast term 'ecocentric', which presumably expandents to 'ecologically centred'. Second, it becomes apparent that no proper contrast is made in many cases. University textbooks on natural ecology, for instance are both ecocentric because about ecology and anthropocentric because set and supplied for humans. Human ecology, a subject increasingly encountered in universities, is directly both (not both under different aspects). Were the classification satisfactory, it would provide a nice contradiction. But the classification is far from satisfactory. It is not exclusive: nor is it exhaustive, but the remainder obscure. But worse, any practical ethics, no matter how deep, is bound to be anthropocentric, not ecocentric, even though duly concerned with ecology. The reason comes to this: any adequate ethics is bound to be heavily concerned with agents, their obligations and responsibilities, and for all practical purposes (on earth) these agents are generally certain humans. This is, an adequate practical ethics is, as a contingent matter, anthropocentric. Of course such an ethic, by contrast with main traditional ethics, may also be presented as an ecocentric ethic, inasmuch as it may be focussed upon ethical agents' relations to ecological items, human treatment of nature. �14 Problems with the anthropocentric/ecocentric contrast do not mean that something like the contrast cannot be made good. But it would involve redefinition of the critical terms, and could accordingly be better accomplished with adjusted terminology. Anthropocentrism is implausible, once a modern pict "of universe" becomes available. (Scuh a sufficiently modern picture was already available to Descartes.) The sun is a medium sized star of very common sort even within its galaxy. The probability of planets like the Earth within this university is extraordinarly high. The probability of other agents is also very high. Even the probability of other ..... ./competent agents is high. But even if it were not, or even if there were other agents, the discourse to be embarked upon would be significant. It is also pointful, for instance in disposeing of much philosophy. If anthropocentrism is so implausible as regards "main place in nature", why is it not implausible as regards intuitionality, value, etc. Ironically, the swing away from anthropocentrism in the sciences in modern times (with the advert of Copenhagen quantum theory and anthropic principles) was overpinged by increasing anthropocentrism in what are misleadingly distinguished as the humanities. Above all intentionality and value were emptied out of the wider universe and concentrated in the exclusive focus of humanities, humans. To adopt Freud: Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great humiliations to its chauvinism .17 The first was when it was realised that our earth was not the centre of the universe, but only a speck in the world system of a magnitude hardly conceivible ... . The second was when his logical science robbed man of his particular privilege of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world' (puoted in Unozco Ev ..... May 1982 p.3) There are further shocks in store for humans-poor old humans! 3. Explaining depth [contrasts pale/pallid]. For a good sort of depth, what is needed a deep structure, extraction or format that lies (partially) hidden from the surface. E.G. plate ponites in geology, strata in archasology, logical form in grammar. Deep = penetrating to fundamentals in several ways and nonchauvinistic, not shallow. [Mention also pluralism-so only a framework aimed for, on which grew various detailled positions.] Part of depth of Deep Green theory lies in its penetration below the surface of classrestricted or interested humanism to a genuine nonchauvinistic ethical structure: the (ill-named) annular structure, which ties moral principles to nonhumanistic categorestion. Annular structure 17 Freud says: to great outrages upon it naive serif love. �15 is a deep structure. A deep structure. Maybe can produce one for deep green theory (see Critiq p.93, bottom halt) Start as above other measures of depth (pp.44-5) misconceived. 1'. Extent of searching of perception of value; depth of (value) perception. 1. Extent to which humanism (h.ch) abandoned for econvisonmental perspective. 2. Extent to which conventional moral and value judgements put op for reassessment. (Naess's depth of questioning conventional wisdom) 2 is tied to 1; for abandoning heh involves much reassessment. Note differs from usual reflective equilibrium, which takes many generally accepted judgements for granted. More on what depth means (pragmetinally): Many environmental outcomes sought in deep grounds can be supported in shallow ways (of course). But there are differences, as examples show: • pesticides (in forestry) should not be used, despite insect damage. For pesticides violate natural succession and healing processes. Toxicity questions, though important, are secondary. On shallow view: the main problem becomes not the use of pesticides, but whether they are safe. • natural world appears as a resource. Life forms which interfere with uses are pests. 2. Reformist/Transformist Variations upon Shallow/Deep Ecology Unhappy with the derogatory implications of "shallow", Devall and Sessions tried to convert shallow ecology in ecological reformism. While there was certainly a basis for this conversion in Naess's original brief account of shallow ecology (which almost invited such reconstrual), the result has been that something different has emerged, notably in green politics. For what such conversions, along with associated imagery accompanying reformism, achieve is not elucidation, but introduction of new contrasts, and therewith political crossclassification of the shallow-deep ecology contrasts. There are various contrasts with (mere) reformist adjustment on political theory, for instance revolutionary change and radical change. A revolutionary direction appears inappropriate as regards deep ecology (as revealed both by the literature and political stances of leading members of the movement), but a politically radical direction on environmental issues does emerge from later developments in N aess' s work. Accordingly a rough contrast, which admits sharpening, can be made out between green reformism and green radicalism. A machine image, which often operates not far from view in such contrasts, is initially helpful in indicating the differences. Reformism does not interfere with the main operation of the machine, its motor, though it may alter the adjustments, retune or fine tune it, add filters or mufflers or converters, alter its appearance cosmetically, and so on. By contrast radicalism would alter the machine, would interfere with its motor to some extent, depending on the level of radicalism. �16 In political terms reformism is exemplified in such measures as limiting pollution by emission devices, further treatment of sewerage, small reserves and roadside veneers of trees amid clear-cutting operations, tidying up of litter, and so on. The main motor of liberal democratic market capitalism, the economic engine designed to deliver maximum economic growth, and its main institutions, remain untouched and uncriticised; no change is proposed for them. For radicals such measures and like reforms do not proceed far enough, towards the sources of the problems. To tackle the range of environmental problems more radical change in economic, social and perhaps political machinery is required. But evidently the extent of change envisaged can vary, very considerably. For example, a frugal conservation program, directed at limiting economic growth through removing conspicuous and excessive consumption, need carry no accompanying program for radical social and political change. Again, deep ecology, which offers no well worked out, or even well signposted, radical program or radical restructuring, does not appear to be politically radical. Alternatives to liberal democratic arrangements are not really advanced or investigated. By contrast some anarchist and marxist influenced ecological positions are politically radical, for instance, social ecology. In short, there is room for a classification of green radicalism, as shown by a preliminary grouping according to whether the radicalism affects which of separate (though overlapping) economic, social, or political matters. The reformist-radical distinction is a vague one, without a sharp boundary. Reforms can so accumulate that what was a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, what was extensive reformism turns out to be radicalism. In such an incremental fashion, positions which were reformist can find themselves radical, without having undergone any conspicuus radicalisation. The contrast between reformism and radicalism can be sharpened somewhat within a (an improved) theory of social paradigms. Then reformism is intra-paradigmatic, whereas radicalism is not (but is extra-paradigmatic). That is a reformist works, like a normal scientist, within the operational paradigm (the given political motor) and does not seek to change it, whereas the radical does; success of radicalism resembles abnormal (even revolutionary) periods in science. As there are many ways of deviating from a paradigm, which typically involves a complex set of presumptions, so there are many sorts of radicalism. The extent to which the political conversion of the shallow-deep contrast into green reformism-radical contrast affords not a restatement, but a different classification, may now be evident though perhaps not to its full extent. The most notable further feature is that green radicalism may be utterly shallow, entirely anthropocentric. 18 Green Marxism affords a useful 18 In these terms Naess conflated two contrasts in his original 1973 article; shallow-deep and reformist-radical. Different followers have latched onto different contrasts. �l'/ example; it is socially and politically radical while shallow (of course it can be argued that it is environmentally incoherent, though not in the mentioned features, but in its plan to supercharge the economic motor and make it run even faster, with evident environmental fall-out). Social ecology offers another example; for while more radical than deep ecology, it is certainy not deep. Something of the rich variety we have come upon can be glimpsed from the following table. All the positions enumerated, except 9, are occupied, we suspect (though positions are often so poorly or incompletely presented that is difficult to be sure ). 19 Positions 9 is practically excluded for committed deep parties who duly care about the demise of what is of intrinsic value under mere reformism. Position 5 is however occupied, by those who want (or believe they have achieved) improved arrangements for and treatment of animals (e.g., no circuses, no ordinary zoos, no cruel contests, etc.) but are not committed to a radical animal liberation agenda. Green party territory is usually shallow, but some of the proposals presented may extend to position 4, for instance in demands for participatory democratic restructuring. Of course, many supporters of green parties may adhere to deeper positions. 19 It is worth noting that such positions will in principle supply their own forms of sustainability, sustainable societies, and so on. �24.10.95 Chapter 2 ETHICS WITHOUT HUMANS, PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT HUMANS, and COROLLARIES It is a commonplace that ethics has proceeded not merely as if humans were on centre stage, but as if humans really were all there is, all that mattered in ethics, as if nothing else enters into morals and ethics, or does through only through them. That commonplace is moreover commonly strengthened to a claim of necessity, that this must be so, that nothing else can enter, except indirectly by way of humans. Ethics has to be thus anthropocentric. Since environmental ethics began to shift humans, if ever so little, off centre stage, there has been a heavy philosophical reaction, a sometimes bitter blacklash against greener ethics that would background humans, or dare sometimes to remove humans, from the scene altogether. Among many other things, it has been contended that by the very meaning of ethics and morals, these subjects must be human-centred. A crucial argument for necessary anthropocentricism of ethics makes human centrality a matter of definition. This crucial argument will be broken, in the first of several stages, through a detailed characterisation of morals and ethics in a way that is independent of humans. The characterizations adopted depart in only minor and justified (though highly consequential) ways from received dictionary definitions; that is the characterisations are substantially reportive, as they have to be if they are to serve their iconoclastic purposes. The matter of characterising ethics is in any case part of our business. Where would deep-green ethics be left, as a subject of investigation, without an appropriate account of ethics? 1. On inadeqacies of what prevails: a sheaf of defective accounts. It takes but little effort to discover severe shortcomings in most preceding investigations, and that most accounts, many of them far too casual, are inappropriate for what they are intended to cover, still less for environmental ends. There is no end to bad and defective definitions to dissect and discard. Even textbooks and guidebooks on ethics often make no attempt at a definition, and often have little or nothing of due generality to offer on what ethics is about. 1 Unremarkably then, many of those presenting or teaching ethics, perhaps well enough, have no adequate idea of what ethics is about. This is revealed by the sorts of definitions they slop down and by what they say ethics is about. The slop presented indicates they did not even bother to consult their dictionaries with any care. It is an elementary exercise to show deficiencies in most proposals. A striking recent example is Singer (ed.) Companion to Ethics, supposedly an encyclopaedic work on ethics. �2 A few sample definitions recently encountered will help confirm our claims. Utterly defective is the account of ethics as 'the relation between you and other people' .2 Such connections as the spatial relations between people, for instance where they sit at a seminar, do not belong to ethics. Narrowing relations to those of treatment, as in 'how you treat other people' improves the account a bit, but not enough. Decent treatment of relevant kinds no doubt comprises part of ethics, but a small part. Nor is such treatment confined, especially as regards receivers, to people; animals, nature and more, all matter. A more interesting account, presumably designed to encompass applied ethics, takes this remarkable form: "'ethics" [is] defined as disciplined reflection by persons in all walks of life on moral ideas and ideals'. 3 As a definition, this too fails entirely, appearing circular, and converting ethics away from, what is essential, practice into head stuff, into something like meditation, a kind of widely practiced theorizing, though practised on certain parts of ethics! There are too some unfortunate side-effects of the insertion, aimed at making ethics applicable to all walks of (human) life: namely, as there are walks of life which have no room for disciplined reflection, so there is in fact no ethics. Back again to the drawing board. Similarly for Russell's fuller attempt: The study of Ethics is perhaps most commonly conceived as being concerned with the questions "What sort of actions ought men to perform?" and "What sort of actions ought men to avoid?" It is conceived, that is to say[!], as dealing with human conduct, and as dividing what is virtuous and what is vicious among the kinds of conduct between which, in practice, people are called upon to choose. 4 Owing to feminist criticism of male chauvinism, many now wince at Russell's; piquant use of term like 'men' (in fact throughout his numerous works). Environmental criticism of human chauvinism has not been so (terminologically) successful, sad to report. Back to the board. It takes little effort to assemble a sheaf of inadequate definitions and accounts of ethics. Many include too little, for example the popular account of ethics as "how we should live", which as well as being too narrow is parochial. 5 Similarly, though fractionally better; a coherent set of values to live by is enough for an ethic. For that appears to omit a deontic component, obligations and permissions, and certainly leaves out ethical virtues. A major shortcoming, even in fuller characterisations, concerns the concentration on humans and their parochial affairs. For, as will soon appear, ethics does not essentially concern humans. An adequate ethics says nothing about humans, members of species Homo sapiens, their obligations and rights, values or virtues. It applies but contingently to humans; it applies similarly to hominids, humanoids, and to persons generally, and functions in the absence of persons altogether. As a result, the following familiar sorts of pronouncements on what ethics amount 2 3 4 5 John Langford, on ABC radio, 22 February 1993. Engels, 6. Russell p.1, F & S, from Elements of Ethics 1910. For such an account see e.g. Single [Encyl. Brit.] �3 to are seriously defective: 'An ethic may be thought of as an ideal of human behaviour, an environmental ethics as ideal human behaviour with respect to the environment, natural and built" _6 Not everyone got it quite so wrong. For instance, Brandt gets away to a nice neutral start, even if he does not cover the spread of ethics. Consider his opening: Moral philosophy has traditionally been a systematic attempt to answer some questions of apparently universal interest [!] about: what is worth wanting or working for (what is worthwhile, of worth); what is the best thing for an agent to do from his own point of view; what is morally right, and what is morally just). [Also what is rational in these regards.]7 The nice start does not last. Agents turn out to be humans; utilitarianism soon begins to effect an ugly intrusion, and so on. 2. On how to define ethics and morals more satisfactorily. It is not difficult to do noticeably better than ethics teachers and writers have managed, simply by consulting better dictionaries. But it is also not so difficult to re-organize and improve upon what dictionaries offer. It is significant that dictionary definitions of moral and ethic contain no essential allusion to humans, nothing essential concerning humans, man, or we, us and co. (andwhere 'human' does enter, as in 'principles of human duty', it can simply be elided, it is inessential). But the dictionary accounts do harbour some problems. For one thing, like some of the preceding definitions, the dictionaries seem mired in a common and damaging circularity: ethics is defined in terms of morality (and its adjuncts, decent treatment, and similar); but then morality is itself defined through ethics. Fortunately the loop back to ethics can be broken. A particularly satisfactory way to workable definitions of notions in the ethics orbitethic, ethical, ethics, to take direct cases-is through those in the presupposed moral orbitdirectly, moral, morality, morals. For all these ethical notions are regularly defined, in better dictionaries, through moral notions. This approach reverses the difficult and so far unsuccessful strategy, sometimes tried in ethical theory, of attempting to define morality (e.g. through universalizability conditions) inside a somehow independently characterized ethics. 8 The bases, upon which moral notions are carried, lie in turn in the action orbit, in features of actions and their agents. 9 As agents are entailed by actions-beca use actions just 6 7 8 9 See 'A universal environmental ethics' Connect, UNESCO-UNE P Environmental Education Newsletter XVI(2)(June 1991). pl. Brandt p.l. Long ago I used to think this was now it had to be done, through some singling out of morals within ethics by way of a combination features of humans and requirements of morality (such as, variously, consideration of others, universalizability). Not recognising the virtues of agency, I too erroneously supposed that morality had to pertain to humanity. No doubt the main definitional enterprise can be carried out, more or less, the other way around, beginning with ethics, then cutting down to morals within, through agency. Moreover, such an alternative route (starting out easily enough from the notion of ethics as the theory and systematization of the good and the right, valuable and permissible, the virtuous and responsible, and so on) should arrive at the same place, at a similar end result. These action basics can in turn be explained, as before, within process theory, see Sylvan 1993. A classification of agents can be drawn from there. It is not claimed that this is how we have to start or that action nexus affords unique starting point. But its features have to be included sooner or �4 are agent-ascribed processe s-actions , more generally processes, form bedrock here. Neither processes nor actions have any essential connection with humans. Relevant elements of action nexus, upon which moral actions are carried, are now indicated: Single action snapshot, capturing agent-acts -in-environment nexus: AGENT has motives emotions volitions objectives and goals of prior causes ACTION has subsequent consequences impacts upon (relevant items within) environment The breakdown of actions, into types, will straightaway yield much that has long been taken as central in moral theory, such as agonising (as Socrates did) over choices. Choice-making is a morally critical type of action. Plural actions expose further relevant features, including conduct, dispositions and character of agents, and suggest typologies (or moral relevance) of actions and of impacts. Virtue ethics, but part of moral theory, fit here. Whereas morality -the new ecologically sensitive morality that is-begin s from certain features of an agent in its environment, ecology begins from investigation of an organism in its environment. 'From the outset ecology was clearly understood to be the appreciation of the organism (any organism, note) in and as part of its environment' . 10 'Something along the lines of "the study of organisms in relation to their environment" is the basis of most ... attempts ... [at] working definition of ecology ... over [which] there has been little dispute' . 11 Despite initial appearances, the upshot is not (the perhaps appealing one) that morality is a branch of ecology. For the features investigated are very different (and a satisfactory definition of 'ecology ' has to be sharpened to indicate what features of organism-inenvironments are studied). Whereas in morality there is much interest in the virtues and vices of agents for instance, a parallel interest is outside the scope of ecology (and indeed not a significant question for most organism or for many agents). Interestingly, the ethical theory being advanced begins in precisely the way Deep Ecology, in its pristine formulation, implies that no theory should operate, with an agent-inenvironment image. Under the total-field approach of Deep Ecology all such images dividing up fields should be rejected, in particula r any man-in-e nvironme nt image, a special chauvinistic case of what our theory operates with. Similarly no doubt for organism-inenvironment images of ecology. Unremarkably no arguments are offered for these rejections; 10 11 later, and it has virtues as a start, including familarity and naturalness. R. Kitching [New Education], p.39 Ibid p.40 rearranged. �5 cogent arguments would be hard to find, or articulate. In any case, Deep Ecology strictures do not prevent preliminary or limited uses of field analysis. As it will soon turn out, for more general purposes, what is needed is removal of agents, not dissolving the image. These action-theoretic preliminaries admit of much elaboration and variation, both expansion and contraction most of which however we can pick up as we proceed. For example, an illuminating expansion would expose the setting, of constraints and incentives, within which an agents acts; no doubt some of these features, incentives for instance, can be absorbed into what is already depicted, such as motives, and the remainder could be included in under a prior-influences category. Striking contractions are those afforded by prevailing ethical theories, consequentialism and Kantianism, which would erase, respectively, all but consequences or all but motives. The parable of the Blindman and the Elephant is not only a clever analogy for a implausible perspectivism; it can serve as a telling indictment of much analytic philosophical practice. Moral philosophical practice, especially that of analytic philosophy, consists in only sensing part of a whole (constellation) and failing to see the rest. 12 Moral and action theory afford good examples of such skimping; for instance, consequentialism fails to see anything but consequences. The term moral, generously construed, covers the assessment of agent-intricated elements of the action nexus depicted, in all the following sorts of respects (as applicable): excellent, good, indifferent, bad, evil; approved, disapproved; valuable, of value, or not axiological right or wrong (or alright), fair or unfair, proper or improper obligatory, forbidden, permissible deontic responsible, irresponsible; it also covers principles concerning such assessments. Morality concerns both appreciation and assessment of agents-acting-in-environments as regards those sorts of features and resulting systematization. Parallels with ecology should be evident. X's conduct or the like is moral, broadly so, iff it is a matter for moral appraisal. In short, what is moral is marked out by classes of functors in an action nexus. Plainly some of the features, which perform the distinguishin g work, are not significantly applicable to all elements in the nexus; for instance, impacts of frogs are not significantly responsible. Responsibility applies primarily to certain agents, their conduct and character. The sorts of respects cited are, furthermore, more general forms. But many more specific evaluations are thereby encompassed; for instance, honourable, dishonourable; decent, indecent, again as applicable. In terms of the sorts of respects, certain important subtypes can be distinguished. The first group (given by the first two lines) covers axiological. The second group (given by the next two lines) covers deontic. The third group (not usually distinguished in "the logic of 12 For a detailed treatment of skimping in philosophy, see DP, chapter 11. �6 ethics") comprises accountability notions. Such, formerly important, terms as virtuous and vicious-regu larly, but wrongly included in dictionary listings of respects defining moral (e.g., "of or pertaining to character or disposition considered as ... virtuous or vicious")-ar e axiological. They can be characterized in terms of what is already available, thereby avoiding further circularity vexing dictionary definitions (which define 'moral' using 'virtuous', and 'virtuous' deploying 'moral'). 13 For example, to adjust the dictionaries, virtuous [action] is [that] exhibiting moral excellence or quality, vicious that distinguished as morally evil. Much the same supervenient story gets told for duty in the deontic class. For while a duty just amounts to a certain sort, a rigorous sort, of moral obligation, duty is not among the respects listed in defining the term moral. There are several, loosely consequential , attachments often made to what counts as moral(s), notably: issues of punishments and rewards, with a view to altering proper conduct; of freedom and determinism, as the latter may appear to place moral enterprise in jeopardy; of justification of moral principles, which do not stand on its own without moral justification; and so on, for other theoretical topics that consequently arise. While these further issues do not form part of dictionary definitions of moral, they are stock textbook fare in moral philosophy. But that, moral philosophy and moral theory, is where they can comfortably stay. While the issues that result could be called moral, or distinguished as textbook moral, they might as well simply be accommodate d more accurately, within philosophy of morality (metamorals). Morality is, at base, the attribute of being moral. 14 Thus, basically, an item exhibits morality if and only if that item is moral. In wider compass, morality comprehends a larger package concerning what is moral; it consists in the theory and appreciation, practice and principles of what is moral. It follows, from the account of moral given, that morality is all about certain features of agency, features of theory and practice of agency, namely evaluative and assessment features and principles concerning these, such as conduct and choice. Several other significant corollaries also emerge. Firstly morality has nothing essentially to do with humans. A similar but still more striking result will follow for ethics, which is characterised, also in a human independent way, by way of morality. Ethics too has nothing essentially to do with humans (or even with humanoids). Morality turns on features of agency. Humans, some of them, simply happen to supply, presently, prime terrestrial examples of full moral agents, those actors who do not merely conduct themselves well or badly (a kangaroo can be a good or poor mother, a dog can behave badly and know it) but who make promises, recognise obligations, accept responsibilities, and so forth. Humans were almost certainly not the only full terrestrial agents; other humanoid 13 14 Thus too much of "virtue ethics" can be absorbed, see further, later chapters. In logical terms it is defined through attribute abstraction. �7 species that have become extinct (perhaps with human assistance) very likely were also. Certain humans are probably not the only full moral agents even now in this universe. It is unlikely that humans will exemplify the only moral agents, perhaps even terrestrially. 15 The prominen t role of competen t humans in morality, and so as regards ethics, is utterly contingent. It follows, now quite generally, that those familiar definitions of morality and ethics in terms of humans and their features are one and all defective. For all the (green) ethical theory to be developed, humans can drop out altogether. But competent humans are useful for illustrative purposes; it helps to have some demonstrably actual examples. Moreove r, in such practical terms as terrestrial ethical impact, they are now almost unavoidable. Before explaining how to escape damaging agent centredness, or actocentricity, in ethics that would result from equating ethics with morals (i.e. morality in this sense), there are loose ends to be tied up and certain advantages, worth recording, accruing from having actocentrism as a staging post. One advantage is that unwanted senses of evaluative notions are peeled off automatically, because they do not apply regards agency. For example, so removed are not only merely "aesthetic" uses but all those quasi-descriptive uses of commendatory terms such as good (e.g. 'good car' 'good sort', 'good sox', 'good ox'). Aesthetic uses of evaluative terms, as in 'fine painting' or 'good book', do not concern, except in oblique ways, action or conduct of agents. It may well be objected that even so not enough non-moral uses are peeled off, as various uses like those of mere expediency or practicality are left standing. A countercase will be developed that these should be left standing. For a smarter strategy than attempting exclusion, includes moralities of expedience, of practicality, egoism and the like within the moral orbit-so enabling a straightforward answer to such otherwise vexing questions as Why be moral?- whilst subsequently differentiating within morals a distinuished subclass (to be called meurals) which does function exclusively through meeting more exacting requirements of morality. There is a subsense that should be picked up immediately. Though a vicious or evil agent is certainly a matter for morality, and within its compass, such an agent would not normally be accounted moral (as a naive reading of the dictionaries would suggest), but immoral. What is moral, morality, concerns the span of moral, immoral and indifferent procedures. Plainly moral in the narrower sense comprehends the definitely positive part of the span, as good does of the wide value span. Generally, an item (such as an agent, practice, conduct, or whatever) is strictly moral, moral in this stricter sense, if it is moral, a matter of 15 There are arguments to other moral agents, other full agents even, from evolusionary theory. According to an expanded theory, every niche is eventually occupied. (In a way, this interesting theme carries over from the earlier doctrine of a great chain of being, which similarly onto every position in the chain as potentially occupied.) By a statistical argument (copying those for intelligent life elswhere in this vast universe), there are, or will be, niches for agents, with requisite capabilities, wlsewhere in the universe. Therefore, by the theory, these niches will eventually be occupied. �8 moral concern, and its appraisal is decidedly positive. Naturally for a full account, positive within the moral span, has also to be defined. However here the strict sense is picked up only to be set aside. Focussing upon morality would be unduly limiting from the perspective of environment al ethics. For although anthropocent ricism has been avoided, easily circumvented through agency, though humans play no essential role, still morality is undoubtedly agent-centred. Morality foregrounds agents and assessments of them and their actions, and backgrounds environments of agents, and environments more generally (those without agents in them do not even enter into consideration). The environment remains, so to say, mere backdrop to actions of agents. Escape is through an intermediary, which is substituted in place of morality in the account proposed of ethics. That intermediary is an expanded morality, in convenient shorthand ectomorality. 16 ('Ectomoralit y' is close enough for the present to 'ecomorality' , which is of course part of the main focus.) Expanded morality takes into account also evaluative settings, perhaps devoid of agents; whatever of value that agents, or agent-like subjects, agentoids, might in principle impact upon, interfere with, disturb, effect, change, dislodge, or similar. That is, to say, it encompasses all items of relevant value, of worth, significant items, including many wholes, such as habitats, ecosystems, the Earth itself; and so also whatever applies morally with respect to these, for instance permission to disturb or to improve, principles of letting be, and so on. Such ecosignificant items are also called, in the literature, morally considerable items (a nicely ambiguous term, both sides of which have unfortunate features, one because a considerable item may not have large significance, the other because what it is supposed to respond to is some restricting class of considerers). In yet other and more satisfactory terms, they have ethical standing. Naturally items of significance other than agentoids may have other ethically relevant features (which they perhaps accrue through their significance). For instance they may hold entitlements of various sorts, such as to be left alone, to be represented, and so on. In order to characterize core notions in the ethics orbit, the basic strategy consists in plugging in "expanded morality" where the dictionaries give "morality"; similarly substitute "ectomoral" for "moral". For the adjectival forms 'ethical' , and (equivalently) 'ethic', that is all that is required. For the form concerned means: pertaining to ectomorality, or (equivalently) treating of or relating to ectomorals. For the noun forms it is not so simple, because there are problems with the dictionary accounts (for instance in 'the science of morality' owing to misplaced definiteness, and dated uses of the term 'science'). Always ethics(s) is an abstract, signifying features of being ethical; more exactly, always concerning ectomoral theories or systems. More specifically, ethic( s) signifies firstly, in both singular or plural though usually plural, the whole field of ectomoral theory 16 Greek ektos, outside. We include the inside with the expansion which incorporates the outside. �9 (the "science" of ectomorals), or derivatively, the department of (philosophical) study concerned therewith; secondly, in the singular but pluralising, a system or schematization of ectomorality, that is, at least rudiments of a system, or of a theory, comprising values, ectomoral principles, and rules of proper conduct.17 Like stock textbook ethics, most environmental ethics so far are in fact truncated; they are very rudimentar y schemes, leaving out much that would be expected in a fatter systematization. Hence in part the vagueness of characterization. So far the vagueness (which does not exceed that of dictionaries or of ordinary usage), is immaterial, as the characterisation is workable. But further exactness could be obtained through a technical upgrade of system and a more detailed specification of what such a proposition system contains. 18 What are sometimes cited as further restricted senses of 'ethic' are not further senses. Rather they are restrictions, or designations, of what is already presented. Thus for instance, the 'moral principles of a particular leader or school of thought' as in Buddhist ethics or Kantian ethics. Similarly for field indications or application restrictions, as in medical ethics or bioethics. So much for "senses" of 'ethics'. In order to reach an adequate definition of ethics, not merely for intended environmental purposes, but for historical purposes as well (so as to include Stoic ethics, Taoist ethics, romantic nature ethics and the like as ethics) we have been obliged to adjust (if in an inconspicuous way) dictionary definitions of ethics. That adjustment was made through "expanded morality", but could have been accomplished in other equivalent ways (Leopold's expansion of 'community' is another, though less satisfactory, way of achieving the same sort of thing). Granted that we have adjusted dictionary definitions, have we changed the very notion of ethics, or did the dictionaries, not for the first item, get it wrong, getting caught with chauvinistic definitions? We claim that we have not changed the notion. Rather we captured what some meant, more or less, by ethics all along-fro m Stoics, Epicureans and others on. It has never been a very precise notion. In this case (by contrast with terms like right) not too much hangs on the term, and we could simply divide ethics up, for instance, into wide and narrow. However, we intend to keep the nice term ethics but to give the dictionaries and modem opposition the expressions, standard ethics, or conventional ethics. Our inconspicuous but all important adjustment is both good and bad news. It is bad news, insofar as it appears to assist the charge that [deeper] environmental philosophy is doing something different from ethics, that it is guilty of changing the subject (i.e., effectively committing ignoratio elenchi). However we can freely grant, without incurring damage, that 17 18 Thus ethics include what it has to include, as expanded environment ally: philosophy of ecomorality, and therewith of morality. A system is a relational structure of a certain sort. An ethic is a propositional system, since it has to include principles and the like; thus it involves a theory of strict logical sort. For an illustration of the use of systems formulations in ethics, see e.g. Routley 1973. �10 standard ethics was, as a matter of definition, at least actocentric, and that, insofar as agents were identified with humans, it was, therefore, anthropocentric. Even so ethics, as redefined, includes standard ethics, so it is more satisfactorily seen not a different but a larger subject, expanded through an expanded morality. It is good news, not merely because it facilitates environmental ethics and accords with more satisfactory (greener) accounts of the subject, but because it helps in getting around a snarl of objections to the effect that ethics has to be homocentric, or at least actocentric. Removing these objections will recur throughout what follows. Among corollaries of note, a first one is that plurality of ethics falls out of the characterisation. An ethic is not unique. Nor (through such a result does not follow as environmental ethics form a subclass of ethics) are environmental ethics. Nor are military or professional ethics. Failure of uniqueness is not a deficiency, but a virtue. For, one thing, it gives places to go in cases of breakdown of an ethic, namely to other nearby ethics. Plurality is tied up with nonuniqueness and other features of merit: noncomprehensiveness, openness, flexibility, and so on.19 Secondly, there is more news on what an ethics is; and what an environmental one is. It is widely claimed that an ethics requires a communit y, in an environme ntal ethic the community (of concern etc.) is a wide environmental one. Ethics enlarges the community, a scope of values. Ethics (partaking of ethos ~ the evaluative frame(or spirit) of a community. While these ideas are popular they are astray. Environmental ethics shifts the frame of reference for ethical consideration from purely human concerns to ecological communities. 1-B Human beings as moral agents are not ethically privileged. An environmental ethic must be compatible with ecological principles and with life, i.e. be livable. 3. Within ethics and morals, as so far generously constured: decent and dud distinctions. Something like the division between the first and second specifics above has been quasi-technicalized within ethics, and distorted through merger with a theory-metatheory distinction borrowed from outside ethics. Engagement with the second (as in systematisation, constructing and working within systems, etc.) has been dubbed normative ethics, or sometimes to increase the confusion just ethics, or condescendingly, casuistry. Metaethics has been taken however to be not what the logical analogy, and borrowing, would suggest metanormative ethics, the (positivistically correct) study of such systems, but instead a brand of analytic philosophy, analysing the meanings and uses of key ethical terms. Taken as exhaustive, there is much of importance, that the normative-metaethical distinction leaves out. Nor is the distinction exhaustive. As well, the labels are misleading. In short, the distinction is ill-made out and rather unsatisfactory, a handicap, not an asset; it can be abandoned without 19 See EEHC p.57. �11 loss and to advantage. Let us do so (so forget this paragraph, if you prefer). Many other distinctions from standard ethics are also defective, in one way or another. It will be advisable to resurvey and rechart ethical terrain. Among other standard, but often dud, distinctions from ethical theory that have to reexamined after environmental impact, to be duly salvaged or scrapped, are all the following: • objective/subjective. That the objective/subjective distinction provides a false dichotomy is easily seen from usual explanations of the terms: 'either objective, standing for a real factor in things, or subjective, simply standing for a human proposal' 20 • Cognitive/non-cognitive. 2 1 To be retained are some distinctions which certain forces have worked hard to eliminate, such as that of • Fact/value (and earlier demise). • Expedient/moral. There is an elasticity in the notion of ethics, and a neglected distinction, that it is important to take into account.. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted attempt to build a universalizability requirement or some sort of equivalent into the very notion of ethics. The evident result is that selfish systems of evaluation and conduct, systematic egoisms for instance, are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be ethical? become vexed. 22 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is problematic in its formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethics do have much to recommend them, let us coin a convenient portmanteau term condensing the clumsy "universalizable ethics", namely euthics. (Conveniently then un-euthical suggests unethical, which is what from a properly ethical stance it is!) There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single or isolated individual 23 ( even so, a Crusoe ethics is intelligible and feasible, as regrettably is egoistic morality). But that pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a tribal morality and an upper-class ethics are not defective on significance or semantic grounds, even if they are wide open to objections on substantive grounds. Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out, as ethics, by such requirements as that like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based on relevant differences. 24 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a 20 21 22 23 24 Reese p.157. See also Reese. On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer Impractical ethics (Singer equates moral with ethical). Singer does not really have an answer to the question Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad idea; mainly he tries to put down shuffles that have been presented as decisive. Pettit reworking a rough route hacked out by Wittgenstein, tries to expand this across into a philosophical forest denominated "holism", no-dwelling place for an isolated individual. These requirements are presented by Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No �12 Greek, or that there are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been proposed as such a difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial difference). These sorts of responses, which were long accepted, are no longer acceptable, because the differences put up are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly enough, though ethical relevance itself lacks an adequate explanation). Egoism, for instance, exhibits rationality failure, as it does not treat likes alike. There are no relevant differences justifying different treatment. Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view,for universality, rests upon an extensive appeal to authority (p.11). What else is offered is but an appeal to usage. the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the individual'. [It often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct on ethical grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me. I must address myself to a larger audience'(p.10). That depends on the conduct concerned. More important, the audience does not need to be so large, certainly not universal: my family or clan will suffice often enough. Nonetheless there is this of use 'ethics', especially in such criticisms as 'unethical'. • due consideration of others, all others; Parallel to the distinction of euthics within ethics is a distinction of neurals within morals, neurality within morality. Again the subclass, reflecting widespread philosophical usage of the term morality, is separated through some requirement of morality, such as • universalizability, which is a strong way of ensuring the first (do unto others etc.). Insofar as these principles all allude to others, they often admit easy extension (to other others). 25 4. Environmental and greener ethics. As prevailing accounts of ethics are for the most part defective, so are what builds upon them, recent accounts of environmental ethics. But there are also other grounds for dissatisfaction with these. Issues in the characterizat ion of ethics, especially removal of actocentrism and homocentrism, naturally get transmitted to critical types, such as environmental ethics. But it might be imagined, rashly, that disagreement ends there. After all, all decent environmental ethics make the non-human world a proper object of concern, either directly or indirectly. Differences between explications offered can be ascribed to ordinary philosophica l incompleteness. "An environmental ethic, broadly, is a set of values to live by which takes due account of the value of the non-human world". 26 Stated differently, the aim of environmental ethics 'is to understand and act appropriately in relation of our ecological-i n 25 26 doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated. The distinctions can be filled out (and made to work-verify!) by a strategy like the earlier. Again the list of moral predicates is deliberately wide. But once again we can later separate off certain uses e.g. instrumenal, aesthetic uses of good. Gunn 1987, 3. �13 the broad sense-circum stances". 27 Differently again, " ... sets of principles, which would guide our treatment of wild nature, constitute an environmental ethic in the most general sense". 28 The first of these slack explanations leaves out what is essential for an ethics, principles; the second is unduly actocentric, leaving out what is not, as well as main paraphernalia of ethics; the third not only neglects values, but excessively narrows scope so that such an ethics is inapplicable in places devoid of wild nature or to other issues. A better explication, which avoids these obvious pitfalls runs: An environmental ethics is an ethics, as defined, which, among other concerns, takes specific account, through its values and principles, of (significant) environmental items, of parts of nonhuman nature. But obviously it too leaves much to be explained. How the non-human world is made the object of concern, how it is moral concern, to what degree it is made the object of moral concern, what forms of moral concern are applicable to what elements of the environment, and how to achieve the aim of acting appropriately - all are matters that make environmental ethics one of the most controversial areas of philosophy and also one of the most exciting, although many professional philosophers still regard it as a peripheral area. Yet there now is broad agreement among most of those active in the area that some change is needed and that environmental matters need much more attention and action. An environmental ethics is an ethics concerned, usually among other ethical things, with parts of the environment. Coal-face or factory-floor environmenta l ethics bears on environmental issues, problems and causes, and can be expected to say something about environment s or some of their nonhuman components. Academic or board-room environmental ethics is frequently, however, a remove from direct ethical work, comprising discussion of environmental ethics, its features, its methods, its variability, its presumed merely derived and applied character, and so on. Much of this academic environmental ethics is directed against coal-face environmental ethics, especially that of a genuinely committed sort aimed at advancing environmental sources. It is almost immediate that there is an important elasticity -ambiguity, in a slack sense -in the notion of environmental ethics, between an ethics which considers environmental matters, whether positively or negatively, and an ethics which is positive about some environmental elements, which evinces concern about environmental items (as 18th century sympathy ethics did about other humans). A superficial environmental ethics need not say anything particularly positive or sympathetic about environments; indeed productions on the topic may try to dismiss or defeat environmenta l causes and to defuse or dissolve environmental problems, for instance as not worth bothering about. 29 It may be argued that 27 28 29 Drengson 1989, 15. Elliot, in Singer, 284. That is, fashionable contemporary practice with respect to philosophy is transferred to parts of enviromental philosophy (e.g. by Eco Wittgenstein and AppliedQuine). Environmental philosophy may in no way interfere with industry and business. To an astonishing extent American academic environmental ethics tends to conform to such ridiculous strictures (often encouraged by a fawning �14 natural environme nts should serve highest economic causes, which means in practice becoming reserves for city folks, city corporations and consumers. Under such environmental ethics ("environmental ethics" it is tempting to say, contravening usage) many an environme nt should be razed, levelled, and paved over, to become a grand parking lot, shopping mall or urban escarpmen t of a concrete jungle. What rural environment remains will, also serve those "high" purposes, be tamed and managed, like much of Western Europe. Witness the enthusiasm in productions on environmental ethics for landscapes like that of Tuscany, where virtually everything is under tight human control and no bird moves (else it is shot). Environm ental ethics and environme ntal philosophy may well prove to be disappointm ents for enthusiastic environmentalists. For there may be little that is materially green about them, no commitme nt to changes in old attitudes and practices, no offers of improved standing and ethical treatment for environme ntal items. As an environme ntal economics may be no green economics , but (very likely) some part or application of mainstream economics , some sweep of resource or land economics , so an environme ntal ethics or environme ntal ethic may not be particularly or at all green, but, for instance, simply part of establishm ent ethics or an "application" of it to environmental items. Fortunately not all environmental ethics is like this; beyond environmental is genuinely green ethics. The elasticity in environmental ethics between superficial and material forms, parallels that of the term concern (and rather similarly of matter), and can be substantially constricted to that: an environme ntal ethics is one concerned with environmental items or matter. Thus, on the one construal, such an ethics may be simply about such topics, it may be a standard ethics "applied" to such topics, in which case environmental ethics does become just so-called applied ethics. Alternatively, however, such an ethic may be one evincing concern, worry, about the treatment of some environmental items on other, and directed at obtaining improved treatment. Such an ethic is not negative or indifferent towards environme ntal matters, but is advancing environme ntal causes. They matter. With such ethics, environme ntal ethics cannot possibly be an applied ethics, for the framework of standard ethics and their application s, is exceeded. (At best such ethics can be approxima ted by standard ethics by assuming enlightened agents holding appropriate sorts of values. 30) 5. Human chauvinism and its detailed removal. Deep-green theory is, unambiguously, a green ethical theory, of deep kind: that is, there is intrinsic value in nature, natural items have intrinsic value, which may predomina te over human-bas ed value. In short, the theory rejects both the 'Sole Value Assumptio n' and the 'Greater Value Assumptio n'. The theory finds all standard ethics mired in heavy prejudice, in 30 pragmatism). Compare also Naess (in Engel 1990) on utilitarian approximation to Deep Ecology, made by assuming availability of enough agents holding deep ecological values or, more or less equivalently, having deep ecological consciousness. �15 favour of things human and against things non-human. The distinctive, still pervasive, prejudice concerned is that encapsulated as human chauvinism, which is itself a special case of class chauvinism (for the class, human 31 ). Removal of human chauvinism dovetails with displacement of humans. Class chauvinism consists in substantia lly differentia l treatment, typically discriminatory and inferior treatment, of items outside the class, by sufficiently many members of the class concerned, for which there is no sufficient justification. Human chauvinism is a feature, a cardinal weakness, of virtually all ethical systems hitherto, so deepgreen theory contends. The main argument takes the following form: there is no characteristic, such as those tendered in ethical theories as justifying differential treatment in favour of humans (characteristics such as rationality, language possession, tool making abilities, needs, preferences, sentience, etc.) which first is held by all and only humans, as distinct from not all humans and some non-humans, and which second does justify differential treatment.3 2 Signs and manifestations of chauvinism are many and various, some conspicuous, some subtle, and so on. For instance, a dead giveaway is any allusion to all outside certain human concerns that may have a value as resources. For that assigns to the items so referred to mere instrumental value. A little less obvious is the discriminative mode when individual humans are counted, but only species of other living things (or a step down, individual sentients but only species of others). The thorough-going rejection of human chauvinism itself sets a program: that of reworking ethics, and indeed much of philosophy, in a way free of chauvinism and humanism, without any specially privileged place for humans. A first part of such a program has already been outlined, that of suitably characterising ethics in a way that does not make essential appeal to humans or their features, or to other favoured groups such as sentients. A further important part of the program, formulation of ethical theory in a way which avoids entirely group chauvinism. Such a desirable outcome can be achieved simply through formulation of ethical theory in terms of ethically relevant categories, assembled in what is called an annular theory. 33 31 32 33 Insofar as an account of human is required, it can be some improvement on the biological species definitions, a reworking to remove past biasses (superioristic, rationalistic, masceulinist, etc.) and to dislodge appeals to aspects of human nature. But, despite the preponderance of human agents hereabouts, on planet Earth, such an account is not required for ethics, or for philosophy. Theorizing in these and many other areas can proceed perfectly well without allusion to humans. The detailed argument for this proposition is presented in Routley and Routley 1980a 97-108, where chauvinism is spelled out a bit further. A truncated version of this argument appears in Fox 1990, 16-17. Though the theory is so labelled in several publications, the label, which presumably should stay, is misleading, because some ethical relevant categories may overlap one another. The concentric theory (developed in Wenz 1988 and others, perhaps in steps of Leopold), which incorporates a similar mistake, can be seen as a subversion of the annular model. �16 The annular picture helps show how to redo ethics and philosophy with ideal types, or with some equivalent thereof. No simple species or subspecies , such as humans or superhumans, no single feature, such as sentience or life, serves as a reference benchmark, a base class, for determinin g moral relevance and other ethical dimensions . 34 No ethical irrelevant distinctions and classes, such as those of humans or base class, are required. What is required instead is a major shift in perspective , a new focus upon morally relevant categorical distinctions: it is not possible to provide criteria which would justify distinguishing, in the sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have preferences or preferred states. For such criteria appear to depend upon the mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some rather arbitrarily -determine d and loaded tests for membershi p of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for the preference s of other creatures. According ly the sharp moral distinction, commonly accepted in ethics by philosophe rs and other alike, between all humans and all other animal species, lacks a satisfactory coherent basis (Routley and Routley 80a, 103). The categorical distinctions thereby proposed do not reject traditional ethical notions such as rationality, self-awaren ess, having interests; but they do reject the automatic use of the characteristics of one species, or some base class as the model upon which the characteristics of all other species or classes are judged. They also reject as unjustified distinctions that are not "categorical distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions". 35 For instance, they hold that the human/nonhuman distinction is not ethically significant. Humans enter only in a contingent way into general ethical theory, as holders of these or those features, which 34 35 Another common mistake which annular theory helps dispel and avoid is that of trying to stretch community (or moral commuity) to include webs, mountains, Earth, land etc.-a trend Leopold started with his land ethic. An agent can have an obligation to care for earth, and soil without there being part of community. (The Land ethic is misguided). What ethics covers diverges from any moral community. (Contra Dobson's suggestion p.47). Routley and Routley 1980a, 108. �17 depending upon their respective capabilities and competence. It is also desirable to have available some more positive principles corresponding to the negative rejection of class chauvinism, principles so to say, of anti-chauvinism. Principles like the biospherical egalitarianism of Deep Ecology represent an unsatisfactory attempt in this direction. The deep-green improvement on this principle is the powerful principle of ecoimpartiality, according to which there should be no substantially differential treatment of items outside any favoured class or species of discriminatory sort that lacks sufficient justification. The appropriate impartial treatment is substantially independent of the comparative value of the item treated. Most important, impartial treatment does not entail equal treatment, or equal consideration, and does not require equal intrinsic or other value. Other distinctive principles of deep-green theory will emerge as the ethical theory accumulates. One major conclusion is that human is not a significant ethical category. The outcome is not anti-human; humans enter to the extent that they respectively deserve to enter. It is not being claimed that humans lack value, that none of them have much or any value. Quite the contrary, some humans have great value, some have established themselves as having great propensity for evil, many lead quite indifferent lives. What is being rejected is the elevated, often exaggerated, frequently exclusive, value assigned to humans, too often uniform value. What are being contested are received distributions of values, and the heavy concentration of value in humans and things and features human, the relative importance of which has been grossly exaggerated. 36 Be in no doubt: many humans have positive value, some remarkable value. That is one reason why it matters that humans should not vanish off the planet (for all that many of they have sinned against it), to leave an impoverished earth, for instance a microbe planet. For that would involve a huge reduction in value. Nor is it enough, adequate compensation, that something like humans would evolve again at some remote future time. For, even if it happened (in fact the probability of such replacement looks rather small), there would still be a huge and extended dip in value. Similar points tell against a range of similar arguments to the effect that it does not matter what happens to, or is done to, the Earth, because evolution will eventually restore richness. 37 Even if richness were to return (much evidence indicates 36 37 Moral consideration and intrinsic value are not limited to humans; similarly these are not confined to any other favoured or "improved" class closely overlapping humans, such as (it is supposed) persons or rational creatures. Moral principles can be applied to all species and to the natural environment in general. (A corollary concerns the characterisation of morality. ) Evolutionary space is thereby afforded for other species, other systems other things. An associated feature is stereotyping. Stereotyping is characteristic of speciesism/chauvinism as it is in exploitation. To stereotype an item is to see it purely as a member of a class and as having conventional feature of the class as a whole. Recently there have been some attempts to have things ethical both ways: a special role for humans without privilege or prejudice. There is a latent incoherence in Rachel's text, between his initial and final proposals regarding ethics and morals-which are essentially human intricatedand regarding morals without hubris (MWH)-where human hubris is supposed to be removed. Such an argument has been advanced by, among others, William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and �18 that extinction and destruction is for ever, permanent), there would still be serious loss of value. So it does matter. 6. Philosophy without humans. It is hard to move and operate philosophically without encountering humans and human chauvinism. Chauvinism is written deep into all prevailing Western (and Eastern) ideological forms, common to what, at a more superficial level, are rival positions. But while human chauvinism transcends parochial differences, it is more conspicuous and brazen in some philosophical locales than others, notably idealism and empiricism, existentialism and phenomenology. In short, it is particularly prominent where matters answer back to subjects, those who have the ideas, do the observing, assemble the phenomena, do the living, and so on-back to subjects that are invariably assumed to be human. Thus it is human existence, human Being, human ideas and impressions, that count, those and none others. Such chauvinism, nauseatingly strong, pervades not only Continental philosophy (esp. French and German varieties)-but also Anglo-American empiricism and pragmatism (esp. anti-realist varieties). 38 Once the main strategies of ethics-without-humans have been grasped, it is easy to see how analogous moves can be made the deanthropize other reaches of philosophy, notably some of the more chauvinistic enterprises. In general there are two stages: Firstly, as with morality, replacing humans and human subjects by agents and ideal subjects. And secondly, as with ethics, delineating significant reaches-philosop hical wildernesses-wh ere agents are removed, not just off-stage but altogether. While a few examples of each stage only will be given, it will become evident that the procedures are general. Consider as an example of the first stage, existentialism, a philosophy celebrating humans, and their exclusive freedom, and shot through with human chauvinism. Existentialism is (to quote a convenient caricature) a philosophy which emphasises man's freedom to act independently of any laws, natural or otherwise, and according to his own choice. It is a free will philosophy which can be seen as 'a protest against views of the world and policies ... in which humans are regarded as the helpless playthings of historical forces, or as wholly determined by the regular operation of natural 38 Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol.71, No 4: December 1993. There is a residual serious problem here, as to why existence is so important. Why do actual humans and existent tigers matter, not merely virtual ones or possible ones. What is it about existence? There are many items which it would be better did not exist, such as devils, helicopters (for the most part), pollution, erosion and so on. Existence, of favoured sorts, makes for richness, which is a high (if defeasible) virtue. Sartre's philosophy is rendolent with human chauvinism: e.g. Critique of Dialectical Reason p.8. as regards destruction and destroy, is an amazing piece of human chauvinism. While humans may have a greater potentiality for production of value than most other animals, many humans also have a far greater potentiality for evil than most other animals. Historically, the evil producing capacity has dominated. Another example of Sartre's anthropocentism is his "philosophy of the present". Marx's philosophy is similarly rendolent. Productivity is human productivity... . For almost random examples from anti-realism, see DP. �19 processes' (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1978). This anti-determinist perspective is, again, connected with the question of objectivity. Existentialists hold that the only objective external fact independent of the control of human beings is the fact of their being brought into existence, and that death will one day come to terminate that existence. In all other respects it is they who are in control. There are no outside independent laws, of economics, history, nature or whatever, which they cannot deny or shape for themselves. Thus we are all free to choose how we will behave and develop and how we will shape society and nature. It follows that the consequences of our actions are down to us, and therefore if they are unpleasant that is our fault-not the fault of outside forces or external laws. There are no excuses for our not thinking and acting for ourselves and we are 'condemned' to be free because everything is theoretically permitted to us and we therefore carry a heavy burden of responsibility for what we do. As Sartre put it, 'Man is responsible for what he is. The first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for existence squarely on his shoulders' .... We have a duty to face up to this, and not to base our actions thoughtlessly on what is said to be prescribed/or us ('laws' of society, of economics, of nature). That is abdicating responsibility.39 Note the heavy concentration throughout on humans, variously appearing as human beings, we, us, they, and (in singular musculine form) man and he. But, as before 40 , on the one boundary, many humans are incapable of what is presumed, the heavy burden of responsibility and so forth; and, on the other, other agents are, in principle at least, capable of achieving those relevant sorts of freedom that humans can obtain. It is already apparent that once the synthetic setting of highly competent humans is exceeded, notions invoked by existentialism begin to fall apart. For instance, some "wild" animals may enjoy considerable levels of unreflective unagonised freedom while lacking capacity to bear much responsibility. Conversely, there are fairly responsible agents, such as some trapped in determined or deterministic situations, who have no opportunity to exercise freedom. Accordingly too, though human should be replaced by agent of appropriate sort in dechauvinized existentialism, it would hardly suffice to substitute for 'human' any of 'responsible agent', 'freedom exercising agent' or similar-though these substitutions effect some of what was intended, such as exclusion of children, many animals, dementeds and so on. What sort of agent is appropriate? That existentialism can be seen as trying to explain. And for the present we can leave it at that, replacing human throughout by the dummy term, existential agent. This is existentialism partly rectified. At the same primary stage of dechauvinizing existentialism, connected improvements could well be sought in existentialism, such as reducing the driven and elitist ethos. In part this ethos is encouraged by the response of existentialism to what motivates and shapes it, deterministic arguments; for it sees only such "strong" agents as evading deterministic forces. The whole business is rather ironic, as the first driven feature is incompatible with full 39 40 Pepper (Roots) pp.118-9; itals in original. Pepper refers to Sartre 1943 and 1946. As at the beginning of EE, where standard privileged treatment for humans is reviewed and found wanting. �20 freedom, while the second elitist feature is incompatible with the stress on things human, as (like elitist religions) only exceptional agents escape. A promising alternative tries direct confrontation with deterministic arguments, undercutting their scope and grip, and thereby making room for free action in a range of situations (not everywhere between birth and death!) for a wide variety of agents, including lesser, less elite, less stressed and sensitive agents. For the arguments prove vulnerable to selective undermining by careful logical and analytic procedures, 41 methods existentialism itself is loath to deploy (for all that its approach rests upon past entrenched argumentation). Insofar as a main motivation for existentialism in its prevailing ironic form is undiscriminating antideterminism, that motivation too is thereby collapsed, and room is made for a less demanding more relaxed dechauvinized existentialism. As for existentialism, so for a range of other subjects inclined to intrude humans as central to world functioning or intelligibility, a range as apparently diverse as phenomenology and quantum theory, empiricism and theology, pragmatism and cosmology. Quantum theory fits into this range because of its received Copenhagen interpretation, cosmology because of its return to anthropocentrism through adoption of anthropic principles. Both are however readily freed of human shackles, first by replacing humans by "observers" (which for the most part can simply be recording devices), and better, secondly to deagentize completely, by amending interpretation s to dislodge both Copenhagen phenomenolo gy and anthropic principles. 42 For a larger illustration, consider a popular mixture of versions of phenomenology (a fuller elaboration again would disentangle versions, all of which however require similar detoxification). Phenomenol ogy to which existentialism is related .. .is summed up by Nietzsche, who said, 'Objectivity is the main enemy of understanding. It means the myth that there are hard observable facts ... but all the concepts we employ in describing the world and predicting its behaviour are imposed on it by ourselves. We have a choice about what view of the world we adopt.' ... Phenomenology is not just a philosophy which implies that we are not subject to external laws, imposed by and through forces independent of ourselves. It holds that there actually is no world external to and separate from ourselves. There is no 'reality' in the sense of there being an external 'real world' divorced from our own consciousness and capable of existing if we did not exist. Nature cannot exist without ourselves also existing-if we ceased to be, so would it cease, and vice-versa. Therefore what 'the environment' is, and is like, is a function of our own subjective construction of it. The very use of such terms as 'ourselves' and 'human consciousness' in opposition to terms like 'nature' and 'the environment' is inappropriate and shows the extent to which we are immersed in positivist science as our way of seeing the world. For the phenomenologists these terms are meaningless because there is no separation between ourselves and a 'nature' or a 'reality'. We and the world are one-a single united entity. Phenomenology is thus anti-positivist science, opposing ... Cartesian dualism. It does not deal in laws, or in cause-effect relationships consequent on the dualism and neither can it be concerned with analysis-brea king the world into parts ... If we want to know and understand nature we must, as Hume 41 42 For technical details, see Sylvan FWD. On satisfactory ways of accomplishing this second stage see Sylvan (Cosm. Syn). �21 { said in his Treatise on Human Nature in 1737, come to full comprehension of man. For if there is no nature except as structured through human consciousness, knowledge and truth cannot exist independently of man. 43 As with existentialism, there is a similar enormous exorbitant emphases on humans and things humans; humans carry everything. But insofar as humans can perform those feats, so better can a class a appropriate agents, phenomenolo gical agents, who include no incompetents (who might let this world flicker out of existence, or worse). Phenomenolo gy is a full immersion human chauvinism. Fashionable contemporary empiricisms, normally taken as rivals to phenomenolo gy, are incomplete immersion analogues. While a few properties, primary properties of basic physics, are separated out as human independent, the rest, the phenomenolo gical mass, are categorised as responsedependent, and treated phenomenologically. 44 Take, for example, aesthetic features, which include certain ecological features. Nowadays humans can grow up with the assumption that aesthetic qualities, indeed all "response dependent" qualities, are features of humans, not in any way objective. So it can be seriously, if ridiculously, hypothesized that what is (considered) beautiful, for instance of depends on how the human gene-pool is composed. As before, humans are readily displaced in favour of appropriate agents. But, for the most part, these agents too are otiose. While the first stage 1s the main stage with agentocentric philosophies like extistentialism, there is a second stage, which comprises significantly more than pointing out how much, how much of importance, such philosophies leave out by their narrow concentration. What is left out includes, to begin, all those times and places where there are no agents, rich worlds, devoid of relevant agents, and the like. But that is only the beginning of the business. For agents have been infiltrated or inserted in all sorts of settings where they have no business to be or to transact. Against the ancient and formerly honorable practice of agent invocation, pushed primarily for explanatory purposes, 45 agent detachment and agent elimination campaigns have periodically been mounted (e.g. conspicuously , but not only, in classic Greece, when it became clearly appreciated that there could be causes without agents, during the Enlightenmen t, and in Frege' s propositional ization program). Deagentizatio n, typically coupled with deanthropization, can be, and should be, pushed much further. Agents, often evidence of immature, even primitive, philosophy, still lurk everywhere in philosophy. Agent-detach ment themes, still struggling against an unenlightened opposition, include: objects, including worlds, without perceivers or sensors, nonexistent items without conceivers, propositions without proposers, assumptions without assumers, values without 43 44 45 Pepper p.199 (where references are supplied). We shall not stop off for expository adjustment or for any critique of this material. For main elements of such a critique, see however DP chapter 11 and JB. Thus thesis that all properties are response dependent merges empiricism with European phenomenology. Deluded explanatory purposes, for agents themselves have in turn to be explained. �I 22 t valuers, causation without causers (or intentional agents), organisation without organisers, wilderness without wilderness managers, land (or property) without owners or stewards, regulation without regulators, selection without selectors, and purposes without purposers. 46 But without humans who does philosophy? Well, in the old days, God of course, most gods, the Devil, demiurges, gifted spirits and so on. At any time duly accomplished agents. While it is easy to see how ethics and philosophy could in principle flourish given only suitably accomplished agents, and no humans, namely the agents do something like what a few humans hereabouts do, still it may be less easy for many to see how these subjects can function without agents. But it is straightforward, is it not? A philosophy stands as a system of propositions. And propositions do not need agents, proposers, or whatever. Nor do systems. It is here that blockage may occur, for two reasons: First, because of the idealistic idea that there are no statements without staters. Second, because of the mistaken assumption that a system of propositions standing on its own involves an obnoxious platonism. No such assumption is made. Third, part of the struggle has been conducted before, in the tussle between psychologism and its opposite in logic and associated regions (e.g. mathematics, philosophy of mathematics etc.), in the tussle between Husserl and Frege (to name two prominent parties). Although the issues have been rejoined more recently, it is still widely supposed that anti-psychologism triumphed. Its success is, to some extent, mere appearance. For all that, anti-psychologism is here extended much further, right across philosophy. Appendix. 1. Examples showing divergence of utilitarianism from consequentialism. Consider two different actions with some set of consequence s, one (A) done deliberately, one (B) unintended. Then suppose, for one sort of case, the outcome is disastrous. Not only is A normally regarded as much worse than B, e.g. arson than a naturally occurring fire such as lightening strike, but further fuller utility assessments should give analogous results, e.g. the satisfaction of the arsonist could be given a high negative rating. Utilitarianism itself is but a well-tempered egoism: egoism extended to substituting others. That cannot so plausibly be charged of consequentialism. Utilitarianism has been associated with the "greed is good" ideology of the 1980s. The association has point (so Singer tries, desperately, to disassociate utilitarianism). Suppose it is said that the 80s, were a decade of greed (as so depicted in many movies) but the 90s is a decade of ethics (despite counterevidence). But nothing has changed in underlying ideologies, in ethics or economics! Appendix 2. Inadequacy of standard ethics. The inadequacy of standard ethics for green purposes has been recognised, if obliquely and perversely, by many critics of the idea of (deep) green ethics (e.g. McCloskey). They 46 The very controversial tlast theme is argued in Sylvan 90 [purpose], where most of these various detachment themes are assembled. Obviously there are many more such themes. �23 l have proceeded to argue that there couldn't be such an ethics because none of the standard ethics would serve. But the argument fails because standard ethics does not exhaust ethics. There are some prospects of a general proof of inadequacy from what has been developed so far. Standard forms are restricted to proper subsets of agents, whereas ethics in full flower applies to all agents. Standard ethics leaves out much of the subject, all the deep part. References William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol.71, No 4: December 1993. �ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to insert a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deepgreen theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed, reorganised into a tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which has roots that stretch back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits elaboration separate from deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through valuational and ethical basis. This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby one central area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing prevailing policies and institutions. At the core of deep-green theory, as of authentic deep ecology, lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes these positions deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers or what counts for them. Value then does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are, as it is often put (without however any commitment thereby to dubious essentialist or absolute objectivist positions), intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind or linkages with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor (pace deep ecology) does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, and accordingly may be found in nature, it is not encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so subject to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecological features afford criteria for value, and should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing total value. From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may �precede and succeed all such valuers; tfiat is, these things can persist, their values intact, without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, and concepts with conceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, relating valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions deliberately chosen suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake, which cannot however be got away with, to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate 'relation-to-values', in which inconvenient values are locked away), not to remove valuers, considered unproblematic, from view. The mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal reduction of mainstream modern philosophy, of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of valuers. A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something "projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, desires or such like. The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for them self. This reduction too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomonalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achievers satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thoughtexperiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values are not apart from the actual world, then, merely projected onto it by valuers, or else locked up in certain valuers (in the fashion of Carterian intensions ). Values are part of the world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will trip over shadows or shapes. �Value like the shape and taste, is an3attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like colour and taste and their determinate forms (red, acidic, etc), a universa l , distributed across things, individuals and wholes. Like shape and colour, value is a high-level universal. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the standard, but exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as redness or yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour traingles); shapes like value pertain to wholes as well as particulars, and links with gestalts rather better than colour; shape discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour, which is, under physicalism, prized off objects and allegedly relocated in creatures or in their interrelation with colourless physical things. Shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the anology can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approximated by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does, and not something else, like some specialised mathematical or economic thing. It does not contract to some mark of value or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modem economics into (expected) utility or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-inexchange (price). Value means what it means, and has meant: worth; and it ties with general assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other cut-down thereof. Price, for example, may fail entirely to reflect worth, it may have little to do with goodness of product. The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. part of the motivation for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are than a direct evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural and subcultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured feature, and cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes from more sweeping ideologic al commitments, such as the varieties of materiali sm (physicalism esp.) or scientism. As has become apparent, attempted reductions of value come too in a variety of forms subjective, which made use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and the like or subjective aggregations, such as community preferences or utility; or objectiviely naturalistic, which enrol value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary �development as value - consequential, w~ch consider only outcomes, or purely motivational, which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes - straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgements into reducing statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing features), or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated within theses schemes, or accommodated at all. The idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other knowledge, where philosophy has conspicuously failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current science, physics especially, does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that such value-freedom is a myth, that much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While those engaged purely in purer science may have the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape. Though deep-green value theory is thoroughly nonreductive, it does not sacrifice warranted claims to scientific and logical adequacy thereby. The reductionistic dichotomies are avoided and repudiated. Value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce. Evaluative judgements are certainly not subjective; but nor are they objection in an absolutist sense; they are nonjective, that is, neither. Somewhat similarly, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter. In any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow, aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is covertly assumed). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods, which consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account) organised by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can be extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing , which supplies the �interpretational and rationalisational comp~nents. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and disvalue. The basis of perceptio n is sensation , the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy emphasis as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of asking whether the next or a relevant judgemen t fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical practice of devising cases and comparing them with the cases in hand can be worked in under this procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails to gain support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency in North America under the rubric "reflectiv e equilibrium". Observe, however, that any equilibriu m gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problems arise and further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreduc tionistic value theory can function. Whether that theory is an appropria te environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed. �Enhancement methods reveal too tRat value systems are not uniquely determined, any more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks, such as those intended to reflect truth. There can be, there evidently are, rival value systems, measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics, rival physical and biological theories, and rival coherent religions. Chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which take no requisite account of many environmental items, likewise cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social practices; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they do not succumb to definitive refutation (for the reason that requirements of morality, of universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can be repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Of course a range of argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying equality, can be put to work to move valuers who adhere to other structures, often enough successfully. Emotional presentation of environmental items, by way of new experience and information, is important among these. In short, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep green theory nor authentic deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From their viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior , and marked down accordingly, while economism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge, and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in these times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green positions, against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism. The value system pluralism of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice, insofar as it is consciously made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrained choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preference- �information or even desire-belief modellin1); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more accurately than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In certain significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a noreduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic so also is the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of worlds and of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing environmental theory is to displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented as absolute, which incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its organisation. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental values and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so on. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given non-interference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely �• • 8 not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason; not to jeopardis e the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystem s, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis form part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. As permissib ility, obligatio n and respect principles can be explained through the valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles. Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles. Deep-gre en ethical theory is much more than just another non-redu ctionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human is not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinis m, a type of class chauvini sm which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinis m is avoided through a natural annular model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the categorie s of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Western ethical theories have not merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human affairs, but have been blantantly chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discrimin ately and unjustifiably bias in favour of humans (of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems should be superseded; it is not a matter of simple adjustments or extensions. Deep-gre en value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values. But explainin g their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory. �9 * Richard Sylvan* RMB 683 B ungendore NSW 2621 For more on deep-green theory and deep ecology, see for instance essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra. �Annex 1. Most people inherit their value framework along with their culture. Many never do any substantial overhaul. Many indeed are not active or responsible valuers. But in these respects, values are not so different from other things. Some people are poor judges of shape; many never learn to distinguish plants, or to discriminate among wines. Likewise for other choices, options, major changes, metaphysical and even political. Mostly that a choice has been made or inherited and is incorporated in the subculture is not noticed, along with its not been observed how arbitrary many of the choices and resulting structures are (in Foucault has emphasized). Of course it is often not in the interests of the power elite, who control media outlets, etc., that this sort of arbitrariness should be widely known, and alternative structures considered and perhaps experimented with. Choices occur where distinctive circumstance prevail. For instance, there is serious scarcity; food supplies in particular are threatened (e.g. with being out of reach is price, with pollution, etc.). Differently, circumstances lead to conversions, as when a new ideology sweeps through, enthusiam generated by some charismatic figures. �/ bits from chapter 2 There is another important elasticity. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted attempt to build on universalizability requirement or the equivalent into the very motion of ethics. The evident result is that selfish systems of induction and conduct, systematic egoisms for instance are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be ethical? become vexed. 1 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is problematic in this formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethical do have much to recommend them, let us coin a convenient portmonteau term condensing the chancy "universalerable ethics", namely euthics. (Conveniently then an euthical supports unethical, which is what from a properly ethical stance it is!) There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single or isolated individual (even so, a Causal ethics is understood, as is egoisticmorality). But that pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a tribal morality and an upperclass ethics are not defective on significance grounds, even if they are objectional on substantive grounds. Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out by such requirements as that like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based on relevant differences. 2 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a Greek, or that there are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been proposed as such a difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial difference). These sorts of responses, which were longer accepted, are no longer acceptable, because the differences put up are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly enough, though ethical relevance itself lacks an adequate explanation). Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view, universality, commits in a extensive appel to authority (p.11). What is offered: an appeal to usage. 'the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the individual'. [It often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct in ethical grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me. I wont address myself to a larger audience' (p.10). That On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer lmpractual ethics (Singer aquates moral with ethical). Singer does not really have an answer to Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad idea; mainly he tries to put down shuffles that have been presented or decisive. 2 These requirements are presented byu Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated. �depends on the conduct concerned. More important the audience does not need to be much larger, certainly not universal: my family or law will suffice often enough. �J. From Chap 4 Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods, which consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account) organised by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can be extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy emphasis as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while �meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical practice of devising cases and compari ng them with the cases in hand can be worked in under this procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibr ium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails to gain support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency in North Americ a under the rubric "reflect ive equilibr ium". Observe , howeve r, that any equilibr ium gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problem s arise and further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodo logy of a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary parts. It does howeve r surmou nt a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principl e a nonredu ctionist ic value theory can function . Whethe r that theory is an appropr iate environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed. end The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a certain desirabl e (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep green theory nor authenti c deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From their viewpoint, rival narrowe r and shallow er systems are definitely inferior , and marked down accordingly, while econom ism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at state bo':lndaries). However a critical pluralism does acknow ledge, and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in these times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green position s, against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism. The value system pluralis m of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underly ing metaphysical pluralis m of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice, insofar as it is conscio usly made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrai ned choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds accordin g to a standard value-in formati on analysis (regular ly oversim plified howeve r to a preferen ceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves value essentially. �Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more accurately than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In certain significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic so also is the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of worlds and of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing environmental theory is to displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented as absolute, which incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its organisation. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental values and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying· obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so on. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be given for interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environme ntal interferenc e or modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environme ntal items is founded on such interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely • not to put others (other preference havers) into a dis preferred state for no good reason; • not to jeopardise the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason; �• not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis form part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. As permissibility, obligation and respect principles can be explained through the valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles. Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles. Deep-green ethical theory is much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human is not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is avoided through a natural annular model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the categories of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories have not merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human affairs, but have been blantantly chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discriminately and unjustifiably bias in favour of humans (of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems should be superseded; it is not a matter of simple adjustments or extensions. Deep-green value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values. But explaining their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory. Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those �atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to insert a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deep-green theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed, reorganised into a tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which has roots that stretch back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits elaboration separate from deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through valuational and ethical basis. This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby one central area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing prevailing policies and institutions. �ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS: their relevance to one another There is rich range of incompatible claims about the mutual interelations of the two ancient subjects. Most of these claims appear mistaken. Sorting out something of what looks right is a daunting task, a small beginning on which is attempted here. Initial severe difficulties derive from the vagueness, in determinacy and problematicality of the relata, both of which are ill-understood by philosophers metaphysics especially. Many there are who think that metaphyscis coincides with ontology, the study (description, explanation and understanding) of what exists. 1 The general study of what there is, sistology, which includes ontology as a very proper part, is only one facet of metaphysics (unless it is presumed that items somehow supply also all propositions concerning them). For sistology is the totality of things side of metaphysics, there is also the totality of true propositions side (propositionology, for a nice term). Metaphysics also comprises the study of the very general attributes of this and other universe and of what accounts for these attributes (or propositional functions). In technical terms, then, a metaphysics amount to a very general and comprehensi ve constrained model; and metaphysics to the plural assembly of these metaphysics. 2 Each metaphysics will be constrained (as will become clear through examples given below) through modelling conditions or postulates (which delimit how "altimate reality" is according to that system). Metaphysics is sometimes construed more comprehencisvely to include some or all of epistemology (knowledge of "ultimate reality" for instance), some of or all of other branches of philosophy, perhaps all of philosophy. Plainly, if metaphysics, so expansively construed, includes ethics, then their relation is straightforward, metaphysics includes ethics. But we shall not adopt such construals. Whereas metaphysics concerns features of universes, ethics is a study of moral values and principles, and of rules and practices of conduct. A case can be made out that an ethic is outlined through its distributions of values, in terms of which both deontic features (rights, obligations, etc) and axiological features (goodness, etc) can be discerned. (Utilitarian can afford a crude exemplar). So, without loss of generality, I can concentrate on the relation of value theory to metaphysics. Now a value theory does not derive from a purely naturalistic metaphysic, by virtue of a rectified naturalistic fallacy. But, firstly even is a value theory may be influenced or even construed by such a metaphysics. For example if the theory rules out all but primary qualities 2 What there is according to most Western philosophers, still labouring under the probleminducing Ontological Assumption. For such a confusion of ontology with metaphysics see Forrest p.3. For the bsis of this large (and estrageous) technical leap, see DP. �2 as some sort of constructs, the value qualities will have to be explained as constructs, projections or similar. Secondly, a metaphysics is unlikely to be purely naturalistic. Metaphysics is not a value-free enterprise; a metaphysics typically presumes a range of presumptions, including archivative ones (deeper examples include assumptions of primary, e.g. of certain sorts of objects, of importance, e.g. of what exists, of implicit world selection, e.g. the world is Newtonian, Copenhagen quantum, or obitives). An ethics does not determine a meta-ethics or therefore a metaphysics. Nor does the converse hold. A metaphysics does not in general determine an ethics, but is compatible with many. Against the stock determination and priority claims, I want to oppose interaction and no priority themes. Determination claims are commonplace in philosophers who wish to wield the big stock of dominant science to settle ethics (or mataethics). For instance Collicott asserts that "intrinsic value in nature ... remains ... painfully inconsistent with the ... modern scientific world-view' (Celbration of Robton p.14, similarly p.22, whence CD 1. Modern scientific metaphysics entails there are no intrinsic values in nature. This is not a lapse (though soon Collicott will weaken his determination claims) because almost immediately Collicott goes on to assert CD2. 'A value neutral nature is ... an immediate inference from the institutionalised metaphysical foundations of modern science' (p.15). Given some large assumptions, most conspiciously that the metaphysics involved is that of British empiricism, the claim CD2 become incontestable. For under that empiricism, as elaborated by Locke and Hurve, non primary qualities like value and colour are not part of or in nature, but substantially subjective in character. However insitutionalized those foundations an important issue - it has since become apparent that there are at least several parts of operative sciences, such a classical and quantum; namely a core calculus or formalism; operational rules for connecting the formalism with testable data and making in ..... applications; and layers of interpretation. It is in these separable, and variable, larger of interpretation that metaphysical and elaborative princi;es begin to enter conspicuously. The "institutionalized" interpretation is but one among the interpretations that can be fitted to classical formalism. It is an interpretation incorperating some major and controverisial philosophical theories, such as the reference theory and verificationism. Rival interpretations are feasible and were developed, for instance by the Scottish comon-sense school. Such rival foundations do not yield a value-free value neutral nature. Collicott calls upon Rolston 'to provide a persuasive alternative to the integral set of Carterian-Gohblein-Humean assumptions that render the subjective provenance of value so fundamental to the modern scientific outlook' (p.16). But Rolston hardly needs to do any such thing 3 : it has already been done, in various 3 Rolston makes giving an appropriate interpretation for more difficult than he need by conceeding "seconddoary" qualities to the reductionistic opposition. Thus, regressively: 'the greenness of the tree is in my hand, but it looks as though the tree is �3 ways, and, in any case, as Collicott soon observes, 'the modern scientific worldview is obsolete' (p.19). The property for a full value-in-nature theory are little better under postmodern quantum theory, Collicott however insinuates, then they were before. Under a Copenhagen interpretations, which he adopts, prospects look worse. Abruptly too Collicott switches from a determination thesis, such as CD, to a slacker and more plausible if vaguer linkage. The linkage appears in different nonequivalent forms: CL 1. A science, such as 'the new physics might play an architectonic role in our eventual thinking about nature (and human society)' (p.23 itals added). Subsequently, 'architectonic role' is replaced through the as vague 'inspired by' and more specific 'mapped out'. CL2. 'A value thoery [may be] inspired by, and mapped on, ... quantum physics (p.25, where reduction and derviation are now explicitly repudiated!). Such a value theory is, it is claimed, 'particularly congenial to an ecologically informed environmental ethics' (p.25). Whether it is, or not, depends on other-things, such as the sort of interpretation of quantum theory, the congeniality of that with ecology. No doubt values in nature without values is excluded under the Copenhagen interpretation, so is much else that makes good sense. Fortunately there are congenial alternatives. REFERENCES P.R.H. Forrest, Speculation and Experience the New Metaphysics, Inaugural Public Lecture, University of New England, N.S.W., 1987. J.B. Callicott, 'Ralston's Environmental Ethics: A critical celbration', critical response at APA, Oakland, March 1989. R. Sylvan, Deep Plurallism, Australian National University, Research School of Social Science, 1993. green. OUt there are only ....... waves... . The greenness is projected, more factural in my head and apparently hung on the tree'. What a ridiculous idea. �' ,,. ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions. Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value. From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact, without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape.:.perceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate �'relation-to-values', in which inconvenierZt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of valuers. A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something "projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even emotionally clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like. The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will trip over shadows or mere shapes. Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby �more immune to reductionist strategies thJn secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approximated by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation thereof. The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism, which leave no space for immaterial values. As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility; or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary development as value; • consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes; • straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgements into reducing statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all. Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive. In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce. Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist �4 fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter. The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuously failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape. For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow, aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by coherence methods. The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an �information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however, that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed. Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they �do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality, universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new information and experience. The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation. The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice, insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant �destructive ideologies, which (each of th]m) assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely, • not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason; • not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such �from the centre of the ethical stage (or :xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Western ethical theories, and the institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans). Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values. Richard Sylvan* RMB 683 Bungendore NSW 2621 * Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra. This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not features they had at any time requested), for their magazine. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document DEEP-GREEN ETHICS Contents PARTS CHAPTERS 0 I II III IV Prologue DEEP, GREEN, ETHICS, and PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND 1 Deep [and] green fundamentals 2 Ethics without humans; philosophy without humans 3 Philosophical setting: deep-green plurallisms 4 Inhibiting presumptions and myths AXIOLOGY: value core 5 Value and its varieities: basic theory and its development 6 Alternative primitives and theoretical beginnings DEONTOLOGY: necessary moral structure 7 Obligation and its deontic circle, and moral dilemmas 8 Rights, and justice VIRTUE and INACTION 9 Environmental virtues: what they are and something of their theory 10 V Environmental ethical practice NATURE of ETHICS 11 Ethics, its new character and revised foundations 12 Principal questions of reoriented ethics, and proposed answers 13 Epilogue 17 .5.96 DEEP-GREEN ETHICS PROLOGUE Philosophy and its branches, ethics especially, are among the last places where prejudice would be found, found alive and thriving, so it might be imagined. Wrong. In the first place, prevailing ethics all exhibit heavy prejudice in favour of humans, human chauvinism. So they are one and all defective, wrong in a deep way. An adequate ethic will remove the prejudices involved. That means, in turn, a radical transformation of prevailing ethics, from the bottom up. Such a transformation constitutes a main objective of this book. Deep-green ethics aims not simply to reform present arrangements and systematizations, but to replace them. Abolition of prejudice has early priority. Prejudice in philosophy, privelege in prevailing ethics. There are only about two and half millenia of recorded philosophy on Earth. To a disconcerting extent, those millenia represent two and half thousand years of prejudice-partial exceptions occurring and prejudice subsiding somewhat only when ideological empires were fractured (e.g. fruitful periods of "warring states" in ancient China and Greece). Ethics is far from alone within philosophy in exhibiting serious deficiencies, in incorporating prejudices that should not figure so prominently in what is ideally an impartial subject. Much the same holds for other branches: politics obviously (partly through its interdependence with ethics), metaphysics and logic perhaps less obviously. Yet prevailing metaphysics display a deep prejudice in favour of the actual, against what does not exist. In logic the prejudical situation has in fact been accentuated through the rise of modern symbolic logic. Regrettably mainstream symbolic logic is wrong. All its forms validate incorrect principles (such as implicational paradoxes), these results flowing primarily from an underlying prejudice in favour of the consistent, against the impossible. 1 Several of the systematic prejudices embedded elsewhere in philosophy impact upon ethics. The prejudice in favour of the actual has served to distort, very seriously, the issue of obligations to future creatures for example, in this fashion:- Remoter future creatures do not exist, and therefore, according to prevailing prejudice, cannot have any relevant features, any preferences or desires, self-traits or satisfactions, to be taken into ethical account. Therefore All the themes are presented and defended in detail elsewhere. As regards metaphysics, see JB; as regards logic, see e.g. BGB and generally in philosophy , see TM. There are several coupled prejudices and prejudical drives, as will appear; for instance the drives to power and to maximization, strongly manifested in logic, see e.g. RLR. Prejudice in ethics was explicitly recognised by Bentham, almost two centuries ago; unfortunately however he imported his own very influential prejudical framework. 2 "they" can be discounted entirely. The same prejudice also enters in a very different way. All the standard positions concerning universals, all of which reflect the metaphysical presupposition that discourse concerns existent objects, show up in ethics. They appear in vexing issues as to the ontological status of values, such as the good, and of deontic notions, such as obligations and the right. These are not only difficult items to discover in the world, but they do not seem adequately housed in conceptual or linguistic apparatus: where are they located? Whence derives immediate pressure for many mostly bizarre reduction exercises; for instance of values to human constructs, contructs from social preferences or from sociobiological drives, and of obligations from veiled contracts. The initial question of location makes, however, the defective metaphysical presupposition, and lapses therewith. Values, though significant items, do not exist; so they are not located, anywhere. Prejudice rooted in established logic has impacted differently, upon a variety of issues in ethics. The absolute requirement of consistency upsets a straightforward treatment of obligations, general sets of which are typically inconsistent, thereby leading for instance to awkward theories of hierarchies of obligation or of merely prima facie obligations. Running parallel with this, the requirement utterly distorted an initially straightforward theory of ethical dilemmas, treatment of which is a significant part of any comprehensive ethical theory. Established logic has also impacted heavily on such different issues as fact-value inferences (e.g. the prescriptive fallacy) and regarding the extent of pluralism in ethics. The assumption behind the rationalistic critique of relativism is that there is a single correct logic, governed by requirements of consistency, namely standard logical theory, which (when combined with the facts) will eliminate various ethical stances as incorrect, indeed which may, given sufficient critical thought, lead to a single correct ethics. 2 But the assumption fails; for it too depends on ancient prejudice. Pluralism is one most important component in removing prejudice generally, certainly in reducing it generally, by admitting alternatives, and allowing some to flourish. 3 Elaboration of deep-green theory is another important direction in removing prejudice, in favour of humans, persons, or like agents from ethics especially but not only. The main development that follows will take both these directions, though focussed upon ethics: it will track and investigate pluralistic deep-green ethics. Human chauvinism is not the only major prejudice damaging ethics. An extraordinarily privileged position given to egoistical considerations is another. Western ethics in particular has 2 3 The approach involved, that of traditional rationalistic ethics, is regularly deployed by Singer (e.g. his Encyclopedia conclusion to Companion to Ethics); the strengthened version features in Regan. Of course how it is supposed to proceed, the details of how reason works this miracle, is never revealed. See esp. TM, epilogue. 3 recently been deformed through a substantially unquestioned axiom of self concern, that agents are interested in and motivated by their own (self) concerns and only by them. (Of course an agent's self, or extended self, may be grander than the agent's soul or person or body or whatever; it may include the agent's family or even the agent's tribe, or differently it may comprehend the agent's land or environment. But under such extensions the axiom is already beginning to disintegrate.) Such an ubiquitous, but largely unquestioned, presumption has lain behind reductionistic exercises that have distorted much of modem ethical (and political) theory. The leading idea is simple enough: given that action is justified through human self-interest, and only thus, if ethical theory (and likewise political superstructure) can be justified through some construction or modelling on that basis (bringing in only indifference and like neutral assumptions) , then justification will be transmitted, it too will be justified. Thus those contractual and utilitarian exercises which have loomed so large in recent theory. 4 The same dubious presumption also features large elsewhere, for instance in the acclaimed derivation of Deep Ecology from the ultimate norm of Self-realization! It is not just prejudice and allied presumption that have damaged and distorted ethics. Narrow ethics, parading as universal or absolute in defiance of pluralism, ethics often underwritten by religious or papal presumption, have severely disadvantage d ethics. Furthermore, connected therewith, ethics has been destabilized, and cast in an unfavourable light, by • a quest for absolute foundations, and in tum connected therewith • an invidious comparison with science, which is supposed to have such foundations. The quest is quixote: there are no such foundations. Nor does science have such foundations, so the comparison is misplaced. Not only is absoluteness for science increasingly disputed, but it is becoming apparent that science is in the same sort of pluralistic situation-pre dicament some, still questing for the old false certainties, would say-as ethics. 5 Through the assumption, or pretence, that it can deliver (whether from religious, rational or other resources) certainties of a type that it cannot deliver, ethics has become discredited. But that is only part among reasons why on the contemporary scene ethics is not the force that it has mostly been in bygone times. At least as important as such intellectual reasons are matters like removal of social and political pressures to conform, redirection of indoctrination practices (into consumerism, etc.), and so on, some welcome and some definitely not. 4 5 Roughly, ethics, knocked down to what's in it for everyone (some aggregated base class), is justified through what's in it for each me. Prima facie the grand construction is based on a simpler fallacy of aggregation: an invalid each to all inference. The theme is argued in detail in TM chapter 10. The quixote quest is strikingly engaged in by Williams, for a entertaining criticism of which see 'Bernard Williams and the Absolute Conception of the World' in Putnam 92. 4 Aspects of the discreditation have in turn been exaggerated. Ethics, it is said, makes no difference, even can never make a difference; it never effects change. Such claims are seriously astray, as examination of elementary examples like human slavery and treatment of animals quickly reveals. Environmental ethics too can make a difference (perhaps, when coupled with other practices, a major difference), and they are beginning to do so. But naturally they cannot compel change; nor should they be capable of doing so, as that would exceed proper roles of ethics (and other proper practices). 6 Rectification of ethics requires, then, not merely removal of now conspicuous prejudice and presumptions, but deflation of pretensions. What results-hardly unique naturally, but one selected for good reasons among many, hardly entirely exclusive but overlapping and admitting others-is an ethics which differs from standard ethics in the following respects at least: Such an ethics is: • deep-green, removing prejudice in favour of humans, and in favour of certain (egoistic) agents, in an affirmative fashion; and • Pluralistic in a thorough-going way, accordingly not pretending to absolute or objective status. The run of prevailing ethics, including so-called "applied ethics" and "environmental ethics" are chauvinistic; a satisfactory (environmental) ethic is not. The run of prevailing ethics are absolutist, or otherwise relativist; a satisfactory ethic is neither. However the conditions so far presented are but necessary conditions; they are not jointly sufficient for adequacy. Even among theories that are nonchauvinistic and duly pluralistic, reductionism may persist. Such reductionisms come in striking variety; thus, on just one dimension, individualisms, sentientisms, vitalisms, (i.e. all that has value is alive, somehow), and so on. To avoid such reductionisms, another blanket condition of adequacy is: • non-reductionistic. The main task consists in elaborating in detail an ethic, with other preferred features, that meets these conditions of adequacy. Regrettably, removal of prejudice cannot be accomplished in ethics alone, as a separate pollution-free zone. Prejudice in ethics flows through from other regions, religion especially, but also from psychology (which in the past made little gods of humans with sacred souls of their own, justifying very differential treatment for them in the world), and from elsewhere. Removal of these latter sorts of prejudices requires a severe erosion of belief, in regions strictly outside ethics, but heavily exporting into it; of beliefs fostering intellectual prejudice. Nonetheless ethics has a role in removal of prejudices elsewhere, because, very simply, these prejudices ought to be removed. The basic principle, which can also be presented as one 6 These points are developed at some decent length in GE part IL 5 of rationality, runs as follows: belief ought not to exceed warranting evidence, but should be appropriate to it. None of this is as clean and clear-cut as it may initially appear, because source waters have become very muddied. Sources for instance take a range of forms (this is part of the ancient issue of the criterion reput in more contemporary terms). Sources include not merely empirical evidence, perception especially, the favoured, or even exclusive, source of empiricism. They also include such sources as: emotional presentation, or emotion; postulation or presumption; reason; authority; a range of psychic and extra sensory perception (ESP) forms; and, differently, a range of intuitions. Some of these sources overlap; consider for instance divine relevation. Plainly those sources are very different kinds, quality and calibre. Some such as reason, which includes itself a disputed variety of forms, are more processing of information kinds than sources (thought reason becomes a source, of sorts, in pure rationalism, and a degenerate source of necessary truths in classical logical theory where theorems are proved, by paradoxical means, from nothing so to say). While some of these kind of sources are not important or at issue in ethics, for instance controversial kinds of ESP giving information on remote (spatially distant or past or future) items, several are. It is not going too far to say that ethics is severely vexed as regards sources, and many distortions such as naturalism can be seen as coming about as ways of trying to secure reliable sources (if some naturalistic reduction were correct then ethics would be brought within the orbit of science and even empirical perceptual bases could be adopted, as in science). But ethics does not resemble science; its sources are not (except incidentally) primarily perceptual, thus breaking any very close analogy between epistemology and ethics. A major source in ethics is emotion, by contrast with epistemology where the major source is perception. From there already derives a major difference between the fields, as perception tends to be less variable, more intersubjective, less culturally dependent across the range of subjects usually taken into account. Accordingly, in any quest for a more objective ethics, more has to be drawn out, out of the processing substructure, whence the emphasis on coherence, good reasons, ethical on coherence, good reasons, ethical argumentation. Ethical inputs, sources, and processing are assessed in detail in the text. Although this work is focussed upon ethics, it does not, and evidently cannot, merely concern ethics. Since the ethical theory is itself approached primarily (though not exclusively) by way of value, it bears upon other areas, such as normative-infected social sciences, where value theory features. For another example, it also impacts upon aesthetics, heavily. For, according to the theory advanced, there is no sharp boundary, indeed really no division at all, between what has been dubbed "aesthetic value" and "ethical value". Value is value, without these artificial divides. Evidently too, as will appear, the work intrudes in normative reaches 6 merging into ethics, in particular, wherever normative or deontic dilemmas are encountered, such as reaches of social choice theory and legal theory. Differently, the work includes much, though indirectly, upon philosophy of nature. For it is especially concerned to supersede an old defective philosophy of nature, which included a heavy devaluation of nature, and aided and abetted a manifestly chauvinistic ethics. The ethical theory to be elaborated fits with, and in significant respects presupposes, a·different theory of nature. 7 Although investigations in this text are primarily theoretical, they have significant practical implications. Putting the theory to work in various environmental fields is something that happens elsewhere (see further in the Epilogue). Some of this has already occurred, in essays in the Green Series, and some is reserved for other texts on field ethics. 8 Notes on terminology In this text several familiar terms, such as 'green' and 'deep', are converted into quasi-technical terms. That is to say, special uses of the terms already in currency, such as the use of 'green' to mean environmentally committed, are further refined. The result could be signalled by deloyment of appropriate new terminology. Something like that is assumed done, except that the familiar terms will be retained-onl y now they are to be read in the quasi-technical way. To put the point differently. Let 'grene' (Olde English) or 'gre-een, (Newe English), for example, be the quasi-technical explication of 'green' in the relevant sense. Then in the subsequent text, 'green' will normally signify gre-een, or equivalently 'green' operates as (effectively abbreviates) 'gre-een. Why such a strategem? One reason is that people are now rather conservative regarding terminology. Indeed they are often turned off by new terminology (despite regular ruination of established terminology). As a result, established terminology gets revised for all sorts of new purposes (witness the bizarre high-school reuses in advanced physics), with a resultant overloading of senses. By contrast, recycling of old terminology (words or spellings), that has fallen into disuse would be rather more commendable. Here, rather than pressing our luck with explicit recyclings like diep and chalowe, we resort to the fiction that the terms 'deep' and 'shallow' deployed throughout the text stand in for the technical recyclings. As a result 'deep', as figuring in deep approaches, deep green, deep theory and so on, has no connection with profundity, or 'shallow' with superficiality. As several have said, in several respects deep/shallow terminology is unsatisfactory, execrable it is sometimes said. Founder N aess did a disservice introducing it, and subsequently 7 8 Such an appropriate underlying theory of nature is advanced in the companion work on metaphysics, namely TM. Green Series is a popular label for discussion papers in environmental philosophy, published from Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. One of the other texts is tentatively entitled Green Ethical Fields .. 7 in explaining it, so slackly. While it is too late to easily change the terminology, some undesirable associations may be shaken off by resorting to older or variant spellings, and simultaneous ly refining senses intended. That we do. But then we concede to the general intellectual will, by the substitution or "abbreviations" strategem. Even so, we have risked a few neologisms, and we shall chance, just here, one or two more. One we risk, is euthics, for universalizab le ethics, that is an ethics meeting universalizability requirements (in some appropriate fashion). This bit of terminology helps in resolving a significant ambiguity in philosophical usage of 'ethics', and making an improved start on the vexed issue of why an agent should adhere to an ethics, or differently to an euthics? One we chance is viridology (from Latin virides, green, and Greek logos, study of, in modern palance) for: theory, principles and practices of deep-green; that is, a single classical word for diep-grene theory. A purer alternative we contemplated, from among many, was prasinology (or should it be prasinomics) from Greek (and Latin) prasinus, dark green, leek green. Acknowledg ements and antecendents: personal development and conceit. The production of this work owes much to other humans, with of whom I have little or no acquaintance. The debts are both intellectual and practical. On the heavily practical side, I am most grateful to Frances Redrup for the processing of reems of rough scribble. On the broad practical front I am pleased to acknowledge the continuing support of my research endeavours by the Australian National University. That academic support, while generous by often niggardly world standards, has recently declined, through contraction of research support and expansion of alleged accountability practices. In this little respect, there has regettably been interference in my research, dur the earlier stages of work on this book, by no doubt wellintentioned academics occupying supervisary roles who have deemed by performance less than satisfactory. It is with regret too that I record that, in part owing to biassed appointment practices within the University, there has been negligible imput to the present work from any of my academic colleagues there. But outside imput there has been of course, of two main sorts: from recent activity in environmental philosophy and from past exercises in value theory. While environmental issues have operated as a main stimulus in my recent work in ethics, my own interest in and investigations in ethics reach back to my graduate work in Wellington, New Zealand, where I produced a characteristic ally initative work on ethics, entitled Moral Scepticism (I do not suggest that anyone read that work, which it is far too late to suppress). In New Zealand, I was educated in the 20th century British type and style of ethical theory, primarily Oxbridge material, with not antipodean influence of any significance what cover, except in the obscure background Prior' s quocit little book Logic and the Basis of Ethics (although my professor at Wellington, George Styles, had ethics as a manfield, I learnt only a 8 certain technigue from him; I do not recall one position, little theorem argument or there I must attribute to him, for the very simple reason, (suspect, that he never advanced very much). Among Oxbridge characters, Moore revoided the dominant influence though much of Hume and his near contemporaries-N eurall-Smith Tomlesia and others-was scround up to a tiny circle of ethical enthusiants and fellow academic travellers. Moore is still an influence in this book; in my occasional more conceited moments, I like to envisage the book as an appropriately greenish update of Principia Ethica. At least it may be as near as I ever come to producing such a work: Principa Ethica Virida. What on excessively ambitious idea, sheer hubris! Yet, for all the fuss, Principia Ethica is not really such a good book; rather it enjoys other advantageous features. A few companions with Principa Ethica will be ventured. But, by and large, other ethical theories will not be investigated in much detail. For one reason, that has been done, to a sufficient extent elsewhere (in others' work more than my own). For another, in the wake of accumulating evidence, notably from environmental awakenings, revealing their narrowness and prejudice, they scarcely justify further post mortems. More than Moore and Priest, the present work is indebted to Meinong, and through him to the tradition of Austrian value theory. The theory elaborated in fact fits, more or less, into what has been called critical cognitivism .. The evil of ingratitude, for example, ... Here and there, the present text draws, heavily sometimes, on my own past work, especially concerning environmental ethics. As much of the work, for example in the local Green Series in Canberra, is rather inaccessible, such borrowing may not matter much. There remains a small overlap-ideally vanishingly small as revision proceeds-betwee n this text and better circulated complementary works, notably essays in Environmental Philosophy and parts of The Greening of Ethics. INTRODU CING DEEP-GR EEN THEORY Deep-green theory aims eventually to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. While it stands on its own, it is alternative because it stands in radical ideological opposition to dominant ways, nowadays predominantly industrial. It offers a philosophy both in the contemporary narrower sense, and in the older sense of an intellectually informed and critical way of life. That philosophy is centred on an ethical theory (upon which this issue concentrates), which is in form centred upon a value theory. But the ethic issues, in a fashion broadly associated since Aristotle, in a politics and political economy. But the output of the value theory in fact reaches much further, into practical decision making in a range of environmentally impacting areas such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. The value theory is also intertwined with philosophical issues which are often considered more fundamental, those of astophyism and epistemology. Indeed there is no part of philosophy that remains untouched. Therein lies part of the claim to comprehensiveness. The particular form of deep-green theory elaborated is by no means independent of (acclaimed) advances recently made elsewhere in philosophy (those in object-theory, and relevant and paraconsistent logics especially). But though the theory given is influenced and sometimes in fact shaped through these developments, deep-green theory more generally can avoid them (The type of theory given could easily enough be recast in a more classical Platonistic form - undoubtedly a much less plausible form. Nor will these background advances intrude, it is hoped, in the given elaboration of deep-green theory; the background will remain, fairly directly in the background, and not come to dominate proceedings or know proceedings depend upon special new controversial features of it. Where more technical agreements are required, they will be relegated to appendices. 1. As to deep theory. Deep-green theory is the environmental branch of a much larger affair, deep theory. There is a point, in fact a real expository need, to place deep-green theory in the larger setting of deep theory. For deep theory influences several of the choices made in deciding upon the way deepgreen theory goes, the shape it takes. Although the influence will become evident, particularly with the intertwining of truth and value that .... , it is worth giving an example. Too much of the Anglo-American discussion of intrinsic value and of obligations to future generations is taken up with - hung up upon - ontological questions, about universal items in the first case, and as how there can be obligations regarding future items which do not (yet) exist in "suitable" determinate 2 form in the second. Deep object-theo ry slices straight through these issues, removing the problem generating ontological assumptions. Deep-theor y is a grander theory lying in the background , which significantl y influences the philosophic al approach taken in deep-green theory, as well as being influenced by it. There is no reason why that grand backdrop should remain hidden; there is no hidden agenda. The backgroun d theory, of which deep-green theory is a part, is called simply deep theory. For it represents the confluence of several deep positions with deep-green theory: deep pluralism, depth relevant theory, deep item-theory, and so on. As a theoretical endeavor, deep theory aims to pull together, into a unified coherent theory these various deep positions. It thus draws together and integrates as well, several other interrelated efforts (on dialethism, process theory, anakyrie, etc. With deep theory I aim to supply eventually a fairly comprehen sive philosophical package. I used to imagine that with moderate comprehen siveness as regards present philosophic al problems would come a certain completene ss; but I've come to think that a total philosophy is an illusion, like pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and rainboweri a themselves. Deep theory is no doubt a presumptu ous title (there are worse about, e.g. 'total philosophy ', 'ecosophy' ), not it is altogether satisfactory given the problems and obscurities, to be encountere d, lacking in the notion of depth. My main excuse is that I did no exactly choose the title myself, but had it thrust upon me: problemati c, presumptuo us, it looks to good to refuse. It emerged from a terminolog ical confluence of several areas in which I'd been struggling to assemble ac. capirred theory - deep-green theory (itself a union of green thought, or environmen tal philosophy with a revised deep ecology), deep relevant theory, deep pluralism (which deepened radical pluralism), and deep item-theory (which deepens object-theory). To give a picture of deep theory, it suffices for present purposes to indicate some main features of deep positions, some of their integrating interrelatio ns, and some of their revolutiona ry potential. Deep theory overturns or subverts very much of what has been assumed or presuppos ed in Western philosophy , and particularl y in Enlightenm ented contempora ry philosophy. For example, it overturns the following widespread assumptions:• the Ontologica l Assumptio n, that truth, and also, meaning, are functions of reference, and thereby presuppose existence. On the contrary according to (deep) item theory, we can perfectly well talk and think truly about items that do not exist, and also about items that are not individual but are complex but perhaps indetermin ate wholes, and finally what items are impossible . Therewith repudiated also then is an occasionall y favoured full-back from onticalism, namely possibilism , which assumes 3 • the Possibilist Reduction, of everything that counts in discourse to possible individuals; there are no other genuine subjects, all else can be analysed (or thrown) away. Bound up with possibilism are • the assumptions of modalism, of the correctness of classical logic, and of the absolute requirement of consistency. Under more throughgoing transconsistency (or paraconsistency) these connected assumptions are one and all repudiated. The transconsistent connection assumes an important role in the straightforward treatment of moral and other dilemmas, in showing for example how an agent may coherently operate under inconsistent obligations or with incompatible needs. Important special cases of modalism are such theories as that • entailment is strict implication (or its metalinguistic analogical) and that conditionality amounts to a modal function of material implication 1. The rejection of such themes and their courses is part of what motivates deep relevant logic. While the parts of deep theory are integrated and are intended to be materially reinforcing, nothing prevents their fairly independent elaborations. The holism conceded does not exclude separation or analysis. In particular, deep-green theory is amenable to independent development and analysis. Material implication is the implication defined in terms of truth-functions thus: A materially implies B iff not last A and not B, or equivalently, iff either not A or B. Strict implication is the necessitation of material obligatory i.e. A strictly implies B iff necessarily A materially implies B, or equivalently, iff it is not possible that not A and not B. ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GR EEN THEORY This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions. Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value. From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact, without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate 'relation-to-values', in which inconvenielt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of valuers. A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something "projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like. The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will trip over shadows or mere shapes. Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby 3 more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approxima ted by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation thereof. The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism, which leave no space for immaterial values. As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility; or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary development as value; • consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes; • straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgement s into reducing statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all. Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive. In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce. Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist 4 fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter. The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuou sly failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape. For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow, aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by coherence methods. The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independe nt, coherence processing , which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however, that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed. Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality, universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new information and experience. The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation. The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice, insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant 7 destructive ideologies, which (each of them) assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely, • not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason; • not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the ethical stage (or ~xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories, and the institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans). Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values. Richard Sylvan* RMB 683 Bungendore NSW 2621 * Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra. This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not features they had at any time requested), for their magazine. I \. '1 11.10.95 CHAPTER 1 DEEP AND GREEN AND PRESUPPOSED FUNDAMENTALS It soon emerges from preliminary exploration that, under natural characterisations, relevant notion of both ethics and green presuppose the notion of agency. So with something on agency, enough to get started, we shall begin. In terms of agency and proclivities to environments, green can be characterized, and in turn green approaches. Then, within green approaches, three relevantly different types can be distinguished: shallow, intermediate, and deep. It is the last, and really only the last, that matters for the ethical theory that follows. 1. Action, agency and agents: a summary . 1 Action theory is grounded in process theory. For actions are types of processes, agentascribed processes. processes are directed functions, ordinarily time-directed functions, 2 ? framing of certain functional sorts. All the ordinary sorts of processes-ec lipses, transits, removals, reflections, and so on and on-are processes (and ordinary processes can be separated out logically, such as by applicability and inapplicability of certain predicates, e.g. they take place, they are not facts, etc.) Processes themselves in no way require agents. Actions, however, as distinguished within goings-ons and taking-places, do require agency, and so agents. There is no reason at all why these agents should be humans. Many agents are not humans, some humans are not agents. But it is often quite erroneously assumed agents are humans, or persons. Excess requirements on agency are partly to blame, the mistaken idea that agents have to be purposeful, responsible, rational-feat ures that can be added to distinguish subtypes of agents. Rather, actions can be roughly delineated through answers to questions like What is so and so (the relevant agent) doing? How is so and so acting? The result reached following through this route is this: process a is an action iff for some agent x, a is properly ascribed to x, it is x' s doing. To break residual circularity, it remains to define agency. Agency is defined, such is the proposal, in terms of exercising a causal role (which may be misdirected or similar), through the following circuit. First, x is and agent as agents a iff, for some p directly partinent to a, x causes Pbut x is not caused to cause p. In terms of agency-regarding, other notions can be defined as follows: x is a sometime-agent, someties an agent, iff for some a, x is an agent as 2 As full an account of processes as so far worked up from notes appears in 'Process and actions', which does provide detailed background for this section. '2 regards a. Agency is a characterizing attribute of sometime-agents. An agent is a sometimesagent that establishes a history of agency (a small reputation therefore). 2. Explaining Green. In characterizing green we start with agency. Such relevant features, of greens (or environmentalists), as being positively concerned about nature of natural things, supporting environmental causes and similar, are closely tied to practice and action; they are features of agents. In an original central sense of 'green' so redeployed, an agent was green if that agent firstly believed that some parts of the natural environment should be protected, and secondly took some relevant action. 3 In short, a belief-action analysis emerges, which can be recast as a standard belief-desire-resultant action account. For instance, the agent believes that some natural environment is worth protection, desires that it should be, and acts (in some way, perhaps feebly) accordingly. All the parts of this sort of account call, however, for some elaboration. To remove a certain circularity, resulting from characterising "green" through terms like "environmen t", 'natural environment' can be replaced by 'parts (surface configurations) of the Earth substantially uninterfered with by humans'. To specify protection satisfactorily, protection/ra m what should be indicated. And so on. But there is a little point in elaborating this already weak characterisation, which can be satisfied by an agent interested in saving a few square metres of the Earth's surface from exploitation. For the notion has been further weakened, almost from its inception. To characterise this laxer, but ubiquitous notion, let us insert the intermediary notion of an environmental cause. Such causes include not merely protecting natural environments, but limiting impacts on environments, which may not be pristine, for instance by pouring less sewage or detergents, CFCS or Greenhouse gases, into them, or conserving items, which could be exploited or consumed now for future use or for future human generations (to use or conserve, etc.). The first of these further causes beyond protection, original green, is a largely consumerist notion of green, the second, an economistic notion (it takes in such beloved constraints as intergerational equity). There are other related causes of importance also, such as restoration of something that has been over-exploited or damaged, such as agricultural lands, waterways, urban air, soils (soil conservation), or even human artefacts such as monuments or buildings. The shallow green cause of fighting pollution, for human health reasons, can fit in here. Needless to add the restoration may not be to pristine conditions, but to quite low 3 Although we are explicating terms that are now in widespread usage, in a way substantially faithful to that usage (but not some of its dilute or corrupt expansions), we shall regard the terms as quasi-technical. We see these terms, as the discerning reader also may, as spelt not with a double 'e' but a triple 'e', as 'greeen' and 'greeening' (insert hyphens as need be for appropriate pronunciation, e.g. 'gre-een' _. The effect is to peel off dilution and corruption of 'green' (e.g. so to include every politician, at least when any confronts concerned constituents) and to discard all those unwanted and often undesirable senses the colour term green has accumulated. standards. In sum, causes include as well as protection, such matters as nondestruction, conservation, maintenance, restoration, and so on. Now substitute supporting an environmental cause for protecting a natural environment. Then an agent is green in this expanded laxer sense if the agent believes in supporting an environmental cause and takes some relevant action in that direction. Such an action component is essential: green does imply some practical, if utterly token, involvement. The lax account connects in the right ways with testable sociological criteria. For instance, believing in supporting a cause can be cashed out in terms of joining an organisation working for that cause, or even, reducing the slight action component still further, considering joining such an organisation. 4 The appellation green applies not only to individual agents, but also to groups, coalitions, institutions, even corporations and governments. As a green government can, meet similar lax conditions, it is evident that there really are very few requirements, even weak sponsorship may serve. Many there are now trying to take advantage of green movements-adve rtisers, vendors, politicians, professors, merchants, even generals (with "defence forces" retooling as environmental defence forces). Cashing i in on the movement by producing a goods or services presented as environmentally friendly does not thereby make parties doing so green, especially if what is supplied adds to overall environmental impacts (as do "environmental markets" delivering environmental junk, sometimes portrayed as "green goods"). The requirement of serving environmental causes has been lost. The excessive generosity of the account arrived at, which allows agents with only passing or slight active beliefs in some cause to count as green, does not matter. For firstly, it corresponds moderately well to current lax usage, which allows almost any sort of concern for environments, coupled with an action component as slight as paying a token subscription, to serve. Secondly, it still exercises quite enough exclusive power. Many agents are not green. For instance all those exclusively tuned into possessive individualism, mainstream economics, or similar creeds are not green (i.e. not even lax green). Thirdly, needed discriminations can be made within the class of (lax) green. An important subclass of green comprises ecological green, where the causes include maintenance and protection of natural ecosystems (including wilderness) and these causes enjoy some primacy. "Ecological green" is by no means a tautology. 4 In a study entitled 'GREEN PACKAGES IN AUSTRALIA', greens were picked out from the whole sample of respondents to the Australian Election Study of 1990 in terms of answer to question: How likely are you to join groups campaigning to protect the environment, or are you alrady a member? Permitted answers: (1) I am a member, (2) I am not a member but I have considered joining (3) I am not a member and I haven't considered joining, and (4) I certainly would not consider joining. Those giving answer (2), perhaps token greens, were accounted green. 4 To be green in more than a token fashion is to have some commitment to containing or reducing the environmental impact of humans on the Earth or regions of it. By virtue of the environmental impact equation (for a given region) that means commitment in the immediate future term to either • human population reduction, or • less impacting lifestyles for many humans, or • improvements in technology to reduce overall impact. Most humans in a region can do little to implement the third requirement, except to hope. Accordingly they cannot satisfactorily demonstrate their commitment in this way. A genuine green will meet both the other conditions. But since as big coalition as feasible is sought for a green coalition, marginal greens who meet only one of the requirements, perhaps in weak form, will not usually be excluded (from almost any green church). Issues of population afford a simple test (a necessary condition) for a genuine green in Australia; for that agent fails who suppoes that while efforts (including the agent's contribution) to effect human population reduction should be invested elsewhere, as in parts of Asia or Africa, Australia can keep on growmg. From filling out the conditions delimiting green commitments, a green platform can be derived. Specifically it will include, along with the action clause, derivative directives as regards curtailing population, refining and limiting consumption, adjusting technologies, and consequent thereupon altering administrative, political and economic arrangements and institutions accordingly. What so results is a proper subplatform of the Deep Ecology platform. A fair approximation to the full Deep Ecology platform can be derived by adjoining requirements for depth to those for genine greenness of the action platform; so result themes concerning intrinsic value in nature, and commitments deriving therefrom. In short, the wellknown Deep Ecology platform accounts (as a fair approximation) to a deep green platformwhich can accordingly supplant it. As genuine green and green platform can be characterized given the initial notion of green, that is lax green, so similarly can other green compounds and modified forms be explained (in a preliminary way). For example, a green ideosystem is an ideosystem (an ideology, in the unbiassed sense) that coheres with green commitments, and typically organizes and guides them. As genuinely green, it is a system that includes a green platform, and it could be defined in that way, as an ideo-system coherently extending a green platform. Similarly for green ethics, and for green philosophy (and also for other green notions that could be defined but are not presently needed, e.g. green goods, green consumers, green parties, green ideas and so forth). A green ethical system is a green ideosystem which is an ethic. Green ethics comprises 5 such green ethical systems and their theory. 5 Green ethics thus comprise a decidedly restricted subset of environmental ethics. For an environmental ethic in the broad usage, an ethics that addresses environmental issues, among others, may well contain themes that could not be adopted by a green agent, that may even operate against environmental causes. In consequence, a green ethics is an ethic that could be coherently adopted by a green agent, that does not run counter to environmental causes. 3. Different approaches to the environment: shallower and deeper. People can do more or less what they like with the environment, with the land and the sea, and with what grows and lives there-such was and, in only slightly modified form, remains a dominant theme of Wes tern cultural heritage. It was not the view of other cultures, such as some of the American Indians or Australian Aborigines; nor was it the only view included in the Western cultural package. But it has dominated, especially in colonial and imperial expansion. It is only recently, for example, that some social or governmental restrictions with teeth have been imposed upon what Australians can do with the land they occupy or claim, and these lag far behind advanced green thinking as to what is required. For the most part there has been little weakening in the Wes tern assumption that people own the land, that it is their possession, to mould to their purposes and whims. 6 This unrestrained approach proved damaging enough while the land was wide and humans comparatively few; now that human populations are expanding more rapidly, perhaps to critical limits, now that much land is damaged and less fragile land is in increasingly short supply, it is time to re-examine older attitudes and the accompanying practices. Any deeper reassessment has to look at the presupposed land ethic, and more generally at the underlying ethical and ideological assumptions. A land ethic, according to Leopold, who introduced the term, is 'an ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' .7 Thus a land ethic amounts to a nature (or environmental) ethic, with land a symbol for the whole of nature (or the more comprehensive environment), and man a symbol for all relevant agents. The unrestrained position, which imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment, affords a land ethic of only a degenerate sort. The unrestrained position would, for example, have little 5 6 7 Although we are anticipating here-as ethics and ethical systems are explained essentially reportively however, in the next chapter, there is no circularity. For ethics is separately and independently characterised. Indeed, with the renewed libertarian movement emanating from industrial north-eastern America, this assumption has gained in strength. Foreign "resources" are not to be hoarded but should be saleable to the highest bidders for "free" economic use. And sometimes it is broadly hinted: or else! A. Leopold, A Sand Country Almanac with other essays on Conversation, New York, 1966, p.238. 6 compunction about using up materials, forests, pristine environments and so on, immediately or even destroying them. In the end the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly ethical positions. 8 For it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of independence of person, place or time, a requirement which iplies that persons of different races, colours, sexes or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously disadvantaged. Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and even destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very serious disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local interets, rather than appropriately based on long-range values. Opposed to the unrestrained position are various conservation ethics; what Leopold saw as the land ethic is just one of these. Conservation ethics can be classified, conveniently for subsequent development, into three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. 9 Unlike the unrestrained position, all these politions would conserve and maintain certain things-materials, creatures, forests, etc. The shallow conservation position differs from the unrestrained position primarily in taking a longer-term view and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so forth. It is more enlightened than the unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective: hence its alternative description as resource conservation. Though this conservation position is only a small step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass one test for morality proper in that future people are not treated unfairly. Most of the big rush into fashionable environmentalism does not get beyond shallowness. The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they share-and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature and the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus they take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values reduce to these or similar human on closed notions. It is in this respect especially that these shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource and exploitation oriented, positions. 8 9 This is a substantial, and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity unethical, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case for obligations and commitments to future humans, see e.g. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future' in Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental ethics, (ed. E. Partridge), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, and other essays in this book. This classification refines Naess's non-exhaustive distinction of shallow and deep ecology, and extends it to render it exhaustive. For the original distinction, see A. Naess, 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement' Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100. An elaboration on Aess's position, to which this discussion has some debts, may be found in his 'Philosophical aspects of the deep ecological momvement', Environmental Ethics, to appear. According to deeper positions humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value in the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to human concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to human concerns. According to the intermediate position serious human concerns always come first; and while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right, their value is outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and maintains that even serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values. FIGURE 1. THE POSITIONS SEPARATED, AND SEPARATING PRINCIPLES SHALLOWER UNRESTRAINED DEEPER SHALLOW INTERMEDIATE I I I I J, J, J, DEEP MORALITY SOLE VALUE GREATER VALUE REQUIREMENT ASSUMPTION ASSUMPTION (of human apartheid) (of human supremacy) The watershed principle which divides the shallower from deeper positions is the sole value assumption. According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western social theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the value of all other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another. This assumption is built into most present political and economic arrangements; for example, only aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in democratic political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and natural items are represented at best through the preferences or votes of interested humans. Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive theories which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of humans. Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as utilitarianism. 10 According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is determined through what affords maximum satisfaction to the greatest number of individual humans. In theories like utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct inputs or outputs, but only insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals. Such ethical theories are appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man 10 But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely contractualism and libertarianism. These theories, along with utilitarianism, are explained in most modern American introductions to ethical theories or moral problems. is, or is treated as, apart from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land enters only as a remote experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and interests. However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example, volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies. At least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in economics, ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the environment, have been appended (thus, for example, extemality theory in economics, some allowance for "side" constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the land remains treated as an awkward or tiresome afterthought, when it is considered at all. There is, however, another approach, also with historical standing, vying with (and indeed often confused with) human apartheid which can accommodate secondary theories a little more satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which Man, though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it. While human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain in the shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable greater value assumption:: other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than that of other things; the value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This assumption allows that other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value; what it insists upon is that, at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never exceeds that of humans. What is generally presupposed is that other objects-animals, plants and their communities-are never of much importance compared with humans. Though human supremacy has appeared in versions of utilitarianism where animal pain is taken into consideration along with human, Western ethics and associated social sciences such as demography, economics and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form. It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position is that of Animal Liberation, in the form in which animals are taken to have value in their own right, though in any playoff with humans, humans win. Under the deep position such an outcome is by no means inevitable; in cases of conflict of animal or natural systems with humans, humans sometimes lose. I I There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one takes the following form:- Some humans lead worthless or negative lives, lives without net value. The point, though not uncontroversial, 11 So too for some men and some sparrow. So we should reject the intermediate ...... : A man is worth more than a sparrow! (Drungson/ Ralston etc.) 9 can be argued even from a shallow utilitarianism.1 2 Take for instance a life of pain and suffering and little or no happiness: it has a substantial net negative utility. But some small natural systems do have net value; one example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a live example might be a tropical island before Club Mediterranee depredation). Now consider the situation where the considerable value of a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on behalf of a set of humans whose lives each have no positive net value. For instance, the system is to be exploited, just for the continued maintena nce of these humans, or for their addition (as new settlers) to an establish ed population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the natural system takes precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the integrity of rich natural environments.13 Let us look ahead to glimpse paradimatic expansions of the positions indicated (in figure 1). For the positions soon expand, when applied to real life issues, to more comprehensive positions; indeed they have expanded all the way to what are now called social paradigms, that is to full social perspectives. For example, the deep position has expanded from the two core theses-a s initially reformulated, values in nature, which is a positive counterpart of the sole value assumption, and biospecies impartiality, which is a positive elaboration of greater value assumption 14-to fuller deep ecological positions which involve as well many other themes. 12 13 The point is argued in detail in R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of life?' Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy #3, Research School of social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982. There are significant cross-classifications of environmental positions. Some further dimensions are included in the following diagram. Environment not taken I Environments is taken into account I into account p 14 --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --- shallow intermediate I dogs I ////// I I E I individual I I H I holistic I I Another dimension is the static/dynamic. But no one want to be just stauc, really. According to the values in nature theme natural items other than humans and human artefacts have intrinsic value; while according to biospecies impartiality members of one species, humans in particular, are not favoured or valued over members of another simply on the basis of species. The danger of favouring one species is encouraged by the species fallacy, commonly invoked in favouring humans. This is the mistake of concluding that because a few members of the species have accomplish ed something of (immense) value, all members of the species therefore are (highly) valuable; all members of the species manage to free-load for the ride, obtained by a few members, so to say. The assumption, once challenged, usually falls back on an argument that goes by way of capacities: the remaining members of the species have the capacity to achieve these sorts of things also. But, firstly, that isn't true: intelligence, skills, and the like, vary somewhat within species, and from our narrow perspective, very considerably among humans, some of whom have no capacity for advanced mathematics or music. Secondly, it requires more than capacity: it requires circumstances, a favourable environment to exercise them, (hence, in part, the folly of lU The expansion is not uniquely determined; there can be various different deeper paradigms. However it characteristically includes a fuller statement of themes recognised as in the spirit of "deep ecology", in particular ecological themes, but also interconnected economic and political themes. In a similar way shallower positions are subsumed in shallower perspectives, and principally in what is called the dominant social paradigm, some relevant themes of which are indicated in figure 2.1s FIGURE 2. RELEVANT COMPONENTS OF THE ENCOMPASSING PARADIGMS. DOMINANT SOCIAL PARADIGM DEEP ECOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVE Dominance over nature Natural environment a resource Harmony with nature Values in nature/biospecies impartiality Less material goals/less growth orientation Earth supplies limited AJ?propriate technology/limits to science Doing with enough/recycling Regional/decentralised/small-scale Material/economic growth Ample reserves/perfect substitutes High technological progress/ scientific solutions Consumerism National/centralised/large-scale SHALLOW f----------------------------- ➔ DEEP 4. Criticisms of these beginnings and other beginnings A main challenge we shall have to meet is that there can be no deep ethics, ethics and axiology are inevitably shallow, because they must answer back to human valuers. This challenge we presently set aside (until the next chapter). But it should already be apparent how we can start to upset the challenge (already taken up by deeper utilitarianism), namely by displacing humans by relevant agents. Other challenges grant that something might answer to deeper ethics, but contend that nothing should-objectio ns of substance-or that making anything much out of it is unwarranted, for example because preliminaries in making out the distinctions have not been 15 more humans in decidedly suboptimal cities), together with a will and drive actually to follow through appropriately on capacities. Much fuller accounts of the dominant social paradigm and environmental alternatives are given in S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, New York, 1982, and in R. Routley 'Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action' in Environmental Philosophy (ed. R. Elliot and A. Gare), University of Queensland Press, 1983. The linkage of the dominant paradigm with maximizing, and the deep alternative with sufficing, is elaborated in R. Routley, 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984. 11 properly accomplished-objections of form and from technicalities (cf. challenges to the analytic/synthetic distinction). We consider examples of both sorts of challenge. The misanthropy charge. Deep environmentalism has been criticised for what it does, so it is alleged, to ethical treatment of other humans; it leads, it has been alleged, to neglectful, negligent, or downright callous treatment of other humans, to inhumanity. The actual impact of deep environmentalism affords but little ground for such allegations. Nor does the theory. Deep environmentalism could leave intrahuman ethics, standard morality virtually entirely intact. If it did so, deep environmental ethics would provide a conservative extension (in the familiar technical sense) of standard intrahuman ethics. In this event the allegations would fall; for the ethical treatment of humans would be in principle just the same as before. But it is unlikely that any deeper environmentalism will leave standard morality entirely intact in its own prime sphere of operations, that restricted to humans. For instance the evolution of humans, and attributions of virtues or vices to them, is bound to be influenced by how they act or respond towards nonhumans and the environment. A virtuous puritanical oldstyle industrialist who makes his affluent living through environmentally damaging practices will no longer obtain the virtuous ranking that would have been accorded to him on the older prevailing morality. (Of course that morality too is changing, but it hardly changes rapidly enough to keep pace with a deeper ethic). The change in the evaluation of and moral standing accorded to hard-working but environmentally exploitative business people, technologists and engineers reflects a more far-reaching adjustment; that of removal of special privilege for humans (or persons). Even in the more austere of standard ethical positions, such as duty ethics in the Kantian mould, it is very easy to gain the impression of persons (usually males on traditional ethics) as kings. There will be a club of kings, that was where more egalitarian industrialism was proceeding also, to make us all kings - with the rest of nature as subjects. While the unwarranted privilege accorded to humans under conventional ethical wisdom will topple then, the treatment of humans by humans need not. To the contrary, if people develop a more respectful and careful attitude to the environment, then they may well develop a better, different and more careful, approach to other people as well. Here the awful Kantianstyle theme that decent treatment of animals will trickle down from a decent treatment of other humans is partially reversed; a better treatment of other humans (a decent treatment is already ethically required) will percolate up from a more gently and respectful treatment of natural environments. Nor finally then need a deeper environmentalism abandon the quest for social justice. 16 Deep-green theory certainly does not; the ethical-change agenda is much wider than social 16 There are two American groups where the quest for terrestial social justice appears to have been abandoned or comprised: eco-fascists and nature greens, as they are sometimes called from outside. 12 change alone, but social and human concerns do not thereby fall off the agenda. They remain, but no longer in such isolations. What they do lose their unchallenged preeminence, and they may also lose priority. Problems with the Greater Value assumption (after Attfield). A prime alternative to a shallow/deep distinction is (what is sometimes considered no alternative, but a variant on it) the anthropocentric/ecologic distinction. Notes: 1. Not the same distinction. While shallow positions are normally anthropocentr ic, converse does not obtain. 2. Distinction never made out properly (really degree issues), and leads to typical 4-fold outcome. 5. Domination and chauvininism. The greater or sole value accorded to humans, as compared with (other) valuations, justify the domination of nature by humans. The main argument is simply that what has lesser or no value should give away to what has greater value, the conventional assumption being that what has greater value is better (analytic) than what has less, and should prevail over it (substantive assumptions of conventional ethical themes such as utilitarianism). Domination and associated class chauvinism are justified not only directly through consideration s of greater or supreme value, but also less directly by pointing to highly valued features possessed by the favoured class. Similar appeals to prized features are of course likewise used to justify class chauvinism. Appendices : 1. Deep ethics are not automatically acceptable as satisfactory. Consider e.g.whole chauvinism, where Wholes are intrinsically valuable, each and every one, and their value much exceeds that of everything else, humans included. So wholes come first. (This is a doctrical some superwholes may hold). Two rough comparisions: cows in India, humans on earth. Other unsatisfactory deep ethics, apart from those that aberate one species, are those that focus exclusively on certain elements. Those e.g. individualisms, strong holisms, etc. 2. Arguments to shallowness. 1. Simplistic (from one James O'Connor of Canada). ' ... the word "value" is a human word, with human meanings, in this case transposed to non-human nature. Hence to say that nature is inherently valuable means that it is inherently valuable to humans'. Ecofascists, who follow a route pioneered by Hardin, call for a triage of nations on lifeboat earth and abandonment of those nations, such as Bangladesh, seen without prospect of recovery. But the position is not deep, it is certainly not a properly moral position; for due criticism see Griffin and Bennett. u 2. Problem with shallow/deep terminology, e.g. acquired too many associations for comfort. Intellectual offensiveness shallow, etc. 3. Shallowness involves a reductionist exercise. Making (trying to make) environmental issues in all that matter environmentally-answer back to shallow concerns. Series of arguments advanced to try to establish ..... . Counter argument. These do not succeed and can be counter-evolelled. 3. Cross-classifications reformism/revolation is, like anthropocentrism, a poor classification. It can be shallow without reformism and unethical economism with reformism. DE itself is largely reformist in character (and excessively personal).: Anthropo-/ecocentric. No doubt 'anthropocentricsm' meaning what its etymology implies 'centring in man' (OED), is a useful term. Theories such as Coperican and Copenhagen quantum theory can be criticised (or praised) as anthropocentric. What is in doubt is the new contrast of antropocentric with ecocentric. While the vague anthropocentric-ecocentric distinction is alright, so far as it goes, as a starting stage, it is no place to stop. For there is a need for a value specific distinction, antrhopocentr can be any sort of human centredness. 'Anthropocentric' is a poor choice of contrasting terminology, for several reasons. One, which may be convenient to some, lies in its vagueness. There is no sharp cut-off in what is human centred. Similarly for its supposed contrast term 'ecocentric', which presumably expandents to 'ecologically centred'. Second, it becomes apparent that no proper contrast is made in many cases. University textbooks on natural ecology, for instance are both ecocentric because about ecology and anthropocentric because set and supplied for humans. Human ecology, a subject increasingly encountered in universities, is directly both (not both under different aspects). Were the classification satisfactory, it would provide a nice contradiction. But the classification is far from satisfactory. It is not exclusive: nor is it exhaustive, but the remainder obscure. But worse, any practical ethics, no matter how deep, is bound to be anthropocentric, not ecocentric, even though duly concerned with ecology. The reason comes to this: any adequate ethics is bound to be heavily concerned with agents, their obligations and responsibilities, and for all practical purposes (on earth) these agents are generally certain humans. This is, an adequate practical ethics is, as a contingent matter, anthropocentric. Of course such an ethic, by contrast with main traditional ethics, may also be presented as an ecocentric ethic, inasmuch as it may be focussed upon ethical agents' relations to ecological items, human treatment of nature. 14 Problems with the anthropocentric/ecocentric contrast do not mean that something like the contrast cannot be made good. But it would involve redefinition of the critical terms, and could accordingly be better accomplished with adjusted terminology. Anthropocentrism is implausible, once a modern pict "of universe" becomes available. (Scuh a sufficiently modern picture was already available to Descartes.) The sun is a medium sized star of very common sort even within its galaxy. The probability of planets like the Earth within this university is extraordinarly high. The probability of other agents is also very high. Even the probability of other ..... ./competent agents is high. But even if it were not, or even if there were other agents, the discourse to be embarked upon would be significant. It is also pointful, for instance in disposeing of much philosophy. If anthropocentrism is so implausible as regards "main place in nature", why is it not implausible as regards intuitionality, value, etc. Ironically, the swing away from anthropocentrism in the sciences in modern times (with the advert of Copenhagen quantum theory and anthropic principles) was overpinged by increasing anthropocentrism in what are misleadingly distinguished as the humanities. Above all intentionality and value were emptied out of the wider universe and concentrated in the exclusive focus of humanities, humans. To adopt Freud: Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great humiliations to its chauvinism .17 The first was when it was realised that our earth was not the centre of the universe, but only a speck in the world system of a magnitude hardly conceivible ... . The second was when his logical science robbed man of his particular privilege of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world' (puoted in Unozco Ev ..... May 1982 p.3) There are further shocks in store for humans-poor old humans! 3. Explaining depth [contrasts pale/pallid]. For a good sort of depth, what is needed a deep structure, extraction or format that lies (partially) hidden from the surface. E.G. plate ponites in geology, strata in archasology, logical form in grammar. Deep = penetrating to fundamentals in several ways and nonchauvinistic, not shallow. [Mention also pluralism-so only a framework aimed for, on which grew various detailled positions.] Part of depth of Deep Green theory lies in its penetration below the surface of classrestricted or interested humanism to a genuine nonchauvinistic ethical structure: the (ill-named) annular structure, which ties moral principles to nonhumanistic categorestion. Annular structure 17 Freud says: to great outrages upon it naive serif love. 15 is a deep structure. A deep structure. Maybe can produce one for deep green theory (see Critiq p.93, bottom halt) Start as above other measures of depth (pp.44-5) misconceived. 1'. Extent of searching of perception of value; depth of (value) perception. 1. Extent to which humanism (h.ch) abandoned for econvisonmental perspective. 2. Extent to which conventional moral and value judgements put op for reassessment. (Naess's depth of questioning conventional wisdom) 2 is tied to 1; for abandoning heh involves much reassessment. Note differs from usual reflective equilibrium, which takes many generally accepted judgements for granted. More on what depth means (pragmetinally): Many environmental outcomes sought in deep grounds can be supported in shallow ways (of course). But there are differences, as examples show: • pesticides (in forestry) should not be used, despite insect damage. For pesticides violate natural succession and healing processes. Toxicity questions, though important, are secondary. On shallow view: the main problem becomes not the use of pesticides, but whether they are safe. • natural world appears as a resource. Life forms which interfere with uses are pests. 2. Reformist/Transformist Variations upon Shallow/Deep Ecology Unhappy with the derogatory implications of "shallow", Devall and Sessions tried to convert shallow ecology in ecological reformism. While there was certainly a basis for this conversion in Naess's original brief account of shallow ecology (which almost invited such reconstrual), the result has been that something different has emerged, notably in green politics. For what such conversions, along with associated imagery accompanying reformism, achieve is not elucidation, but introduction of new contrasts, and therewith political crossclassification of the shallow-deep ecology contrasts. There are various contrasts with (mere) reformist adjustment on political theory, for instance revolutionary change and radical change. A revolutionary direction appears inappropriate as regards deep ecology (as revealed both by the literature and political stances of leading members of the movement), but a politically radical direction on environmental issues does emerge from later developments in N aess' s work. Accordingly a rough contrast, which admits sharpening, can be made out between green reformism and green radicalism. A machine image, which often operates not far from view in such contrasts, is initially helpful in indicating the differences. Reformism does not interfere with the main operation of the machine, its motor, though it may alter the adjustments, retune or fine tune it, add filters or mufflers or converters, alter its appearance cosmetically, and so on. By contrast radicalism would alter the machine, would interfere with its motor to some extent, depending on the level of radicalism. 16 In political terms reformism is exemplified in such measures as limiting pollution by emission devices, further treatment of sewerage, small reserves and roadside veneers of trees amid clear-cutting operations, tidying up of litter, and so on. The main motor of liberal democratic market capitalism, the economic engine designed to deliver maximum economic growth, and its main institutions, remain untouched and uncriticised; no change is proposed for them. For radicals such measures and like reforms do not proceed far enough, towards the sources of the problems. To tackle the range of environmental problems more radical change in economic, social and perhaps political machinery is required. But evidently the extent of change envisaged can vary, very considerably. For example, a frugal conservation program, directed at limiting economic growth through removing conspicuous and excessive consumption, need carry no accompanying program for radical social and political change. Again, deep ecology, which offers no well worked out, or even well signposted, radical program or radical restructuring, does not appear to be politically radical. Alternatives to liberal democratic arrangements are not really advanced or investigated. By contrast some anarchist and marxist influenced ecological positions are politically radical, for instance, social ecology. In short, there is room for a classification of green radicalism, as shown by a preliminary grouping according to whether the radicalism affects which of separate (though overlapping) economic, social, or political matters. The reformist-radical distinction is a vague one, without a sharp boundary. Reforms can so accumulate that what was a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, what was extensive reformism turns out to be radicalism. In such an incremental fashion, positions which were reformist can find themselves radical, without having undergone any conspicuus radicalisation. The contrast between reformism and radicalism can be sharpened somewhat within a (an improved) theory of social paradigms. Then reformism is intra-paradigmatic, whereas radicalism is not (but is extra-paradigmatic). That is a reformist works, like a normal scientist, within the operational paradigm (the given political motor) and does not seek to change it, whereas the radical does; success of radicalism resembles abnormal (even revolutionary) periods in science. As there are many ways of deviating from a paradigm, which typically involves a complex set of presumptions, so there are many sorts of radicalism. The extent to which the political conversion of the shallow-deep contrast into green reformism-radical contrast affords not a restatement, but a different classification, may now be evident though perhaps not to its full extent. The most notable further feature is that green radicalism may be utterly shallow, entirely anthropocentric. 18 Green Marxism affords a useful 18 In these terms Naess conflated two contrasts in his original 1973 article; shallow-deep and reformist-radical. Different followers have latched onto different contrasts. l'/ example; it is socially and politically radical while shallow (of course it can be argued that it is environmentally incoherent, though not in the mentioned features, but in its plan to supercharge the economic motor and make it run even faster, with evident environmental fall-out). Social ecology offers another example; for while more radical than deep ecology, it is certainy not deep. Something of the rich variety we have come upon can be glimpsed from the following table. All the positions enumerated, except 9, are occupied, we suspect (though positions are often so poorly or incompletely presented that is difficult to be sure ). 19 Positions 9 is practically excluded for committed deep parties who duly care about the demise of what is of intrinsic value under mere reformism. Position 5 is however occupied, by those who want (or believe they have achieved) improved arrangements for and treatment of animals (e.g., no circuses, no ordinary zoos, no cruel contests, etc.) but are not committed to a radical animal liberation agenda. Green party territory is usually shallow, but some of the proposals presented may extend to position 4, for instance in demands for participatory democratic restructuring. Of course, many supporters of green parties may adhere to deeper positions. 19 It is worth noting that such positions will in principle supply their own forms of sustainability, sustainable societies, and so on. 24.10.95 Chapter 2 ETHICS WITHOUT HUMANS, PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT HUMANS, and COROLLARIES It is a commonplace that ethics has proceeded not merely as if humans were on centre stage, but as if humans really were all there is, all that mattered in ethics, as if nothing else enters into morals and ethics, or does through only through them. That commonplace is moreover commonly strengthened to a claim of necessity, that this must be so, that nothing else can enter, except indirectly by way of humans. Ethics has to be thus anthropocentric. Since environmental ethics began to shift humans, if ever so little, off centre stage, there has been a heavy philosophical reaction, a sometimes bitter blacklash against greener ethics that would background humans, or dare sometimes to remove humans, from the scene altogether. Among many other things, it has been contended that by the very meaning of ethics and morals, these subjects must be human-centred. A crucial argument for necessary anthropocentricism of ethics makes human centrality a matter of definition. This crucial argument will be broken, in the first of several stages, through a detailed characterisation of morals and ethics in a way that is independent of humans. The characterizations adopted depart in only minor and justified (though highly consequential) ways from received dictionary definitions; that is the characterisations are substantially reportive, as they have to be if they are to serve their iconoclastic purposes. The matter of characterising ethics is in any case part of our business. Where would deep-green ethics be left, as a subject of investigation, without an appropriate account of ethics? 1. On inadeqacies of what prevails: a sheaf of defective accounts. It takes but little effort to discover severe shortcomings in most preceding investigations, and that most accounts, many of them far too casual, are inappropriate for what they are intended to cover, still less for environmental ends. There is no end to bad and defective definitions to dissect and discard. Even textbooks and guidebooks on ethics often make no attempt at a definition, and often have little or nothing of due generality to offer on what ethics is about. 1 Unremarkably then, many of those presenting or teaching ethics, perhaps well enough, have no adequate idea of what ethics is about. This is revealed by the sorts of definitions they slop down and by what they say ethics is about. The slop presented indicates they did not even bother to consult their dictionaries with any care. It is an elementary exercise to show deficiencies in most proposals. A striking recent example is Singer (ed.) Companion to Ethics, supposedly an encyclopaedic work on ethics. 2 A few sample definitions recently encountered will help confirm our claims. Utterly defective is the account of ethics as 'the relation between you and other people' .2 Such connections as the spatial relations between people, for instance where they sit at a seminar, do not belong to ethics. Narrowing relations to those of treatment, as in 'how you treat other people' improves the account a bit, but not enough. Decent treatment of relevant kinds no doubt comprises part of ethics, but a small part. Nor is such treatment confined, especially as regards receivers, to people; animals, nature and more, all matter. A more interesting account, presumably designed to encompass applied ethics, takes this remarkable form: "'ethics" [is] defined as disciplined reflection by persons in all walks of life on moral ideas and ideals'. 3 As a definition, this too fails entirely, appearing circular, and converting ethics away from, what is essential, practice into head stuff, into something like meditation, a kind of widely practiced theorizing, though practised on certain parts of ethics! There are too some unfortunate side-effects of the insertion, aimed at making ethics applicable to all walks of (human) life: namely, as there are walks of life which have no room for disciplined reflection, so there is in fact no ethics. Back again to the drawing board. Similarly for Russell's fuller attempt: The study of Ethics is perhaps most commonly conceived as being concerned with the questions "What sort of actions ought men to perform?" and "What sort of actions ought men to avoid?" It is conceived, that is to say[!], as dealing with human conduct, and as dividing what is virtuous and what is vicious among the kinds of conduct between which, in practice, people are called upon to choose. 4 Owing to feminist criticism of male chauvinism, many now wince at Russell's; piquant use of term like 'men' (in fact throughout his numerous works). Environmental criticism of human chauvinism has not been so (terminologically) successful, sad to report. Back to the board. It takes little effort to assemble a sheaf of inadequate definitions and accounts of ethics. Many include too little, for example the popular account of ethics as "how we should live", which as well as being too narrow is parochial. 5 Similarly, though fractionally better; a coherent set of values to live by is enough for an ethic. For that appears to omit a deontic component, obligations and permissions, and certainly leaves out ethical virtues. A major shortcoming, even in fuller characterisations, concerns the concentration on humans and their parochial affairs. For, as will soon appear, ethics does not essentially concern humans. An adequate ethics says nothing about humans, members of species Homo sapiens, their obligations and rights, values or virtues. It applies but contingently to humans; it applies similarly to hominids, humanoids, and to persons generally, and functions in the absence of persons altogether. As a result, the following familiar sorts of pronouncements on what ethics amount 2 3 4 5 John Langford, on ABC radio, 22 February 1993. Engels, 6. Russell p.1, F & S, from Elements of Ethics 1910. For such an account see e.g. Single [Encyl. Brit.] 3 to are seriously defective: 'An ethic may be thought of as an ideal of human behaviour, an environmental ethics as ideal human behaviour with respect to the environment, natural and built" _6 Not everyone got it quite so wrong. For instance, Brandt gets away to a nice neutral start, even if he does not cover the spread of ethics. Consider his opening: Moral philosophy has traditionally been a systematic attempt to answer some questions of apparently universal interest [!] about: what is worth wanting or working for (what is worthwhile, of worth); what is the best thing for an agent to do from his own point of view; what is morally right, and what is morally just). [Also what is rational in these regards.]7 The nice start does not last. Agents turn out to be humans; utilitarianism soon begins to effect an ugly intrusion, and so on. 2. On how to define ethics and morals more satisfactorily. It is not difficult to do noticeably better than ethics teachers and writers have managed, simply by consulting better dictionaries. But it is also not so difficult to re-organize and improve upon what dictionaries offer. It is significant that dictionary definitions of moral and ethic contain no essential allusion to humans, nothing essential concerning humans, man, or we, us and co. (andwhere 'human' does enter, as in 'principles of human duty', it can simply be elided, it is inessential). But the dictionary accounts do harbour some problems. For one thing, like some of the preceding definitions, the dictionaries seem mired in a common and damaging circularity: ethics is defined in terms of morality (and its adjuncts, decent treatment, and similar); but then morality is itself defined through ethics. Fortunately the loop back to ethics can be broken. A particularly satisfactory way to workable definitions of notions in the ethics orbitethic, ethical, ethics, to take direct cases-is through those in the presupposed moral orbitdirectly, moral, morality, morals. For all these ethical notions are regularly defined, in better dictionaries, through moral notions. This approach reverses the difficult and so far unsuccessful strategy, sometimes tried in ethical theory, of attempting to define morality (e.g. through universalizability conditions) inside a somehow independently characterized ethics. 8 The bases, upon which moral notions are carried, lie in turn in the action orbit, in features of actions and their agents. 9 As agents are entailed by actions-beca use actions just 6 7 8 9 See 'A universal environmental ethics' Connect, UNESCO-UNE P Environmental Education Newsletter XVI(2)(June 1991). pl. Brandt p.l. Long ago I used to think this was now it had to be done, through some singling out of morals within ethics by way of a combination features of humans and requirements of morality (such as, variously, consideration of others, universalizability). Not recognising the virtues of agency, I too erroneously supposed that morality had to pertain to humanity. No doubt the main definitional enterprise can be carried out, more or less, the other way around, beginning with ethics, then cutting down to morals within, through agency. Moreover, such an alternative route (starting out easily enough from the notion of ethics as the theory and systematization of the good and the right, valuable and permissible, the virtuous and responsible, and so on) should arrive at the same place, at a similar end result. These action basics can in turn be explained, as before, within process theory, see Sylvan 1993. A classification of agents can be drawn from there. It is not claimed that this is how we have to start or that action nexus affords unique starting point. But its features have to be included sooner or 4 are agent-ascribed processe s-actions , more generally processes, form bedrock here. Neither processes nor actions have any essential connection with humans. Relevant elements of action nexus, upon which moral actions are carried, are now indicated: Single action snapshot, capturing agent-acts -in-environment nexus: AGENT has motives emotions volitions objectives and goals of prior causes ACTION has subsequent consequences impacts upon (relevant items within) environment The breakdown of actions, into types, will straightaway yield much that has long been taken as central in moral theory, such as agonising (as Socrates did) over choices. Choice-making is a morally critical type of action. Plural actions expose further relevant features, including conduct, dispositions and character of agents, and suggest typologies (or moral relevance) of actions and of impacts. Virtue ethics, but part of moral theory, fit here. Whereas morality -the new ecologically sensitive morality that is-begin s from certain features of an agent in its environment, ecology begins from investigation of an organism in its environment. 'From the outset ecology was clearly understood to be the appreciation of the organism (any organism, note) in and as part of its environment' . 10 'Something along the lines of "the study of organisms in relation to their environment" is the basis of most ... attempts ... [at] working definition of ecology ... over [which] there has been little dispute' . 11 Despite initial appearances, the upshot is not (the perhaps appealing one) that morality is a branch of ecology. For the features investigated are very different (and a satisfactory definition of 'ecology ' has to be sharpened to indicate what features of organism-inenvironments are studied). Whereas in morality there is much interest in the virtues and vices of agents for instance, a parallel interest is outside the scope of ecology (and indeed not a significant question for most organism or for many agents). Interestingly, the ethical theory being advanced begins in precisely the way Deep Ecology, in its pristine formulation, implies that no theory should operate, with an agent-inenvironment image. Under the total-field approach of Deep Ecology all such images dividing up fields should be rejected, in particula r any man-in-e nvironme nt image, a special chauvinistic case of what our theory operates with. Similarly no doubt for organism-inenvironment images of ecology. Unremarkably no arguments are offered for these rejections; 10 11 later, and it has virtues as a start, including familarity and naturalness. R. Kitching [New Education], p.39 Ibid p.40 rearranged. 5 cogent arguments would be hard to find, or articulate. In any case, Deep Ecology strictures do not prevent preliminary or limited uses of field analysis. As it will soon turn out, for more general purposes, what is needed is removal of agents, not dissolving the image. These action-theoretic preliminaries admit of much elaboration and variation, both expansion and contraction most of which however we can pick up as we proceed. For example, an illuminating expansion would expose the setting, of constraints and incentives, within which an agents acts; no doubt some of these features, incentives for instance, can be absorbed into what is already depicted, such as motives, and the remainder could be included in under a prior-influences category. Striking contractions are those afforded by prevailing ethical theories, consequentialism and Kantianism, which would erase, respectively, all but consequences or all but motives. The parable of the Blindman and the Elephant is not only a clever analogy for a implausible perspectivism; it can serve as a telling indictment of much analytic philosophical practice. Moral philosophical practice, especially that of analytic philosophy, consists in only sensing part of a whole (constellation) and failing to see the rest. 12 Moral and action theory afford good examples of such skimping; for instance, consequentialism fails to see anything but consequences. The term moral, generously construed, covers the assessment of agent-intricated elements of the action nexus depicted, in all the following sorts of respects (as applicable): excellent, good, indifferent, bad, evil; approved, disapproved; valuable, of value, or not axiological right or wrong (or alright), fair or unfair, proper or improper obligatory, forbidden, permissible deontic responsible, irresponsible; it also covers principles concerning such assessments. Morality concerns both appreciation and assessment of agents-acting-in-environments as regards those sorts of features and resulting systematization. Parallels with ecology should be evident. X's conduct or the like is moral, broadly so, iff it is a matter for moral appraisal. In short, what is moral is marked out by classes of functors in an action nexus. Plainly some of the features, which perform the distinguishin g work, are not significantly applicable to all elements in the nexus; for instance, impacts of frogs are not significantly responsible. Responsibility applies primarily to certain agents, their conduct and character. The sorts of respects cited are, furthermore, more general forms. But many more specific evaluations are thereby encompassed; for instance, honourable, dishonourable; decent, indecent, again as applicable. In terms of the sorts of respects, certain important subtypes can be distinguished. The first group (given by the first two lines) covers axiological. The second group (given by the next two lines) covers deontic. The third group (not usually distinguished in "the logic of 12 For a detailed treatment of skimping in philosophy, see DP, chapter 11. 6 ethics") comprises accountability notions. Such, formerly important, terms as virtuous and vicious-regu larly, but wrongly included in dictionary listings of respects defining moral (e.g., "of or pertaining to character or disposition considered as ... virtuous or vicious")-ar e axiological. They can be characterized in terms of what is already available, thereby avoiding further circularity vexing dictionary definitions (which define 'moral' using 'virtuous', and 'virtuous' deploying 'moral'). 13 For example, to adjust the dictionaries, virtuous [action] is [that] exhibiting moral excellence or quality, vicious that distinguished as morally evil. Much the same supervenient story gets told for duty in the deontic class. For while a duty just amounts to a certain sort, a rigorous sort, of moral obligation, duty is not among the respects listed in defining the term moral. There are several, loosely consequential , attachments often made to what counts as moral(s), notably: issues of punishments and rewards, with a view to altering proper conduct; of freedom and determinism, as the latter may appear to place moral enterprise in jeopardy; of justification of moral principles, which do not stand on its own without moral justification; and so on, for other theoretical topics that consequently arise. While these further issues do not form part of dictionary definitions of moral, they are stock textbook fare in moral philosophy. But that, moral philosophy and moral theory, is where they can comfortably stay. While the issues that result could be called moral, or distinguished as textbook moral, they might as well simply be accommodate d more accurately, within philosophy of morality (metamorals). Morality is, at base, the attribute of being moral. 14 Thus, basically, an item exhibits morality if and only if that item is moral. In wider compass, morality comprehends a larger package concerning what is moral; it consists in the theory and appreciation, practice and principles of what is moral. It follows, from the account of moral given, that morality is all about certain features of agency, features of theory and practice of agency, namely evaluative and assessment features and principles concerning these, such as conduct and choice. Several other significant corollaries also emerge. Firstly morality has nothing essentially to do with humans. A similar but still more striking result will follow for ethics, which is characterised, also in a human independent way, by way of morality. Ethics too has nothing essentially to do with humans (or even with humanoids). Morality turns on features of agency. Humans, some of them, simply happen to supply, presently, prime terrestrial examples of full moral agents, those actors who do not merely conduct themselves well or badly (a kangaroo can be a good or poor mother, a dog can behave badly and know it) but who make promises, recognise obligations, accept responsibilities, and so forth. Humans were almost certainly not the only full terrestrial agents; other humanoid 13 14 Thus too much of "virtue ethics" can be absorbed, see further, later chapters. In logical terms it is defined through attribute abstraction. 7 species that have become extinct (perhaps with human assistance) very likely were also. Certain humans are probably not the only full moral agents even now in this universe. It is unlikely that humans will exemplify the only moral agents, perhaps even terrestrially. 15 The prominen t role of competen t humans in morality, and so as regards ethics, is utterly contingent. It follows, now quite generally, that those familiar definitions of morality and ethics in terms of humans and their features are one and all defective. For all the (green) ethical theory to be developed, humans can drop out altogether. But competent humans are useful for illustrative purposes; it helps to have some demonstrably actual examples. Moreove r, in such practical terms as terrestrial ethical impact, they are now almost unavoidable. Before explaining how to escape damaging agent centredness, or actocentricity, in ethics that would result from equating ethics with morals (i.e. morality in this sense), there are loose ends to be tied up and certain advantages, worth recording, accruing from having actocentrism as a staging post. One advantage is that unwanted senses of evaluative notions are peeled off automatically, because they do not apply regards agency. For example, so removed are not only merely "aesthetic" uses but all those quasi-descriptive uses of commendatory terms such as good (e.g. 'good car' 'good sort', 'good sox', 'good ox'). Aesthetic uses of evaluative terms, as in 'fine painting' or 'good book', do not concern, except in oblique ways, action or conduct of agents. It may well be objected that even so not enough non-moral uses are peeled off, as various uses like those of mere expediency or practicality are left standing. A countercase will be developed that these should be left standing. For a smarter strategy than attempting exclusion, includes moralities of expedience, of practicality, egoism and the like within the moral orbit-so enabling a straightforward answer to such otherwise vexing questions as Why be moral?- whilst subsequently differentiating within morals a distinuished subclass (to be called meurals) which does function exclusively through meeting more exacting requirements of morality. There is a subsense that should be picked up immediately. Though a vicious or evil agent is certainly a matter for morality, and within its compass, such an agent would not normally be accounted moral (as a naive reading of the dictionaries would suggest), but immoral. What is moral, morality, concerns the span of moral, immoral and indifferent procedures. Plainly moral in the narrower sense comprehends the definitely positive part of the span, as good does of the wide value span. Generally, an item (such as an agent, practice, conduct, or whatever) is strictly moral, moral in this stricter sense, if it is moral, a matter of 15 There are arguments to other moral agents, other full agents even, from evolusionary theory. According to an expanded theory, every niche is eventually occupied. (In a way, this interesting theme carries over from the earlier doctrine of a great chain of being, which similarly onto every position in the chain as potentially occupied.) By a statistical argument (copying those for intelligent life elswhere in this vast universe), there are, or will be, niches for agents, with requisite capabilities, wlsewhere in the universe. Therefore, by the theory, these niches will eventually be occupied. 8 moral concern, and its appraisal is decidedly positive. Naturally for a full account, positive within the moral span, has also to be defined. However here the strict sense is picked up only to be set aside. Focussing upon morality would be unduly limiting from the perspective of environment al ethics. For although anthropocent ricism has been avoided, easily circumvented through agency, though humans play no essential role, still morality is undoubtedly agent-centred. Morality foregrounds agents and assessments of them and their actions, and backgrounds environments of agents, and environments more generally (those without agents in them do not even enter into consideration). The environment remains, so to say, mere backdrop to actions of agents. Escape is through an intermediary, which is substituted in place of morality in the account proposed of ethics. That intermediary is an expanded morality, in convenient shorthand ectomorality. 16 ('Ectomoralit y' is close enough for the present to 'ecomorality' , which is of course part of the main focus.) Expanded morality takes into account also evaluative settings, perhaps devoid of agents; whatever of value that agents, or agent-like subjects, agentoids, might in principle impact upon, interfere with, disturb, effect, change, dislodge, or similar. That is, to say, it encompasses all items of relevant value, of worth, significant items, including many wholes, such as habitats, ecosystems, the Earth itself; and so also whatever applies morally with respect to these, for instance permission to disturb or to improve, principles of letting be, and so on. Such ecosignificant items are also called, in the literature, morally considerable items (a nicely ambiguous term, both sides of which have unfortunate features, one because a considerable item may not have large significance, the other because what it is supposed to respond to is some restricting class of considerers). In yet other and more satisfactory terms, they have ethical standing. Naturally items of significance other than agentoids may have other ethically relevant features (which they perhaps accrue through their significance). For instance they may hold entitlements of various sorts, such as to be left alone, to be represented, and so on. In order to characterize core notions in the ethics orbit, the basic strategy consists in plugging in "expanded morality" where the dictionaries give "morality"; similarly substitute "ectomoral" for "moral". For the adjectival forms 'ethical' , and (equivalently) 'ethic', that is all that is required. For the form concerned means: pertaining to ectomorality, or (equivalently) treating of or relating to ectomorals. For the noun forms it is not so simple, because there are problems with the dictionary accounts (for instance in 'the science of morality' owing to misplaced definiteness, and dated uses of the term 'science'). Always ethics(s) is an abstract, signifying features of being ethical; more exactly, always concerning ectomoral theories or systems. More specifically, ethic( s) signifies firstly, in both singular or plural though usually plural, the whole field of ectomoral theory 16 Greek ektos, outside. We include the inside with the expansion which incorporates the outside. 9 (the "science" of ectomorals), or derivatively, the department of (philosophical) study concerned therewith; secondly, in the singular but pluralising, a system or schematization of ectomorality, that is, at least rudiments of a system, or of a theory, comprising values, ectomoral principles, and rules of proper conduct.17 Like stock textbook ethics, most environmental ethics so far are in fact truncated; they are very rudimentar y schemes, leaving out much that would be expected in a fatter systematization. Hence in part the vagueness of characterization. So far the vagueness (which does not exceed that of dictionaries or of ordinary usage), is immaterial, as the characterisation is workable. But further exactness could be obtained through a technical upgrade of system and a more detailed specification of what such a proposition system contains. 18 What are sometimes cited as further restricted senses of 'ethic' are not further senses. Rather they are restrictions, or designations, of what is already presented. Thus for instance, the 'moral principles of a particular leader or school of thought' as in Buddhist ethics or Kantian ethics. Similarly for field indications or application restrictions, as in medical ethics or bioethics. So much for "senses" of 'ethics'. In order to reach an adequate definition of ethics, not merely for intended environmental purposes, but for historical purposes as well (so as to include Stoic ethics, Taoist ethics, romantic nature ethics and the like as ethics) we have been obliged to adjust (if in an inconspicuous way) dictionary definitions of ethics. That adjustment was made through "expanded morality", but could have been accomplished in other equivalent ways (Leopold's expansion of 'community' is another, though less satisfactory, way of achieving the same sort of thing). Granted that we have adjusted dictionary definitions, have we changed the very notion of ethics, or did the dictionaries, not for the first item, get it wrong, getting caught with chauvinistic definitions? We claim that we have not changed the notion. Rather we captured what some meant, more or less, by ethics all along-fro m Stoics, Epicureans and others on. It has never been a very precise notion. In this case (by contrast with terms like right) not too much hangs on the term, and we could simply divide ethics up, for instance, into wide and narrow. However, we intend to keep the nice term ethics but to give the dictionaries and modem opposition the expressions, standard ethics, or conventional ethics. Our inconspicuous but all important adjustment is both good and bad news. It is bad news, insofar as it appears to assist the charge that [deeper] environmental philosophy is doing something different from ethics, that it is guilty of changing the subject (i.e., effectively committing ignoratio elenchi). However we can freely grant, without incurring damage, that 17 18 Thus ethics include what it has to include, as expanded environment ally: philosophy of ecomorality, and therewith of morality. A system is a relational structure of a certain sort. An ethic is a propositional system, since it has to include principles and the like; thus it involves a theory of strict logical sort. For an illustration of the use of systems formulations in ethics, see e.g. Routley 1973. 10 standard ethics was, as a matter of definition, at least actocentric, and that, insofar as agents were identified with humans, it was, therefore, anthropocentric. Even so ethics, as redefined, includes standard ethics, so it is more satisfactorily seen not a different but a larger subject, expanded through an expanded morality. It is good news, not merely because it facilitates environmental ethics and accords with more satisfactory (greener) accounts of the subject, but because it helps in getting around a snarl of objections to the effect that ethics has to be homocentric, or at least actocentric. Removing these objections will recur throughout what follows. Among corollaries of note, a first one is that plurality of ethics falls out of the characterisation. An ethic is not unique. Nor (through such a result does not follow as environmental ethics form a subclass of ethics) are environmental ethics. Nor are military or professional ethics. Failure of uniqueness is not a deficiency, but a virtue. For, one thing, it gives places to go in cases of breakdown of an ethic, namely to other nearby ethics. Plurality is tied up with nonuniqueness and other features of merit: noncomprehensiveness, openness, flexibility, and so on.19 Secondly, there is more news on what an ethics is; and what an environmental one is. It is widely claimed that an ethics requires a communit y, in an environme ntal ethic the community (of concern etc.) is a wide environmental one. Ethics enlarges the community, a scope of values. Ethics (partaking of ethos ~ the evaluative frame(or spirit) of a community. While these ideas are popular they are astray. Environmental ethics shifts the frame of reference for ethical consideration from purely human concerns to ecological communities. 1-B Human beings as moral agents are not ethically privileged. An environmental ethic must be compatible with ecological principles and with life, i.e. be livable. 3. Within ethics and morals, as so far generously constured: decent and dud distinctions. Something like the division between the first and second specifics above has been quasi-technicalized within ethics, and distorted through merger with a theory-metatheory distinction borrowed from outside ethics. Engagement with the second (as in systematisation, constructing and working within systems, etc.) has been dubbed normative ethics, or sometimes to increase the confusion just ethics, or condescendingly, casuistry. Metaethics has been taken however to be not what the logical analogy, and borrowing, would suggest metanormative ethics, the (positivistically correct) study of such systems, but instead a brand of analytic philosophy, analysing the meanings and uses of key ethical terms. Taken as exhaustive, there is much of importance, that the normative-metaethical distinction leaves out. Nor is the distinction exhaustive. As well, the labels are misleading. In short, the distinction is ill-made out and rather unsatisfactory, a handicap, not an asset; it can be abandoned without 19 See EEHC p.57. 11 loss and to advantage. Let us do so (so forget this paragraph, if you prefer). Many other distinctions from standard ethics are also defective, in one way or another. It will be advisable to resurvey and rechart ethical terrain. Among other standard, but often dud, distinctions from ethical theory that have to reexamined after environmental impact, to be duly salvaged or scrapped, are all the following: • objective/subjective. That the objective/subjective distinction provides a false dichotomy is easily seen from usual explanations of the terms: 'either objective, standing for a real factor in things, or subjective, simply standing for a human proposal' 20 • Cognitive/non-cognitive. 2 1 To be retained are some distinctions which certain forces have worked hard to eliminate, such as that of • Fact/value (and earlier demise). • Expedient/moral. There is an elasticity in the notion of ethics, and a neglected distinction, that it is important to take into account.. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted attempt to build a universalizability requirement or some sort of equivalent into the very notion of ethics. The evident result is that selfish systems of evaluation and conduct, systematic egoisms for instance, are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be ethical? become vexed. 22 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is problematic in its formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethics do have much to recommend them, let us coin a convenient portmanteau term condensing the clumsy "universalizable ethics", namely euthics. (Conveniently then un-euthical suggests unethical, which is what from a properly ethical stance it is!) There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single or isolated individual 23 ( even so, a Crusoe ethics is intelligible and feasible, as regrettably is egoistic morality). But that pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a tribal morality and an upper-class ethics are not defective on significance or semantic grounds, even if they are wide open to objections on substantive grounds. Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out, as ethics, by such requirements as that like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based on relevant differences. 24 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a 20 21 22 23 24 Reese p.157. See also Reese. On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer Impractical ethics (Singer equates moral with ethical). Singer does not really have an answer to the question Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad idea; mainly he tries to put down shuffles that have been presented as decisive. Pettit reworking a rough route hacked out by Wittgenstein, tries to expand this across into a philosophical forest denominated "holism", no-dwelling place for an isolated individual. These requirements are presented by Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No 12 Greek, or that there are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been proposed as such a difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial difference). These sorts of responses, which were long accepted, are no longer acceptable, because the differences put up are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly enough, though ethical relevance itself lacks an adequate explanation). Egoism, for instance, exhibits rationality failure, as it does not treat likes alike. There are no relevant differences justifying different treatment. Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view,for universality, rests upon an extensive appeal to authority (p.11). What else is offered is but an appeal to usage. the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the individual'. [It often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct on ethical grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me. I must address myself to a larger audience'(p.10). That depends on the conduct concerned. More important, the audience does not need to be so large, certainly not universal: my family or clan will suffice often enough. Nonetheless there is this of use 'ethics', especially in such criticisms as 'unethical'. • due consideration of others, all others; Parallel to the distinction of euthics within ethics is a distinction of neurals within morals, neurality within morality. Again the subclass, reflecting widespread philosophical usage of the term morality, is separated through some requirement of morality, such as • universalizability, which is a strong way of ensuring the first (do unto others etc.). Insofar as these principles all allude to others, they often admit easy extension (to other others). 25 4. Environmental and greener ethics. As prevailing accounts of ethics are for the most part defective, so are what builds upon them, recent accounts of environmental ethics. But there are also other grounds for dissatisfaction with these. Issues in the characterizat ion of ethics, especially removal of actocentrism and homocentrism, naturally get transmitted to critical types, such as environmental ethics. But it might be imagined, rashly, that disagreement ends there. After all, all decent environmental ethics make the non-human world a proper object of concern, either directly or indirectly. Differences between explications offered can be ascribed to ordinary philosophica l incompleteness. "An environmental ethic, broadly, is a set of values to live by which takes due account of the value of the non-human world". 26 Stated differently, the aim of environmental ethics 'is to understand and act appropriately in relation of our ecological-i n 25 26 doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated. The distinctions can be filled out (and made to work-verify!) by a strategy like the earlier. Again the list of moral predicates is deliberately wide. But once again we can later separate off certain uses e.g. instrumenal, aesthetic uses of good. Gunn 1987, 3. 13 the broad sense-circum stances". 27 Differently again, " ... sets of principles, which would guide our treatment of wild nature, constitute an environmental ethic in the most general sense". 28 The first of these slack explanations leaves out what is essential for an ethics, principles; the second is unduly actocentric, leaving out what is not, as well as main paraphernalia of ethics; the third not only neglects values, but excessively narrows scope so that such an ethics is inapplicable in places devoid of wild nature or to other issues. A better explication, which avoids these obvious pitfalls runs: An environmental ethics is an ethics, as defined, which, among other concerns, takes specific account, through its values and principles, of (significant) environmental items, of parts of nonhuman nature. But obviously it too leaves much to be explained. How the non-human world is made the object of concern, how it is moral concern, to what degree it is made the object of moral concern, what forms of moral concern are applicable to what elements of the environment, and how to achieve the aim of acting appropriately - all are matters that make environmental ethics one of the most controversial areas of philosophy and also one of the most exciting, although many professional philosophers still regard it as a peripheral area. Yet there now is broad agreement among most of those active in the area that some change is needed and that environmental matters need much more attention and action. An environmental ethics is an ethics concerned, usually among other ethical things, with parts of the environment. Coal-face or factory-floor environmenta l ethics bears on environmental issues, problems and causes, and can be expected to say something about environment s or some of their nonhuman components. Academic or board-room environmental ethics is frequently, however, a remove from direct ethical work, comprising discussion of environmental ethics, its features, its methods, its variability, its presumed merely derived and applied character, and so on. Much of this academic environmental ethics is directed against coal-face environmental ethics, especially that of a genuinely committed sort aimed at advancing environmental sources. It is almost immediate that there is an important elasticity -ambiguity, in a slack sense -in the notion of environmental ethics, between an ethics which considers environmental matters, whether positively or negatively, and an ethics which is positive about some environmental elements, which evinces concern about environmental items (as 18th century sympathy ethics did about other humans). A superficial environmental ethics need not say anything particularly positive or sympathetic about environments; indeed productions on the topic may try to dismiss or defeat environmenta l causes and to defuse or dissolve environmental problems, for instance as not worth bothering about. 29 It may be argued that 27 28 29 Drengson 1989, 15. Elliot, in Singer, 284. That is, fashionable contemporary practice with respect to philosophy is transferred to parts of enviromental philosophy (e.g. by Eco Wittgenstein and AppliedQuine). Environmental philosophy may in no way interfere with industry and business. To an astonishing extent American academic environmental ethics tends to conform to such ridiculous strictures (often encouraged by a fawning 14 natural environme nts should serve highest economic causes, which means in practice becoming reserves for city folks, city corporations and consumers. Under such environmental ethics ("environmental ethics" it is tempting to say, contravening usage) many an environme nt should be razed, levelled, and paved over, to become a grand parking lot, shopping mall or urban escarpmen t of a concrete jungle. What rural environment remains will, also serve those "high" purposes, be tamed and managed, like much of Western Europe. Witness the enthusiasm in productions on environmental ethics for landscapes like that of Tuscany, where virtually everything is under tight human control and no bird moves (else it is shot). Environm ental ethics and environme ntal philosophy may well prove to be disappointm ents for enthusiastic environmentalists. For there may be little that is materially green about them, no commitme nt to changes in old attitudes and practices, no offers of improved standing and ethical treatment for environme ntal items. As an environme ntal economics may be no green economics , but (very likely) some part or application of mainstream economics , some sweep of resource or land economics , so an environme ntal ethics or environme ntal ethic may not be particularly or at all green, but, for instance, simply part of establishm ent ethics or an "application" of it to environmental items. Fortunately not all environmental ethics is like this; beyond environmental is genuinely green ethics. The elasticity in environmental ethics between superficial and material forms, parallels that of the term concern (and rather similarly of matter), and can be substantially constricted to that: an environme ntal ethics is one concerned with environmental items or matter. Thus, on the one construal, such an ethics may be simply about such topics, it may be a standard ethics "applied" to such topics, in which case environmental ethics does become just so-called applied ethics. Alternatively, however, such an ethic may be one evincing concern, worry, about the treatment of some environmental items on other, and directed at obtaining improved treatment. Such an ethic is not negative or indifferent towards environme ntal matters, but is advancing environme ntal causes. They matter. With such ethics, environme ntal ethics cannot possibly be an applied ethics, for the framework of standard ethics and their application s, is exceeded. (At best such ethics can be approxima ted by standard ethics by assuming enlightened agents holding appropriate sorts of values. 30) 5. Human chauvinism and its detailed removal. Deep-green theory is, unambiguously, a green ethical theory, of deep kind: that is, there is intrinsic value in nature, natural items have intrinsic value, which may predomina te over human-bas ed value. In short, the theory rejects both the 'Sole Value Assumptio n' and the 'Greater Value Assumptio n'. The theory finds all standard ethics mired in heavy prejudice, in 30 pragmatism). Compare also Naess (in Engel 1990) on utilitarian approximation to Deep Ecology, made by assuming availability of enough agents holding deep ecological values or, more or less equivalently, having deep ecological consciousness. 15 favour of things human and against things non-human. The distinctive, still pervasive, prejudice concerned is that encapsulated as human chauvinism, which is itself a special case of class chauvinism (for the class, human 31 ). Removal of human chauvinism dovetails with displacement of humans. Class chauvinism consists in substantia lly differentia l treatment, typically discriminatory and inferior treatment, of items outside the class, by sufficiently many members of the class concerned, for which there is no sufficient justification. Human chauvinism is a feature, a cardinal weakness, of virtually all ethical systems hitherto, so deepgreen theory contends. The main argument takes the following form: there is no characteristic, such as those tendered in ethical theories as justifying differential treatment in favour of humans (characteristics such as rationality, language possession, tool making abilities, needs, preferences, sentience, etc.) which first is held by all and only humans, as distinct from not all humans and some non-humans, and which second does justify differential treatment.3 2 Signs and manifestations of chauvinism are many and various, some conspicuous, some subtle, and so on. For instance, a dead giveaway is any allusion to all outside certain human concerns that may have a value as resources. For that assigns to the items so referred to mere instrumental value. A little less obvious is the discriminative mode when individual humans are counted, but only species of other living things (or a step down, individual sentients but only species of others). The thorough-going rejection of human chauvinism itself sets a program: that of reworking ethics, and indeed much of philosophy, in a way free of chauvinism and humanism, without any specially privileged place for humans. A first part of such a program has already been outlined, that of suitably characterising ethics in a way that does not make essential appeal to humans or their features, or to other favoured groups such as sentients. A further important part of the program, formulation of ethical theory in a way which avoids entirely group chauvinism. Such a desirable outcome can be achieved simply through formulation of ethical theory in terms of ethically relevant categories, assembled in what is called an annular theory. 33 31 32 33 Insofar as an account of human is required, it can be some improvement on the biological species definitions, a reworking to remove past biasses (superioristic, rationalistic, masceulinist, etc.) and to dislodge appeals to aspects of human nature. But, despite the preponderance of human agents hereabouts, on planet Earth, such an account is not required for ethics, or for philosophy. Theorizing in these and many other areas can proceed perfectly well without allusion to humans. The detailed argument for this proposition is presented in Routley and Routley 1980a 97-108, where chauvinism is spelled out a bit further. A truncated version of this argument appears in Fox 1990, 16-17. Though the theory is so labelled in several publications, the label, which presumably should stay, is misleading, because some ethical relevant categories may overlap one another. The concentric theory (developed in Wenz 1988 and others, perhaps in steps of Leopold), which incorporates a similar mistake, can be seen as a subversion of the annular model. 16 The annular picture helps show how to redo ethics and philosophy with ideal types, or with some equivalent thereof. No simple species or subspecies , such as humans or superhumans, no single feature, such as sentience or life, serves as a reference benchmark, a base class, for determinin g moral relevance and other ethical dimensions . 34 No ethical irrelevant distinctions and classes, such as those of humans or base class, are required. What is required instead is a major shift in perspective , a new focus upon morally relevant categorical distinctions: it is not possible to provide criteria which would justify distinguishing, in the sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have preferences or preferred states. For such criteria appear to depend upon the mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some rather arbitrarily -determine d and loaded tests for membershi p of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for the preference s of other creatures. According ly the sharp moral distinction, commonly accepted in ethics by philosophe rs and other alike, between all humans and all other animal species, lacks a satisfactory coherent basis (Routley and Routley 80a, 103). The categorical distinctions thereby proposed do not reject traditional ethical notions such as rationality, self-awaren ess, having interests; but they do reject the automatic use of the characteristics of one species, or some base class as the model upon which the characteristics of all other species or classes are judged. They also reject as unjustified distinctions that are not "categorical distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions". 35 For instance, they hold that the human/nonhuman distinction is not ethically significant. Humans enter only in a contingent way into general ethical theory, as holders of these or those features, which 34 35 Another common mistake which annular theory helps dispel and avoid is that of trying to stretch community (or moral commuity) to include webs, mountains, Earth, land etc.-a trend Leopold started with his land ethic. An agent can have an obligation to care for earth, and soil without there being part of community. (The Land ethic is misguided). What ethics covers diverges from any moral community. (Contra Dobson's suggestion p.47). Routley and Routley 1980a, 108. 17 depending upon their respective capabilities and competence. It is also desirable to have available some more positive principles corresponding to the negative rejection of class chauvinism, principles so to say, of anti-chauvinism. Principles like the biospherical egalitarianism of Deep Ecology represent an unsatisfactory attempt in this direction. The deep-green improvement on this principle is the powerful principle of ecoimpartiality, according to which there should be no substantially differential treatment of items outside any favoured class or species of discriminatory sort that lacks sufficient justification. The appropriate impartial treatment is substantially independent of the comparative value of the item treated. Most important, impartial treatment does not entail equal treatment, or equal consideration, and does not require equal intrinsic or other value. Other distinctive principles of deep-green theory will emerge as the ethical theory accumulates. One major conclusion is that human is not a significant ethical category. The outcome is not anti-human; humans enter to the extent that they respectively deserve to enter. It is not being claimed that humans lack value, that none of them have much or any value. Quite the contrary, some humans have great value, some have established themselves as having great propensity for evil, many lead quite indifferent lives. What is being rejected is the elevated, often exaggerated, frequently exclusive, value assigned to humans, too often uniform value. What are being contested are received distributions of values, and the heavy concentration of value in humans and things and features human, the relative importance of which has been grossly exaggerated. 36 Be in no doubt: many humans have positive value, some remarkable value. That is one reason why it matters that humans should not vanish off the planet (for all that many of they have sinned against it), to leave an impoverished earth, for instance a microbe planet. For that would involve a huge reduction in value. Nor is it enough, adequate compensation, that something like humans would evolve again at some remote future time. For, even if it happened (in fact the probability of such replacement looks rather small), there would still be a huge and extended dip in value. Similar points tell against a range of similar arguments to the effect that it does not matter what happens to, or is done to, the Earth, because evolution will eventually restore richness. 37 Even if richness were to return (much evidence indicates 36 37 Moral consideration and intrinsic value are not limited to humans; similarly these are not confined to any other favoured or "improved" class closely overlapping humans, such as (it is supposed) persons or rational creatures. Moral principles can be applied to all species and to the natural environment in general. (A corollary concerns the characterisation of morality. ) Evolutionary space is thereby afforded for other species, other systems other things. An associated feature is stereotyping. Stereotyping is characteristic of speciesism/chauvinism as it is in exploitation. To stereotype an item is to see it purely as a member of a class and as having conventional feature of the class as a whole. Recently there have been some attempts to have things ethical both ways: a special role for humans without privilege or prejudice. There is a latent incoherence in Rachel's text, between his initial and final proposals regarding ethics and morals-which are essentially human intricatedand regarding morals without hubris (MWH)-where human hubris is supposed to be removed. Such an argument has been advanced by, among others, William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and 18 that extinction and destruction is for ever, permanent), there would still be serious loss of value. So it does matter. 6. Philosophy without humans. It is hard to move and operate philosophically without encountering humans and human chauvinism. Chauvinism is written deep into all prevailing Western (and Eastern) ideological forms, common to what, at a more superficial level, are rival positions. But while human chauvinism transcends parochial differences, it is more conspicuous and brazen in some philosophical locales than others, notably idealism and empiricism, existentialism and phenomenology. In short, it is particularly prominent where matters answer back to subjects, those who have the ideas, do the observing, assemble the phenomena, do the living, and so on-back to subjects that are invariably assumed to be human. Thus it is human existence, human Being, human ideas and impressions, that count, those and none others. Such chauvinism, nauseatingly strong, pervades not only Continental philosophy (esp. French and German varieties)-but also Anglo-American empiricism and pragmatism (esp. anti-realist varieties). 38 Once the main strategies of ethics-without-humans have been grasped, it is easy to see how analogous moves can be made the deanthropize other reaches of philosophy, notably some of the more chauvinistic enterprises. In general there are two stages: Firstly, as with morality, replacing humans and human subjects by agents and ideal subjects. And secondly, as with ethics, delineating significant reaches-philosop hical wildernesses-wh ere agents are removed, not just off-stage but altogether. While a few examples of each stage only will be given, it will become evident that the procedures are general. Consider as an example of the first stage, existentialism, a philosophy celebrating humans, and their exclusive freedom, and shot through with human chauvinism. Existentialism is (to quote a convenient caricature) a philosophy which emphasises man's freedom to act independently of any laws, natural or otherwise, and according to his own choice. It is a free will philosophy which can be seen as 'a protest against views of the world and policies ... in which humans are regarded as the helpless playthings of historical forces, or as wholly determined by the regular operation of natural 38 Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol.71, No 4: December 1993. There is a residual serious problem here, as to why existence is so important. Why do actual humans and existent tigers matter, not merely virtual ones or possible ones. What is it about existence? There are many items which it would be better did not exist, such as devils, helicopters (for the most part), pollution, erosion and so on. Existence, of favoured sorts, makes for richness, which is a high (if defeasible) virtue. Sartre's philosophy is rendolent with human chauvinism: e.g. Critique of Dialectical Reason p.8. as regards destruction and destroy, is an amazing piece of human chauvinism. While humans may have a greater potentiality for production of value than most other animals, many humans also have a far greater potentiality for evil than most other animals. Historically, the evil producing capacity has dominated. Another example of Sartre's anthropocentism is his "philosophy of the present". Marx's philosophy is similarly rendolent. Productivity is human productivity... . For almost random examples from anti-realism, see DP. 19 processes' (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1978). This anti-determinist perspective is, again, connected with the question of objectivity. Existentialists hold that the only objective external fact independent of the control of human beings is the fact of their being brought into existence, and that death will one day come to terminate that existence. In all other respects it is they who are in control. There are no outside independent laws, of economics, history, nature or whatever, which they cannot deny or shape for themselves. Thus we are all free to choose how we will behave and develop and how we will shape society and nature. It follows that the consequences of our actions are down to us, and therefore if they are unpleasant that is our fault-not the fault of outside forces or external laws. There are no excuses for our not thinking and acting for ourselves and we are 'condemned' to be free because everything is theoretically permitted to us and we therefore carry a heavy burden of responsibility for what we do. As Sartre put it, 'Man is responsible for what he is. The first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for existence squarely on his shoulders' .... We have a duty to face up to this, and not to base our actions thoughtlessly on what is said to be prescribed/or us ('laws' of society, of economics, of nature). That is abdicating responsibility.39 Note the heavy concentration throughout on humans, variously appearing as human beings, we, us, they, and (in singular musculine form) man and he. But, as before 40 , on the one boundary, many humans are incapable of what is presumed, the heavy burden of responsibility and so forth; and, on the other, other agents are, in principle at least, capable of achieving those relevant sorts of freedom that humans can obtain. It is already apparent that once the synthetic setting of highly competent humans is exceeded, notions invoked by existentialism begin to fall apart. For instance, some "wild" animals may enjoy considerable levels of unreflective unagonised freedom while lacking capacity to bear much responsibility. Conversely, there are fairly responsible agents, such as some trapped in determined or deterministic situations, who have no opportunity to exercise freedom. Accordingly too, though human should be replaced by agent of appropriate sort in dechauvinized existentialism, it would hardly suffice to substitute for 'human' any of 'responsible agent', 'freedom exercising agent' or similar-though these substitutions effect some of what was intended, such as exclusion of children, many animals, dementeds and so on. What sort of agent is appropriate? That existentialism can be seen as trying to explain. And for the present we can leave it at that, replacing human throughout by the dummy term, existential agent. This is existentialism partly rectified. At the same primary stage of dechauvinizing existentialism, connected improvements could well be sought in existentialism, such as reducing the driven and elitist ethos. In part this ethos is encouraged by the response of existentialism to what motivates and shapes it, deterministic arguments; for it sees only such "strong" agents as evading deterministic forces. The whole business is rather ironic, as the first driven feature is incompatible with full 39 40 Pepper (Roots) pp.118-9; itals in original. Pepper refers to Sartre 1943 and 1946. As at the beginning of EE, where standard privileged treatment for humans is reviewed and found wanting. 20 freedom, while the second elitist feature is incompatible with the stress on things human, as (like elitist religions) only exceptional agents escape. A promising alternative tries direct confrontation with deterministic arguments, undercutting their scope and grip, and thereby making room for free action in a range of situations (not everywhere between birth and death!) for a wide variety of agents, including lesser, less elite, less stressed and sensitive agents. For the arguments prove vulnerable to selective undermining by careful logical and analytic procedures, 41 methods existentialism itself is loath to deploy (for all that its approach rests upon past entrenched argumentation). Insofar as a main motivation for existentialism in its prevailing ironic form is undiscriminating antideterminism, that motivation too is thereby collapsed, and room is made for a less demanding more relaxed dechauvinized existentialism. As for existentialism, so for a range of other subjects inclined to intrude humans as central to world functioning or intelligibility, a range as apparently diverse as phenomenology and quantum theory, empiricism and theology, pragmatism and cosmology. Quantum theory fits into this range because of its received Copenhagen interpretation, cosmology because of its return to anthropocentrism through adoption of anthropic principles. Both are however readily freed of human shackles, first by replacing humans by "observers" (which for the most part can simply be recording devices), and better, secondly to deagentize completely, by amending interpretation s to dislodge both Copenhagen phenomenolo gy and anthropic principles. 42 For a larger illustration, consider a popular mixture of versions of phenomenology (a fuller elaboration again would disentangle versions, all of which however require similar detoxification). Phenomenol ogy to which existentialism is related .. .is summed up by Nietzsche, who said, 'Objectivity is the main enemy of understanding. It means the myth that there are hard observable facts ... but all the concepts we employ in describing the world and predicting its behaviour are imposed on it by ourselves. We have a choice about what view of the world we adopt.' ... Phenomenology is not just a philosophy which implies that we are not subject to external laws, imposed by and through forces independent of ourselves. It holds that there actually is no world external to and separate from ourselves. There is no 'reality' in the sense of there being an external 'real world' divorced from our own consciousness and capable of existing if we did not exist. Nature cannot exist without ourselves also existing-if we ceased to be, so would it cease, and vice-versa. Therefore what 'the environment' is, and is like, is a function of our own subjective construction of it. The very use of such terms as 'ourselves' and 'human consciousness' in opposition to terms like 'nature' and 'the environment' is inappropriate and shows the extent to which we are immersed in positivist science as our way of seeing the world. For the phenomenologists these terms are meaningless because there is no separation between ourselves and a 'nature' or a 'reality'. We and the world are one-a single united entity. Phenomenology is thus anti-positivist science, opposing ... Cartesian dualism. It does not deal in laws, or in cause-effect relationships consequent on the dualism and neither can it be concerned with analysis-brea king the world into parts ... If we want to know and understand nature we must, as Hume 41 42 For technical details, see Sylvan FWD. On satisfactory ways of accomplishing this second stage see Sylvan (Cosm. Syn). 21 { said in his Treatise on Human Nature in 1737, come to full comprehension of man. For if there is no nature except as structured through human consciousness, knowledge and truth cannot exist independently of man. 43 As with existentialism, there is a similar enormous exorbitant emphases on humans and things humans; humans carry everything. But insofar as humans can perform those feats, so better can a class a appropriate agents, phenomenolo gical agents, who include no incompetents (who might let this world flicker out of existence, or worse). Phenomenolo gy is a full immersion human chauvinism. Fashionable contemporary empiricisms, normally taken as rivals to phenomenolo gy, are incomplete immersion analogues. While a few properties, primary properties of basic physics, are separated out as human independent, the rest, the phenomenolo gical mass, are categorised as responsedependent, and treated phenomenologically. 44 Take, for example, aesthetic features, which include certain ecological features. Nowadays humans can grow up with the assumption that aesthetic qualities, indeed all "response dependent" qualities, are features of humans, not in any way objective. So it can be seriously, if ridiculously, hypothesized that what is (considered) beautiful, for instance of depends on how the human gene-pool is composed. As before, humans are readily displaced in favour of appropriate agents. But, for the most part, these agents too are otiose. While the first stage 1s the main stage with agentocentric philosophies like extistentialism, there is a second stage, which comprises significantly more than pointing out how much, how much of importance, such philosophies leave out by their narrow concentration. What is left out includes, to begin, all those times and places where there are no agents, rich worlds, devoid of relevant agents, and the like. But that is only the beginning of the business. For agents have been infiltrated or inserted in all sorts of settings where they have no business to be or to transact. Against the ancient and formerly honorable practice of agent invocation, pushed primarily for explanatory purposes, 45 agent detachment and agent elimination campaigns have periodically been mounted (e.g. conspicuously , but not only, in classic Greece, when it became clearly appreciated that there could be causes without agents, during the Enlightenmen t, and in Frege' s propositional ization program). Deagentizatio n, typically coupled with deanthropization, can be, and should be, pushed much further. Agents, often evidence of immature, even primitive, philosophy, still lurk everywhere in philosophy. Agent-detach ment themes, still struggling against an unenlightened opposition, include: objects, including worlds, without perceivers or sensors, nonexistent items without conceivers, propositions without proposers, assumptions without assumers, values without 43 44 45 Pepper p.199 (where references are supplied). We shall not stop off for expository adjustment or for any critique of this material. For main elements of such a critique, see however DP chapter 11 and JB. Thus thesis that all properties are response dependent merges empiricism with European phenomenology. Deluded explanatory purposes, for agents themselves have in turn to be explained. I 22 t valuers, causation without causers (or intentional agents), organisation without organisers, wilderness without wilderness managers, land (or property) without owners or stewards, regulation without regulators, selection without selectors, and purposes without purposers. 46 But without humans who does philosophy? Well, in the old days, God of course, most gods, the Devil, demiurges, gifted spirits and so on. At any time duly accomplished agents. While it is easy to see how ethics and philosophy could in principle flourish given only suitably accomplished agents, and no humans, namely the agents do something like what a few humans hereabouts do, still it may be less easy for many to see how these subjects can function without agents. But it is straightforward, is it not? A philosophy stands as a system of propositions. And propositions do not need agents, proposers, or whatever. Nor do systems. It is here that blockage may occur, for two reasons: First, because of the idealistic idea that there are no statements without staters. Second, because of the mistaken assumption that a system of propositions standing on its own involves an obnoxious platonism. No such assumption is made. Third, part of the struggle has been conducted before, in the tussle between psychologism and its opposite in logic and associated regions (e.g. mathematics, philosophy of mathematics etc.), in the tussle between Husserl and Frege (to name two prominent parties). Although the issues have been rejoined more recently, it is still widely supposed that anti-psychologism triumphed. Its success is, to some extent, mere appearance. For all that, anti-psychologism is here extended much further, right across philosophy. Appendix. 1. Examples showing divergence of utilitarianism from consequentialism. Consider two different actions with some set of consequence s, one (A) done deliberately, one (B) unintended. Then suppose, for one sort of case, the outcome is disastrous. Not only is A normally regarded as much worse than B, e.g. arson than a naturally occurring fire such as lightening strike, but further fuller utility assessments should give analogous results, e.g. the satisfaction of the arsonist could be given a high negative rating. Utilitarianism itself is but a well-tempered egoism: egoism extended to substituting others. That cannot so plausibly be charged of consequentialism. Utilitarianism has been associated with the "greed is good" ideology of the 1980s. The association has point (so Singer tries, desperately, to disassociate utilitarianism). Suppose it is said that the 80s, were a decade of greed (as so depicted in many movies) but the 90s is a decade of ethics (despite counterevidence). But nothing has changed in underlying ideologies, in ethics or economics! Appendix 2. Inadequacy of standard ethics. The inadequacy of standard ethics for green purposes has been recognised, if obliquely and perversely, by many critics of the idea of (deep) green ethics (e.g. McCloskey). They 46 The very controversial tlast theme is argued in Sylvan 90 [purpose], where most of these various detachment themes are assembled. Obviously there are many more such themes. 23 l have proceeded to argue that there couldn't be such an ethics because none of the standard ethics would serve. But the argument fails because standard ethics does not exhaust ethics. There are some prospects of a general proof of inadequacy from what has been developed so far. Standard forms are restricted to proper subsets of agents, whereas ethics in full flower applies to all agents. Standard ethics leaves out much of the subject, all the deep part. References William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol.71, No 4: December 1993. ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to insert a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deepgreen theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed, reorganised into a tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which has roots that stretch back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits elaboration separate from deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through valuational and ethical basis. This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby one central area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing prevailing policies and institutions. At the core of deep-green theory, as of authentic deep ecology, lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes these positions deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers or what counts for them. Value then does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are, as it is often put (without however any commitment thereby to dubious essentialist or absolute objectivist positions), intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind or linkages with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor (pace deep ecology) does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, and accordingly may be found in nature, it is not encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so subject to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecological features afford criteria for value, and should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing total value. From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may precede and succeed all such valuers; tfiat is, these things can persist, their values intact, without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, and concepts with conceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, relating valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions deliberately chosen suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake, which cannot however be got away with, to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate 'relation-to-values', in which inconvenient values are locked away), not to remove valuers, considered unproblematic, from view. The mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal reduction of mainstream modern philosophy, of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of valuers. A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something "projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, desires or such like. The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for them self. This reduction too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomonalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achievers satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thoughtexperiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values are not apart from the actual world, then, merely projected onto it by valuers, or else locked up in certain valuers (in the fashion of Carterian intensions ). Values are part of the world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will trip over shadows or shapes. Value like the shape and taste, is an3attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like colour and taste and their determinate forms (red, acidic, etc), a universa l , distributed across things, individuals and wholes. Like shape and colour, value is a high-level universal. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the standard, but exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as redness or yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour traingles); shapes like value pertain to wholes as well as particulars, and links with gestalts rather better than colour; shape discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour, which is, under physicalism, prized off objects and allegedly relocated in creatures or in their interrelation with colourless physical things. Shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the anology can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approximated by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does, and not something else, like some specialised mathematical or economic thing. It does not contract to some mark of value or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modem economics into (expected) utility or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-inexchange (price). Value means what it means, and has meant: worth; and it ties with general assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other cut-down thereof. Price, for example, may fail entirely to reflect worth, it may have little to do with goodness of product. The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. part of the motivation for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are than a direct evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural and subcultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured feature, and cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes from more sweeping ideologic al commitments, such as the varieties of materiali sm (physicalism esp.) or scientism. As has become apparent, attempted reductions of value come too in a variety of forms subjective, which made use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and the like or subjective aggregations, such as community preferences or utility; or objectiviely naturalistic, which enrol value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary development as value - consequential, w~ch consider only outcomes, or purely motivational, which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes - straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgements into reducing statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing features), or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated within theses schemes, or accommodated at all. The idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other knowledge, where philosophy has conspicuously failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current science, physics especially, does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that such value-freedom is a myth, that much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While those engaged purely in purer science may have the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape. Though deep-green value theory is thoroughly nonreductive, it does not sacrifice warranted claims to scientific and logical adequacy thereby. The reductionistic dichotomies are avoided and repudiated. Value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce. Evaluative judgements are certainly not subjective; but nor are they objection in an absolutist sense; they are nonjective, that is, neither. Somewhat similarly, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter. In any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow, aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is covertly assumed). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods, which consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account) organised by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can be extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing , which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational comp~nents. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and disvalue. The basis of perceptio n is sensation , the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy emphasis as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of asking whether the next or a relevant judgemen t fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical practice of devising cases and comparing them with the cases in hand can be worked in under this procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails to gain support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency in North America under the rubric "reflectiv e equilibrium". Observe, however, that any equilibriu m gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problems arise and further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreduc tionistic value theory can function. Whether that theory is an appropria te environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed. Enhancement methods reveal too tRat value systems are not uniquely determined, any more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks, such as those intended to reflect truth. There can be, there evidently are, rival value systems, measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics, rival physical and biological theories, and rival coherent religions. Chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which take no requisite account of many environmental items, likewise cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social practices; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they do not succumb to definitive refutation (for the reason that requirements of morality, of universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can be repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Of course a range of argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying equality, can be put to work to move valuers who adhere to other structures, often enough successfully. Emotional presentation of environmental items, by way of new experience and information, is important among these. In short, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep green theory nor authentic deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From their viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior , and marked down accordingly, while economism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge, and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in these times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green positions, against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism. The value system pluralism of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice, insofar as it is consciously made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrained choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preference- information or even desire-belief modellin1); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more accurately than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In certain significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a noreduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic so also is the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of worlds and of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing environmental theory is to displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented as absolute, which incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its organisation. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental values and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so on. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given non-interference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely • • 8 not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason; not to jeopardis e the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystem s, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis form part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. As permissib ility, obligatio n and respect principles can be explained through the valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles. Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles. Deep-gre en ethical theory is much more than just another non-redu ctionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human is not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinis m, a type of class chauvini sm which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinis m is avoided through a natural annular model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the categorie s of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Western ethical theories have not merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human affairs, but have been blantantly chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discrimin ately and unjustifiably bias in favour of humans (of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems should be superseded; it is not a matter of simple adjustments or extensions. Deep-gre en value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values. But explainin g their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory. 9 * Richard Sylvan* RMB 683 B ungendore NSW 2621 For more on deep-green theory and deep ecology, see for instance essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra. Annex 1. Most people inherit their value framework along with their culture. Many never do any substantial overhaul. Many indeed are not active or responsible valuers. But in these respects, values are not so different from other things. Some people are poor judges of shape; many never learn to distinguish plants, or to discriminate among wines. Likewise for other choices, options, major changes, metaphysical and even political. Mostly that a choice has been made or inherited and is incorporated in the subculture is not noticed, along with its not been observed how arbitrary many of the choices and resulting structures are (in Foucault has emphasized). Of course it is often not in the interests of the power elite, who control media outlets, etc., that this sort of arbitrariness should be widely known, and alternative structures considered and perhaps experimented with. Choices occur where distinctive circumstance prevail. For instance, there is serious scarcity; food supplies in particular are threatened (e.g. with being out of reach is price, with pollution, etc.). Differently, circumstances lead to conversions, as when a new ideology sweeps through, enthusiam generated by some charismatic figures. / bits from chapter 2 There is another important elasticity. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted attempt to build on universalizability requirement or the equivalent into the very motion of ethics. The evident result is that selfish systems of induction and conduct, systematic egoisms for instance are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be ethical? become vexed. 1 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is problematic in this formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethical do have much to recommend them, let us coin a convenient portmonteau term condensing the chancy "universalerable ethics", namely euthics. (Conveniently then an euthical supports unethical, which is what from a properly ethical stance it is!) There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single or isolated individual (even so, a Causal ethics is understood, as is egoisticmorality). But that pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a tribal morality and an upperclass ethics are not defective on significance grounds, even if they are objectional on substantive grounds. Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out by such requirements as that like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based on relevant differences. 2 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a Greek, or that there are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been proposed as such a difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial difference). These sorts of responses, which were longer accepted, are no longer acceptable, because the differences put up are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly enough, though ethical relevance itself lacks an adequate explanation). Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view, universality, commits in a extensive appel to authority (p.11). What is offered: an appeal to usage. 'the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the individual'. [It often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct in ethical grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me. I wont address myself to a larger audience' (p.10). That On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer lmpractual ethics (Singer aquates moral with ethical). Singer does not really have an answer to Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad idea; mainly he tries to put down shuffles that have been presented or decisive. 2 These requirements are presented byu Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated. depends on the conduct concerned. More important the audience does not need to be much larger, certainly not universal: my family or law will suffice often enough. J. From Chap 4 Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods, which consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account) organised by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can be extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy emphasis as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical practice of devising cases and compari ng them with the cases in hand can be worked in under this procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibr ium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails to gain support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency in North Americ a under the rubric "reflect ive equilibr ium". Observe , howeve r, that any equilibr ium gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problem s arise and further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodo logy of a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary parts. It does howeve r surmou nt a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principl e a nonredu ctionist ic value theory can function . Whethe r that theory is an appropr iate environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed. end The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a certain desirabl e (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep green theory nor authenti c deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From their viewpoint, rival narrowe r and shallow er systems are definitely inferior , and marked down accordingly, while econom ism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at state bo':lndaries). However a critical pluralism does acknow ledge, and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in these times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green position s, against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism. The value system pluralis m of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underly ing metaphysical pluralis m of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice, insofar as it is conscio usly made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrai ned choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds accordin g to a standard value-in formati on analysis (regular ly oversim plified howeve r to a preferen ceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more accurately than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In certain significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic so also is the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of worlds and of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing environmental theory is to displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented as absolute, which incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its organisation. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental values and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying· obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so on. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be given for interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environme ntal interferenc e or modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environme ntal items is founded on such interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely • not to put others (other preference havers) into a dis preferred state for no good reason; • not to jeopardise the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis form part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. As permissibility, obligation and respect principles can be explained through the valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles. Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles. Deep-green ethical theory is much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human is not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is avoided through a natural annular model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the categories of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories have not merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human affairs, but have been blantantly chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discriminately and unjustifiably bias in favour of humans (of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems should be superseded; it is not a matter of simple adjustments or extensions. Deep-green value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values. But explaining their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory. Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to insert a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deep-green theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed, reorganised into a tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which has roots that stretch back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits elaboration separate from deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through valuational and ethical basis. This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby one central area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing prevailing policies and institutions. ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS: their relevance to one another There is rich range of incompatible claims about the mutual interelations of the two ancient subjects. Most of these claims appear mistaken. Sorting out something of what looks right is a daunting task, a small beginning on which is attempted here. Initial severe difficulties derive from the vagueness, in determinacy and problematicality of the relata, both of which are ill-understood by philosophers metaphysics especially. Many there are who think that metaphyscis coincides with ontology, the study (description, explanation and understanding) of what exists. 1 The general study of what there is, sistology, which includes ontology as a very proper part, is only one facet of metaphysics (unless it is presumed that items somehow supply also all propositions concerning them). For sistology is the totality of things side of metaphysics, there is also the totality of true propositions side (propositionology, for a nice term). Metaphysics also comprises the study of the very general attributes of this and other universe and of what accounts for these attributes (or propositional functions). In technical terms, then, a metaphysics amount to a very general and comprehensi ve constrained model; and metaphysics to the plural assembly of these metaphysics. 2 Each metaphysics will be constrained (as will become clear through examples given below) through modelling conditions or postulates (which delimit how "altimate reality" is according to that system). Metaphysics is sometimes construed more comprehencisvely to include some or all of epistemology (knowledge of "ultimate reality" for instance), some of or all of other branches of philosophy, perhaps all of philosophy. Plainly, if metaphysics, so expansively construed, includes ethics, then their relation is straightforward, metaphysics includes ethics. But we shall not adopt such construals. Whereas metaphysics concerns features of universes, ethics is a study of moral values and principles, and of rules and practices of conduct. A case can be made out that an ethic is outlined through its distributions of values, in terms of which both deontic features (rights, obligations, etc) and axiological features (goodness, etc) can be discerned. (Utilitarian can afford a crude exemplar). So, without loss of generality, I can concentrate on the relation of value theory to metaphysics. Now a value theory does not derive from a purely naturalistic metaphysic, by virtue of a rectified naturalistic fallacy. But, firstly even is a value theory may be influenced or even construed by such a metaphysics. For example if the theory rules out all but primary qualities 2 What there is according to most Western philosophers, still labouring under the probleminducing Ontological Assumption. For such a confusion of ontology with metaphysics see Forrest p.3. For the bsis of this large (and estrageous) technical leap, see DP. 2 as some sort of constructs, the value qualities will have to be explained as constructs, projections or similar. Secondly, a metaphysics is unlikely to be purely naturalistic. Metaphysics is not a value-free enterprise; a metaphysics typically presumes a range of presumptions, including archivative ones (deeper examples include assumptions of primary, e.g. of certain sorts of objects, of importance, e.g. of what exists, of implicit world selection, e.g. the world is Newtonian, Copenhagen quantum, or obitives). An ethics does not determine a meta-ethics or therefore a metaphysics. Nor does the converse hold. A metaphysics does not in general determine an ethics, but is compatible with many. Against the stock determination and priority claims, I want to oppose interaction and no priority themes. Determination claims are commonplace in philosophers who wish to wield the big stock of dominant science to settle ethics (or mataethics). For instance Collicott asserts that "intrinsic value in nature ... remains ... painfully inconsistent with the ... modern scientific world-view' (Celbration of Robton p.14, similarly p.22, whence CD 1. Modern scientific metaphysics entails there are no intrinsic values in nature. This is not a lapse (though soon Collicott will weaken his determination claims) because almost immediately Collicott goes on to assert CD2. 'A value neutral nature is ... an immediate inference from the institutionalised metaphysical foundations of modern science' (p.15). Given some large assumptions, most conspiciously that the metaphysics involved is that of British empiricism, the claim CD2 become incontestable. For under that empiricism, as elaborated by Locke and Hurve, non primary qualities like value and colour are not part of or in nature, but substantially subjective in character. However insitutionalized those foundations an important issue - it has since become apparent that there are at least several parts of operative sciences, such a classical and quantum; namely a core calculus or formalism; operational rules for connecting the formalism with testable data and making in ..... applications; and layers of interpretation. It is in these separable, and variable, larger of interpretation that metaphysical and elaborative princi;es begin to enter conspicuously. The "institutionalized" interpretation is but one among the interpretations that can be fitted to classical formalism. It is an interpretation incorperating some major and controverisial philosophical theories, such as the reference theory and verificationism. Rival interpretations are feasible and were developed, for instance by the Scottish comon-sense school. Such rival foundations do not yield a value-free value neutral nature. Collicott calls upon Rolston 'to provide a persuasive alternative to the integral set of Carterian-Gohblein-Humean assumptions that render the subjective provenance of value so fundamental to the modern scientific outlook' (p.16). But Rolston hardly needs to do any such thing 3 : it has already been done, in various 3 Rolston makes giving an appropriate interpretation for more difficult than he need by conceeding "seconddoary" qualities to the reductionistic opposition. Thus, regressively: 'the greenness of the tree is in my hand, but it looks as though the tree is 3 ways, and, in any case, as Collicott soon observes, 'the modern scientific worldview is obsolete' (p.19). The property for a full value-in-nature theory are little better under postmodern quantum theory, Collicott however insinuates, then they were before. Under a Copenhagen interpretations, which he adopts, prospects look worse. Abruptly too Collicott switches from a determination thesis, such as CD, to a slacker and more plausible if vaguer linkage. The linkage appears in different nonequivalent forms: CL 1. A science, such as 'the new physics might play an architectonic role in our eventual thinking about nature (and human society)' (p.23 itals added). Subsequently, 'architectonic role' is replaced through the as vague 'inspired by' and more specific 'mapped out'. CL2. 'A value thoery [may be] inspired by, and mapped on, ... quantum physics (p.25, where reduction and derviation are now explicitly repudiated!). Such a value theory is, it is claimed, 'particularly congenial to an ecologically informed environmental ethics' (p.25). Whether it is, or not, depends on other-things, such as the sort of interpretation of quantum theory, the congeniality of that with ecology. No doubt values in nature without values is excluded under the Copenhagen interpretation, so is much else that makes good sense. Fortunately there are congenial alternatives. REFERENCES P.R.H. Forrest, Speculation and Experience the New Metaphysics, Inaugural Public Lecture, University of New England, N.S.W., 1987. J.B. Callicott, 'Ralston's Environmental Ethics: A critical celbration', critical response at APA, Oakland, March 1989. R. Sylvan, Deep Plurallism, Australian National University, Research School of Social Science, 1993. green. OUt there are only ....... waves... . The greenness is projected, more factural in my head and apparently hung on the tree'. What a ridiculous idea. ' ,,. ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions. Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy. At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value. From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact, without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape.:.perceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate 'relation-to-values', in which inconvenierZt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of valuers. A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something "projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even emotionally clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like. The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will trip over shadows or mere shapes. Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby more immune to reductionist strategies thJn secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approximated by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation thereof. The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism, which leave no space for immaterial values. As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility; or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary development as value; • consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes; • straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgements into reducing statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all. Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive. In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce. Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist 4 fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter. The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuously failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape. For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow, aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by coherence methods. The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is, secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on. As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection. Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part, coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however, that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed. Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality, universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new information and experience. The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation. The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice, insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves value essentially. Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant destructive ideologies, which (each of th]m) assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments. Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place. What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and respectful use. An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely, • not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason; • not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason; • not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired. These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory. Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the ethical stage (or :xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Western ethical theories, and the institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans). Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values. Richard Sylvan* RMB 683 Bungendore NSW 2621 * Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra. This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not features they had at any time requested), for their magazine.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document /' &*? /<^z^ V <k/ ---- ---------------------------------- ----- r>^^# x > /■  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 6, Item 1768: Notes on environmental ethics Description An account of the resource Note, one item digitised from item 1768. Notes housed in folder of "papers on ecology, environmental ethics etc ". Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 6, Item 1768 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [1] leaf. 798.3 KB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:db9559a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:db9559a</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Second Bookcase - Bottom Shelf Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Second Bookcase > Bottom Shelf Box 6: Environmental Ethics https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/6743128b35122b4d5ceeaa8b36929812.pdf 569009a6b472a7b1abe83ab34e8cbc4f PDF Text Text These areas were also among the most significant research programs in Australian philosophy in the 80's (see my ‘Prospects for regional philosophy in Australasia’). To set out very briefly why these programs did not flourish. Essentially the power-strati lure in philosophy decided it did not care for the developments that appeared to be occuring in parts of Australian philosophy, and in ANU philosophy in particular. Among other things, a small campaign was run against my regional themes and research project ideas. I was blocked in advancement and Australian philosophy has been in any power acquisition and appropriate support lately turning back to a subservient empiricism, concentrating again on such established topics as philosophy of mind. In the main I d-repped-out of attempwg to organise philosophy and other projects at or through ANU. 3. Chief past research accomplishments:My past research divides into two broad categories: logic and metaphysics, and other, other comprising, to begin with, environmental philosophy and issues. In the 1960s my research fell almost entirely into the first category, whence I (or Routley at any rate) have been typed ever since as a logician. As the 1970s progressed my other research broadened from environmental ethics and issues (initially mainly forestry and nuclear topics) to include relevant social theory, environmental politics and economics, and naturally enough, the point of all the activity involved, that is almost to say, ultimate questions. A. Logic and metaphysics :• Object-theory: Development of the general theory of all items, with special emphasis upon nonexistent objects and among them impossible items. From an interdisciplinary viewpoint, important kinds of nonexistent items comprehended by the theory are fictional items generally and theoretical objects; but there are many other kinds: historic objects, mental and perceptual items, vague objects, variable items, processes, and so on. This work, which established the general theory, sistology, as a viable logical enterprise, began in early 1960s; investigations up to 1980 were collected in Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Investigations continue; an improved theory has been found, and further kinds of items better comprehended. • Relevant logics: Advances in intensional logic, especially modal logics and relevant logics, and their applications. Much of my work in the 1960s was devoted to studies of the properties of non-normal modal logics and implicational variants thereof, and their applications. This work was initiated independently of European and American work, which I only learnt about while I progressed in a somewhat different direction. More significant results include semantics and algebras for relevant logics, resolution of many open questions, as well as new ranges of systems, and interesting results concerning them. Many of the results reached up to 1982 are recorded in Relevant Logics and Their Rivals. In the 1980s more and more of my technical work went into syntheses of and applications of sociative (i.e. broadly relevant) logics, systems that matter both for critical notions in philosophy of science and for a satisfactory theory of reasoning. �• Discovery of universal semantics, for all logical systems. Corollaries include general theories of denotation and truth; applications include rehabilitation of several damaged or defunct metaphysical theories. • Paradoxes and dialethic logic: Investigation of paradoxes, and ensuing therefrom two broad lines of work: first, significance and context theories and a study of incompleteness, and second, paraconsistent and dialethic (i.e. explicitly inconsistent) theories and a study of inconsistency. Both lines lead to much work determining the extent and character of such theories, and establishing important results concerning them. Both lines of pursuit issued in large books (one with Leonard Goddard, the other with Graham Priest); but in both lines much unfinished business remains. My first research in Australia in the early 1960s focussed on paradoxes; perhaps I am at last in a position to outline main details of the theory. • Deep Plurallism: By the 1980s it had become difficult, in philosophy, to escape the fashionable issue of realism and its main rivals, anti-realism and relativism. I soon realised that I could (for object-theoretic reasons) be satisfied with none of the stock options, and so began investigation of a radical pluralism, which in due course deepened into deep plurallism. On the way I undertook investigations of limitations regarding realism, limits to knowledge, of ontological and alethic relativity, and of idealism and coherence. A* Other: from environmental ethics to ultimate questions. • Environmental ethics, and removal of human chauvinism. None of the prevailing ethical theories were satsifactory, all succumbed to environmental counter-examples (which is one reason why environmental ethics is not applied ethics); all were unduly chauvinistic. New theoretical investigation was required, and was undertaken through the 1970s (though the resulting theory has never been assembled in one source). This foundational work centered on value theory, was broadened in the 1980s to include, for instance, a new deontic theory accommodating moral dilemmas, a critique of rational decision theory and development of a satisizing alternative. • Environmental philosophy and related social topics, including nuclear energy and obligations to future generations, war and peace, population and immigration, predation and cannibilism, animal intentionality, environmental interference and management. One topic merits separate listing. • Studies concerning forests and forestry. While much of this investigatory work concentrated on plantation forestry and other intensive forestry such as clearfelling and woodchipping, it also included studies on forest practices in neighbouring countries, alternative forestry, forestry economics, forest typology, down to details of specific forests. • Environmental and philosophical metatheory. Topics, encroaching on theoretical sociology, included rival social paradigms, the bearings of culture on environmental attitudes, cultural and regional impacts on ideology, regional philosophy. The last topic led naturally into � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document These areas were also among the most significant research programs in Australian philosophy in the 80's (see my ‘Prospects for regional philosophy in Australasia’). To set out very briefly why these programs did not flourish. Essentially the power-strati lure in philosophy decided it did not care for the developments that appeared to be occuring in parts of Australian philosophy, and in ANU philosophy in particular. Among other things, a small campaign was run against my regional themes and research project ideas. I was blocked in advancement and Australian philosophy has been in any power acquisition and appropriate support lately turning back to a subservient empiricism, concentrating again on such established topics as philosophy of mind. In the main I d-repped-out of attempwg to organise philosophy and other projects at or through ANU. 3. Chief past research accomplishments:My past research divides into two broad categories: logic and metaphysics, and other, other comprising, to begin with, environmental philosophy and issues. In the 1960s my research fell almost entirely into the first category, whence I (or Routley at any rate) have been typed ever since as a logician. As the 1970s progressed my other research broadened from environmental ethics and issues (initially mainly forestry and nuclear topics) to include relevant social theory, environmental politics and economics, and naturally enough, the point of all the activity involved, that is almost to say, ultimate questions. A. Logic and metaphysics :• Object-theory: Development of the general theory of all items, with special emphasis upon nonexistent objects and among them impossible items. From an interdisciplinary viewpoint, important kinds of nonexistent items comprehended by the theory are fictional items generally and theoretical objects; but there are many other kinds: historic objects, mental and perceptual items, vague objects, variable items, processes, and so on. This work, which established the general theory, sistology, as a viable logical enterprise, began in early 1960s; investigations up to 1980 were collected in Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Investigations continue; an improved theory has been found, and further kinds of items better comprehended. • Relevant logics: Advances in intensional logic, especially modal logics and relevant logics, and their applications. Much of my work in the 1960s was devoted to studies of the properties of non-normal modal logics and implicational variants thereof, and their applications. This work was initiated independently of European and American work, which I only learnt about while I progressed in a somewhat different direction. More significant results include semantics and algebras for relevant logics, resolution of many open questions, as well as new ranges of systems, and interesting results concerning them. Many of the results reached up to 1982 are recorded in Relevant Logics and Their Rivals. In the 1980s more and more of my technical work went into syntheses of and applications of sociative (i.e. broadly relevant) logics, systems that matter both for critical notions in philosophy of science and for a satisfactory theory of reasoning. • Discovery of universal semantics, for all logical systems. Corollaries include general theories of denotation and truth; applications include rehabilitation of several damaged or defunct metaphysical theories. • Paradoxes and dialethic logic: Investigation of paradoxes, and ensuing therefrom two broad lines of work: first, significance and context theories and a study of incompleteness, and second, paraconsistent and dialethic (i.e. explicitly inconsistent) theories and a study of inconsistency. Both lines lead to much work determining the extent and character of such theories, and establishing important results concerning them. Both lines of pursuit issued in large books (one with Leonard Goddard, the other with Graham Priest); but in both lines much unfinished business remains. My first research in Australia in the early 1960s focussed on paradoxes; perhaps I am at last in a position to outline main details of the theory. • Deep Plurallism: By the 1980s it had become difficult, in philosophy, to escape the fashionable issue of realism and its main rivals, anti-realism and relativism. I soon realised that I could (for object-theoretic reasons) be satisfied with none of the stock options, and so began investigation of a radical pluralism, which in due course deepened into deep plurallism. On the way I undertook investigations of limitations regarding realism, limits to knowledge, of ontological and alethic relativity, and of idealism and coherence. A* Other: from environmental ethics to ultimate questions. • Environmental ethics, and removal of human chauvinism. None of the prevailing ethical theories were satsifactory, all succumbed to environmental counter-examples (which is one reason why environmental ethics is not applied ethics); all were unduly chauvinistic. New theoretical investigation was required, and was undertaken through the 1970s (though the resulting theory has never been assembled in one source). This foundational work centered on value theory, was broadened in the 1980s to include, for instance, a new deontic theory accommodating moral dilemmas, a critique of rational decision theory and development of a satisizing alternative. • Environmental philosophy and related social topics, including nuclear energy and obligations to future generations, war and peace, population and immigration, predation and cannibilism, animal intentionality, environmental interference and management. One topic merits separate listing. • Studies concerning forests and forestry. While much of this investigatory work concentrated on plantation forestry and other intensive forestry such as clearfelling and woodchipping, it also included studies on forest practices in neighbouring countries, alternative forestry, forestry economics, forest typology, down to details of specific forests. • Environmental and philosophical metatheory. Topics, encroaching on theoretical sociology, included rival social paradigms, the bearings of culture on environmental attitudes, cultural and regional impacts on ideology, regional philosophy. The last topic led naturally into  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 169, Item 414: Untitled document on significant research programs in Australian philosophy in the 1980s Subject The topic of the resource Typescript with handwritten emendations. Description An account of the resource Title in collection finding aid: RS: Untitled ts 2p Marked ‘Re RLR start’ Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box <span>169, Item 414</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:06b30f2">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:06b30f2</a> Box 169: From Dr Ross Brady Como House Como House > Floor > Large Carton https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/48e20123bb1a0afc4c75d56b9df2ed2b.pdf 3a5b14ed1024ae543ea015e4c65d7a7e PDF Text Text (SECTIC;. i'v'j 174 /al Plumwood 1 and Richard Rout ley Peter like Singer, so-e basic wish Philosophic to question, assumptions underpinning estern can's attitudes loaros nis role in the moral universe ana his relationship to nonhunan animals. 1 *vai •Plumwood has done most of ner work under ner married name: • v a 1 “Routley. *ln deference, however, to her wish tc establish herself under •Plur »ooi that name ■ill oe used throughout this work. In a passage reiininscent of Singer's call for examination of unguestioneo assumptions, they state: ..nodern moral philosophers -- fulfilling tneir now established function of providing a theoretical superstructure to explain and justify contemporary rather than .oral sensibilities questioning fundamental asumptions -- tend to argue tnat tne bias toward human interests, which is an integral part of going ethical theories, is not just hich is both possible and aesiraole tc eliminate, out another form of class cnauvinism is ratner a restriction nctated by tne logic of evaluative an- .oral concepts, ana tnat the �Page 2 coherent, possible, or viable alternative to the "human chauvinism" of. standard etnical theories. 2 there is no “Richard “Routley “sand\& “Vai “Routley. '‘Against the “inevitability of “Human 2 “Cnauvinisr . “>ln\a “Goodpaster, “r.,“E. "&ar At *K.“ . “Sayre, "o.eds\&. “ttric s ano “Problems of tne 21st “Century. “ one “Lame, “.-Diversity of "-otre “Dame “t ress, If class cnauvinism Jo-7. differential, "is discriminatory and inferior treatnent (oy sufficiently many members of the class) for items outside the class, for which there is not suiXiciect chauvinism is tne form of justification"3, class chauvinism in then which human the species, uaao Sapleur., substantially morally discriminates against everything nonhuman by an insufficiently justified assumption of human rnoral uniqueness. “R, “Routley “4<and\i. *v, “Routley, “Hunan "Chauvinisi? and “Environmental “Ethics. “kln\& “ annison, “D.“S., c“Ror>bie, “m.“A., “aand\& “R. “Routley, “Environmental “Philosophy. “Canberra, “A“ "u, 1980; 96. *&eds\&. The contention that man is tne sole subject of value and �Page J morality fallacy. by definition This runs contention aground takes the the seif-validating ana unchallengeable; consideration oeing exclusive to on a definitional definition ot moral human realm to be The fallacy of the definitional move is that of believing that by converting the substantive evaluative theses of nu<an chauvinism to matters of definition they become somehow exempt from challenge or need for justification, iris is comparable to justifying discriminatory menbership for a club by referring to the rules, similarly conceived as self-validating and exempt from question or need of justification. 4 v v r'r sr °Ut3sy "&andX& "v • *Routiey. 'Against the 'Inevitability of 'Human In this case the club rules define the Moral Club. These definitions can upon either Physical characteristics or a set of properties that are logically connected with qualification for moral consideration, it is onvious that the physical characteristics are not morally relevant: * x It is impossible to restrict moral terms to particular species, when species distinctions are defined in terms of physical characteristics which are not morally relevant, •ore generally, an attempt to derive a logically necessary connection net eet humanity itself and the applicability of morality is bound to fail, for creatures anatomically ana zoologically aistinct fro hurans >hicii arc identical with humans in terms ot morally relevant features arc logically possible, upsetting any logical linkage. 5 5• and Houtley. W Koutley ■■ Against the inevitability of Human Chauvinism; 39. X rnerefore , the characteristics neeoed to support the defintional move have to be other than physical characteristics. However, if properties logically tiea „itn moral considerations are examined closely, it is fauna that they do not support the exclusive eligibility of hur ans to tne Moral Clue. Three conditions or adequacy ore set down for making tne Clue exclusive to humans: �Page 4 1. The set of characteristics must he possessed oy at least all properly functioning humans, since tc omit any si unit leant aroup usually considered subject to iroral consiceratin, suer as infants, young children, prinitive tribesmen, etc., ano to allow that it was ierrissiole to treat these groups in the ay it is considered permissible to treat non-humans, that is, as mere instruments, would certainly lc repugnant to modern moral sensibilities and would offend common intuitions as to the orotherhood of mar., the vie- that all humans are possessors of inalienable rights, Thus human chauvinism , if it is to produce a coherent theory which does not unacceptably rule out some groups of humans, must find so e set cf features cc on to the rust diverse ' en ters of hu" anKiriu.... (luu loiax Auclusloa 2. in order tor nu an chauvinis; to be justified, this sec ot characteristics ust not be possessed by any non-nuran. Uiie ioXai i-xclusiau 3. The set of characteristics must oe not merely norally relevant but sufficient to justify, in a ncn-circuiar way, the cut-oil of moral consideration at exactly tne right point. If human chauvinism is to avoio the charge of arbitrariness and unjustifiability and to demonstrate its inevitability ana tne impossibility of alternatives, it rust erneroe from tne characteristics why items not having tne f ay oe used as i: ere instruments to serve tne interests of those which do possess tne . b (lac Xb^Xxxi&euXai Ju&xxxXcaXXQa liS&UuaXlbU ) b “Routley and "Routley. 39-40. "Against tne "Inevitability of "Human "Chauvinism J But tne properties usually assumed to give humans exclusive entry into tne moral Cluo when tested against these conditions of adequacy either admit nonhumans or exclude humans. Thirty-two such properties are tested oy Plumwood and Routely XuXb£ alia, using tools, using language, self-awareness, ceing a■are of the Inevitability ot one s own death, being aoie to answer questions about moral issues sucn as human chauvinism, having interests, having projects, belonging to a social community, being morally responsible tor one's actions, etc., and all are found anting on at least one count. �Page 5 However, the conditions of adequacy night oe challenged as too stmgent. Yet, if tne '<oral Club is to be exclusive to humans and neither arbitrary nor unjustified, then condition 1 - tnat all functioning humans possess the property - must apply, etherise tne requirerents for Club member snip are drawn too narrowly and some humans are excludes. against this condition it might be argued tnat numan is too __ _____ _ _ and it is only persons (where oread________ in scope , . re j_eVdnt_ "para parametre) person is defined by some morally relevant e’tre) who should De considered, this would mean that those humans buran , ,---- -— -no did not qualify as persons aouIo net oe eligible for treatment as oncers of tne oral Clue or if they tie treated as members that eligibiility was arbitrary and unjust. it it is the case that’all humans (persons) must possess this property, then it must also be the case tnat no nonhuman possesses it, otherwise an Argument From Analogy and Anoiiioiy applies. if some nonhumans possess the property or properties then the requirements for Club membership are ara^n too broadly ana some nonnumans are eligible _J. Finally, it is not enough to separate the eligible - ’ J ~ ' •- from the ineligible (or pernaps the edible from tne inediblej, it must oe snown why the ineiigiole are not only ineligible for membership, but why tney cannot even oe consldereo for membership, otherwise tne difference in treatment is not justified. To carry tne Club metaphor .. a little farther, pernaps too far, while remoers n.a, ay h-.nave certain privileges, this aoes not necessarily mean tnat that in addition to not enjoying these special privileges, nonrnembers can also oe un*arrantly deprived of benefits common to memoers and non-memoers. why should membership devalue nonmenoers ano put tneTi at the disposal of members? it is o y this condition that human chauvinism must show why humans are the exclusive subjects of intrinsic value and the value of nonhumans can be handled in terms of instrun.enr.al value to humans. If these conditions of adequacy stand, then tne definitional necessity of exclusiveness fails. Yet another approach at making the realms of value ano morality exclusive to humans is to examine no.< values are thougnt to operate. . prototype argument tor this is laio out as follows: A. values are determined through tne preference rankings of valuers (tne aa dfixacuafiie Karnes , Valuers' preference rankings are determined through valuer s interests (tne preXcifiace £aauci.ioa thesis). C. valuers are humans (persons) (tne saecsas assaaplioa). I. Therefore, values are determines tnrouqn human interests (tnrough tne interests ot persons). 8 Routley and Routley. Against the Inevitability of human Chauvinism: The use of persons in this quotation is a reference to agru.rents aimed at �Page 6 saving tne exclusiveness of the doral Club by limiting membership to humans with some given capacity, characteristic or excellence or combination of these. while this argument may succeed in preventing non- u.ans tror consideration, it is at the cost of non-paradigr atic i,.<ins. From this argument It is sometimes concluded that "not only is it perfectly accceptatie for humans to reduce matters of value and morality to natters of human interest, but oreover there is no rational or possible alternative to going so; any alternative is simply incoherent." 9 ithever, it this argument is disrantled it is snown to rest on a set of false assumptions that even Charitable tanipulation cannot save. 9 43. Routley and Routley. Against me Inevitability of Human Chauvinism; an ambiguity resides in the use of 'determined through' in precise I, if 'determined through' means 'have to ce determined*, men Plumwood and Routley feel, mat it is ’Odaliy upgraded "to reveal the sneer necessity of conclusion J." 10 10 “Routley and “Routley. Against the inevitability of Human Chauvinism: no-ever, this involves a similar modificiition of p r e tn i s e C or eise a nodal fallacy is involved. The C._ stronger ci­ necessary sense is preferable in forcing tne conclusion, J -- as shall be seen snortly when premise C is considered, but tne more cnaritaoie move for tne argument is to weaken the use of 'determined mrougn' to something like 'reflect ' or 'are a ratter of'. Despite either modification to resolve the ambiguity of 'determined through' premise A is still susceptide to the charge: value rankings cannot however ce cashed in for preference rankings since, as 1 s well-known, preference rankings and value rankings car diverge; a valuer can prefer wnat has less value and can value what is not , referred. 11 Premise a is , therefore ( modified to read: Al Values are determined through the value rankings of (appropriate) valuers, 12 11 "Routley and “Routley. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism 44. 12 Ro tley and Routley, Against me inevitability of num Chauvinism: 44. Bypassing premise B for a moment, premise C, the St-ficieb aSiuuiptAob, can be seen as a "circular way of reintroducing tne logical version of human chauvinism by restricting tne class of valuers a priori to humans" and at �Page 7 Snr1 ^'?2Hy2enriy*-^rae' 13 11 is essential to the argument lse1 c to oe a necessary condition that humans are the only valuers. ithout that the argument ooes not human chauvinsitic conclusion. if persons is usea instead of humans, tnen it becomes -ore defensible, since not all humans are valuers, but not all valuers are human, if not all valuers are numar' or persons, tnen to sustain the human chauvinistic conclusion it becomes necessary either to reject ail non-human (person) values or i? i‘,’o e«- a "'ove m premise a such that 'interests' are United to human (person) interests. 43-4. Routley and Houtley. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism! , „ It is just such a move at premise B , that ma k e s it, tor them, tne most objectionable of the premises, Premise 6 is a group selfisnness To eirrsnness argument. io show tn at the that conclusion and particularly premise ‘ pre ise “B is little more than an argument for group oup egoism in an environmental setting, they oisplay it against ainst an argument baldly for egoism. if pre ise A is recast replacing 'preferences' ith 'values' as ov°'v-i^2'preTn!ern ?rS0 0ds.to have 'preferences' replaced attention in is no- shifted to interests . interests can oe usea either in a weax and - , -se so tnat anything tne valuer values is in tne Ya|uer s interest ,ln stronger, but false sense tnat is intended to support interests as ceing in the valuer's advantage: to sum. up tne dilemma for the argument then: when. "interests" is usea in its weaker sense premise u may be accepted out tne argument does not establish its inter, oea conclusion or in any way sucpoert human chauvinism. For tne intended effect of the argument in the cruae form is this; in determining values it is enough to look at human advantage; nothing else counts. If tne argument -ere correct, tnen one could assess values bv cneckmq out tne local (selfish) advantage of hu ans, or, more generally, tne aavanta ,e of tne case class someho* assembled. it, on thP otner hano, "interests": is usea in its strong sense, tne conclusion would license a form of human crauvinis , but premise no, false. 14 Rout ley ano Routley. “Against the “Inevitability of “Human "Chauvinism: �Page 8 This argument has a second , aspect to it which they explore. if tne argument is not acceptable as it stands, then supposelv, neither is tne alternative of rejecting its conclusion. Precise A is opposed to the conclusion D (~a or D / D-> A) to shod either one accepts the conclusion, ith its consequent instru entalist account of value, or one is committed to an intrinsic or cetacned value theory wnich takes values to oe completely independent of valuers, no ------------ , ano and r.c ay determined oy tneit, out, it is assumed, the latter theory is a ell Known as untenable, and rr.ay even _. ____ as involving mysticism be seen or as oeing irrational inus, it may te conduced, there is no real alternative to hu-an chauvinism. lb #15 Routley and Routley. Against tne inevitability of Human Chauvinism; but this choice is rejectee « as a x false «js>c one: u < < c. To reject the instrumentalist conclusion D is bv no means to be commited tc a, or to the view that tne valuers . _____ __ ,____ and their preference rankings play no role in determining values and tnat values are a_ further 'set„ o — __ ___ . of items mysterious independent iters in the world somehow perceived by valuers through a special (even mystical and nonr ational) moral sense. 16 Against, the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism: Parallel to this dichotomy between A and u is the dichotomy Detween instrumental and intrinsic values so central in tne division and treatment of members from nonmembers in tne hor a1 Club; Tne dicnotomy frequently presentea between instrumentalist accounts of. value, on tie one hand, ana detached tneories (or what die mistakenly taken to 0e the same, intrinsic tneories) is, for the same reason, a false one. Instrumental theories ore those men attempt to reduce value to what is instrumental to or contributes to a stated goal. Typically such theories taxe tne goal to oe tne furtherance of the interest of a privileged class; tor example, tne goal may oe taken to be determined in terms of the interests, concerns, advantage, or welfare of tne .class of humans, or of persons, or of sentient creatures, cej ending on t>e type of cnauvinism. In particular, human chauvinist tneories are, characteristically, instrumentalist theories. in contrast, an item is valued intrinsically where it is 16 Routley and Routley. 47. 47. �Page 9 valued for its own sake, and not merely as a means to something further; and an intrinsic-value theory allo is that some items are intrinsically valuable. valuable, . intrinsic theories tnen, then, contrast with - it n ___ instr urn on cal theories,, and *hat vhat "intrinsic" tells us is no more tnan that tne the iter taken as intrinsically valuable is not valued merely as a means tc some goal, i.e., is, not merely - - is instrumentally valued. Accordingly - 117 detached value theories, since < disjoint 1 from instrumental theories, are a suo-ciass of intrinsic value theories; and they are a proper suoclass since intrinsic values need not be detached, lSomething may __ ______ _ be valuaole in itself without its ceing detached frott all valuing experience. 17 17 Routley and Routley. Against tne inevitability 01 ■ uman •Chauvinism Because detacned value theories are only a subclass of intrinsic value theories the dichotomies bet een A and b and between instrumental and instrinsic theories are false. Since detached theories cannot be maintained and totally instrumental value theories leao to an infinite regress, which is manifest if, consistent witn tne theory, the goals of a valuer are taken as instrumental, then neither of tnese extremes is acceptable, but values do exist, so some other vie-, besides those offered in the dichotomy must be advanced, Plumwood ana Routley advance one vie* tnat denies the dichotomy, yet does not limit valuers to humans and does not li it tne value of objects to human instrumental values; A person is the source of value-judgments and values .in one sense, i.e. s/he is tne valuer; out not in another, namely s/ne is not responsible for a valued item having its valued properties. or is there any licence for reducing tne values assignee to those tnat serve tne interests of tne valuer. 18 18 Routley and Routley. Hunan chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: This solution seems to do little more than shift the detached value argument back one step. -hy snould tne qualities of an item be valued except that a valuer places some value on them? Tnat is to say, all items (objects of moral concern) have qualities, out tnat some of these Qualities are valued ana some are not inaicates tne (instrumental) choices of a valuer (unless a theory of detacher values, *hich has just teen rejected, is adopted.) me intent behind this value theory is to avoid positing detacned values, yet to maintain sone basis for intrinsic values tnat cannot be cashed in tor instrumental values. io 158 47’8. �Page 10 do this requires that the intrinsic value of the qualities not be seen also as instrumental values. it is not, tneretorej a natter of assigning intrinsic values to tne goals of instrumental value tneories, it is a matter of finding a way in which a particular goal or item or being is capable of possessing value that is neither detached from, the notion of a valuer nor , if connected in some manner to a valuer, merely a means to another end. Asserting the valued qualities are resident in the iter; is intended to separate it from the valuer's evaluation and denying the reauction of values to the interests of tne valuer is intended to provide for an intrinsic worth in items and separate intrinsic values from purely instrumental values, if tne intrinsic value of an object is conceptually different from its instrumental value, then tne intrinsic value must be taken into consideration separate from its instrumental uses and instrumental judgments about the item. Therefore, the item (object of moral concern) is granted respect in, of ana tor itself and this is the ultimate goal of the P1U' .-ood/Koutley position. An item can have an Intrinsic and an instrumental worth, but this does not in and of itself remove the humans bias to arcs intrunentai values or towards the properties valued. For this the aerial that humans (persons) are tne only valuers is needed: It is simply a (common) mistake to think mat values and rights do not have a meaning, or an application, outsice tne human context or situation: to establish tnis point (on which i-oore rightly insisted) it is enough to point out again that (hypothetical) valuers, not necessarily nun an or persons, can assign values with respect to situations and worlds devoid of hunans ano of persons altogether. 19 houtley ano "Routley. “Human Chauvinisr and “Environmental “mthics: 19 it can now be asserted tnat items in the environment have a value beyond those assignee to then by humans (persons)) ana that ceings other than humans can be valuers,, but what is left to do is to establish tne relative ranks or 'pecking In this regari tne greater value order' of valuers. things may nave assumption "that ever, trough other instrinsic value, people <or humans are more valuable than anything else, and rank more highlyi (no matter how large their numoer) ' must be denied. 20 Houtley and Pout ley. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: The greater value assumption, a weaker form, ot human chauvinism, is open to most of objections made against numao chauvinisr. and to examples contrasting morally repugnant humans ith norally non-repugnant nonhumans illustrating t.ne 171. 157-b. �Page 11 • • unacceptable outcomes of this assumption, such as: if tnere is only roc in one's life boat for one ano one fust cnccse oet-.een saving Adolf Hitler and a combat ^hicn nas lived a decent life and never narirea a living creature, one is morally obliged to choose the former. 21 21 Routley and Routley. Against tne Inevitability of Human Chauvinism: 5 7. Having set aside tne arguments for value being exclusive to humans tney no focus on arguments for morality being exclusive to humans. One such argument is tne contractual argument: J. K. L. M. N. 22 fne only justification of moral principles (only X) is a contractual one, i.e., the entry into contracts of agents (Zry). Agents only enter into contracts (only Z) it it serves tneir. o*n interests. (The Ciaisl. ifiii J Humans (persons) are the only agents that enter into contracts (tout Zj, therefore, oy K ano i; Humans (persons) only enter into contracts (only Z) if it serves tneir own interests. Tnerefore, from J and : Tne only justification for moral principles (only X) is the (selfisn) interests of humans (persons). 22 "Routley ano "Routley. "Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinisms This entire contract argument can oe faulted as a strawman, out tne general effect of the argument ano tne conclusion still carry tne intention of human chauvinistic arguments oased on the exclusiveness of morality to numans. Thus tnis prototype is illustrative ana descriptive of the sorts of conclusions in force and the sorts of premises usea to support then. Therefore, the counterarguments usea against trie contractual argument and its close relatives oesignate the sorts of attacxs that can be launched against arguments for human cnauvlnis ano moral exclusiveness. It is assumed tnat conditions other tnan contractual ones , e.g. community based, can be substituted into pre ■ ise J and with appropriate modifications to the rest of tne argu ent tne same conclusion can be reached. Premise d proports to set tne parameters of tne argument oy selecting an activity with moral relevance that does not violate tne second condition of adequacy previously set down. In an 52. �Page 12 attempt to describe an exclusively hui<<an i oral context, premise J's use o£ the ^oro 'only' to support entry into contracts, a purely hu.an (person's) endeavour, makes it obviously raise. turtnernore, in supporting the contract -hdicinq as a purely human (person s) endeavour, however, "premise J imports the very chauvinism that is at issue in tne conclusion." 2J 23 “Routley ana “Routley. Against tne inevitability of Human “Chauvinism: 53. premise J is found to be faulty on several points. If moral obligation is tasen to ce a moral principle then premise J is not sufficient to include all moral obligations. "There is no actual contract underlying tne principle that one ought not to be cruel to animals, children, and otners not in a position to contract." 24 Ii this too narrow scope »ere not enough to condemn tne theory, then; The social contract account of moral obligation is defective because it implies tnat moral obligations can really only hold between responsible moral agents and attempts to account for all. moral ooliqation as based on contract. but of course tne account is correct as an account of the origin of some tyr.es of moral ooligatlon; there are moral ooli ,ations of type that can only hold oetween free and responsible agents and others which only apply within a social and political context. let other types of ooligatlon, such as the obligation not to cause suffering, can arise only with respect to sentient or prefercnce-naving creatures -.•no are not necessarily morally responsible -- ana could not significantly arise itn res.ect to a nonsentient such as a tree or a rock. 25 Routley and Routley. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism: Routley ano Routley. Against tne Ir.evitablility of human Chauvinism: 24 25 A moral agent could have a moral obligation to a being incapable of being or becoming a moral agent. Even when precise J is amended to something besiaes a contractual, foundation, it still comes to grief on tne sticking point of obiigations. Premise K, the egoist assumption; is faulted on the same grounds as egoism itself. For agents sometimes enter into contacts that are not in their awn interests but are in tne interests of other persons or 54. 5b. �Page 13 creatures, or are undertaken on behalf of, tor instance to protect, other items tr at do not nave interests at all, e.g., rivers, ouildings, forests. Against the Inevitability of u an Chauvinism: what is not pellucid nere, is that entering into a contract on oenalf of another is not, or cannot, be in the interests of the contracting agentand therefore a denial of premise K, Entering into acontract that protects something that is itself incapable of interests nay indirectly oe in the interests of tne contracting agent even though tne agent's interests are not directly recognized by tne contract. by example, an agent may enter into a contact that proctects a virgin forest and the river that flos through it, in order to protect the agent's access to water downstream of tne forest. Or pernaps even more indirectly, an agent ray sign over his land as a wildflower sanctuary because his neighbour, *no he nates, is allergic to wildflowers. It would seer that wnat has to oe snown is that an agent would enter a contract on behalf gf anotner -nen tne interests of the other are directly opposed to tne interests of tne conrtracting agent, Opposition to tne contracting agent's interests may oe, however, too strinqent a condition. If breaking the premise rests in showing tnat an agent will act outside nis selfish interests, tnen it is only necessary to snow tnat an agent vould enter into a contract when his selfish interests -ere not involved. In sucn a case, entering a contract tc protect a river, building, or forest could ce sufficlent. 26 -^outley and Routiey. 53. Premise K can be amended to reflect the ability to enter into contracts for beings or things other tnan tne contracting agent: 27 However even if premise . K were amended to ad-iiit that agents may enter into contracts on oenalt of nonhuman items, it would still result in a form of numan chauvinis given familiar -assumptions, since nonhun-an items will still ce unable to create moral obligaions except through a human sponsor or patron, who will presumably aole to choose -hetner or not to protect them. 27 "Routley and "Routiey. "Against the "Inevitability of "Human "Chauvinism: but if tnis modification is made and nonhuman items are unable to create a moral, obligation on the agents (agents ceing under moral obligations only where they cnoose to De), then tnis premise assumes tne conclusion ■. It is only the interests of the humans Involved tnat justify the moral obligation imposed by tne contract. 53. �Page 14 Premise L is strengthened by trie use of person* "tor otherwise premises suer, as e and its variations are suspect, since tnere is nothing, legally or morally, to prevent consortia, organizations, and other nonhumans from entering into contracts (and tnese items are appropriately counted as persons in the larger ieg.,1 sense)." 2t 28 -? 3 • Routley and Routley. Against the Inevitability of Hunan Chauvinism: ■<hile premise L may be the better by this move premises j and k are both tne worse. J remains false and K is either false or assumes the conclusion if modified to allow for conditions tnat would save tne human chauvinistic elements of it. thus contractual arguments land alter natives of the same form as this prototype) for the substantiation of a human cnauvinistic-oased environmental ethics are lost. ine assumptions underlying tne premises are simply not. equal to the task of supporting the conclusion. Further modification of the premises is at the expense oi violating the conditions of adequacy for exclusive human membership in the .'oral Clue. if the restrictions (such as 'only') on oremdses ltxe J (or variations of it) are removed, then leeway is left for including soie npnhumans oi excluding some humans. Cn the other hand, restrictions may oe retained and tne contractual portion is modified put the result is tne sane. ire -ore vital premise for establishing tne human cnauvinistic conelusion, premises like K tnat 1ink t?e exclusive numan justification ot moral actions to human interests, either assume the conclusion or may re countered by examples that snow them to be false. Plum-ood and Routley conclude; it is not possible to provide criteria hich would jusill* distinguishing, lr the sharp way standard western ethics do, between numans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularily those creatures which have preferences or ^referred states. For sucn criteria appear to depend upon tne mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some ratner axaltbai.ll4=u£.t.££aifi£d and JLaauea tests for membership of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for tne preferences of other creatures. Accordingly tne sharp moral distinction, commonly accepted in ethics bv philosophers and ethers alike, all bureaus aea all olb££ aniial ^pbclax*. lac&£ a Sall^laClQty; Cobfitbul 29 �Page 15 29 103. “Koutley ana “Routley. “Chauvinisi ar.) “•.nviron : ental “£tnicss Having broken the exclusiveness of value and morality to humans and naving disconnected the link of values and morals to solely human interests, ■ nat alternatives are there to human chauvinistic systens? Given tne analysis just made of value and morality, Plumwood ano Routley maintain: what emerges ____ __ _ is ________ ____ of __ types of __ ____ a picture oral obligation as associated with a nest of rings or annular bounaary classes, with the innermost class, consisting of highly _ creatures, intelligent, social, sentient having tne full range of moral obligations applicable to them, ana outer classes of sucn nonsentient items as trees and rocks having only a much more restricted range of moral obligations significantly applicable to them, In in some cases there is no sharp division between tne rings, 'but there is no single uniform privileged class of items, no one base class, to which all ano only moral principles directly apply, and moreover the zoological ■class of humans is not one or tne really significant boundary classes. Tne recognition tnat sone types of moral ooiiqation only apply -<ithin tne context of a particular sort of society, or through contract, does nothing to support the case of human cnauvinlsfi . 3 30 55. Routley and “Routley. -gainst tne inevitability of human Chauvinism This notion of nested zones or an annular classes ; ay be diagramed as in Diagram i. 31 picture of �Page lb 31 "Routley, "Richard. "Canberra, 1981: 2. "In "defense of "Cannibalise, "Unpublished paper. The laoels for the rings or zones represent; 32 respectively different soils of objects such as, objects of moral concern, /.elf are-having objects, preference-havers (and cnoice-na<ers), right-nolders, obligation-holders and responsibilitybearers, trose contractually- co<ni!'ittea- and tne different sorts of obligations that can significantly apply to such objects. ot all the tyoes of objects indicated are distinct, nor is the listing intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. for strictly the laoels given should oe expanded, as the distinctions are categorical ones, so tnat what matters is net whether an object is, tor instance, contractually committed in sore fasnion out whether it is tne sort of thing that can be, whether it can significantly enter into or be committed by arrangements of a contractual xina, 32 Routley and Routley. human Cnauvinlsin and Environmental Ethics: oreover, tne categorical distinctions that demarcate the various rings or zones are morally relevent categories. ine annular picture does not. reject traditional ethical categories, tut does reject the limitation of categories to one snecies or case class. .Also it rejects unjustified distinctions tnat are not "...categorical distinctions .hich tie analytically -itn ethical notions...." 33 107-8. �Page 17 Routley ana "Routley. "Human "cnauvinis and "Environmental "Ethics: inis celng tne case: it is certainly in no «ay species chauvinist or nuian chauvinist. For none of tne zones of tne annular picture couprises the class o£ humans (or its jincr variant tne class of persons); for tnis class is not of moral relevance. 34 _Routley and Routley. Human Chauvinism ana Environmental Ethics: Returning again to tne metaphor of tne oral Club, under tr.e annular ring picture membership in tne Club is automatic to all objects of moral concern, out tne privileges within tne Club are limited by moral capacities to use the facilities ot me Club. Tne obligations and the extent of those ooligations of human members to nonhuman members rest upon tne type of moral object . tne nonhuman is and on its capacities (illustrated by its overlay on the annular rings) not upon a comparison of tne nonhuman to tne human. For example a being capaole of contractual obligation could justifiaoly discriminate against a being unaole to make contracts with reference to contractual ooligations, regardless of the species of tne t/o beings. dy tie same token, it would be unjust of a preference-haver to discriminate against another preference-haver solely because tne two preference-havers were of uifferent species. loo it snould be notes tnat Diagram 1 illustrates tne position of humans as a species ano not tnat ot a particular human. Any given nuran, as ith any given object of noral concern plotted on tne annular rings, .»ould not necessarily mater? in each detail the plot of tne species to «nicn it oelonjs: Just as tnere are relevant divisions beyond tne class of perference-havers , so tnere are ithir. the class. Tnus tne suggestion tnat tne class to.-a rds which noral obligations (ano a corresponding Sait ot moral concern which ta<es account ot creatures* states) ay oe neld is bounded by tne class of preference-havers, does not ot course imply tnat oo disxiUGXicas can be nade -iiwl- the class of preference-navers with respect to tne kind of behaviour appropriate to them. For example, contractual obligations -- wnicn Dy no means exnaust obligation -- can only be nela directly (as distinct from by way of representative) with respect to a n.ucn narrower class of creatures, from which many • 108. �P a g e 1« humans are excluded. 35 10 7. 3b “Routley and “Routley. “Human “Chauvinis and “Environmental “Ethics; The shift from determining moral regard by a comparison o£ nonnumans to humans to a determination oy an examination ot categorical distinctions expands tf.e range of nonhuman objects of moral concern. ay rejecting tne base class assumption, value as determined oy use or production by the base class is also rejected. inis does not mean tnat human values *111 be rejected, but tnat values will no longer oe judged solely in human terms and that human values -ill no longer automatically taxe precedent over all other values, inus a particular ecosystem, e.g. a swamp, is recognized a., having value other tnan the possible location of an oil­ bearing geosyncline or a salt dome. It is seen to nave value as the home of a number of various flora and fauna species with a complex set of inter-relationships and as a system in itself that is not reducible to the interests of one species or even group of species within it. Inis last point tnat the value of an ecosystem, or any similar complex of values, interests, preferences, etc,, is not reducible to the values, interests, or preferences of either the individual components or toe whole, ignoring tne individual components, is called by them tne "no-reduction position". Inis position permits a middle ground between tne extremes of particularistic and holistic views and thereby provides a loc is for what they term "the ecological outlook": in a closely related -ay, the no-reduction position can provide a suitable metaphysical base for an ecological outloox vor* i ax vuuxuurs worldview, in which man is seen : as .part _ of a natural community, part of natural systems seen as integrated wholes and with .welfare and interests bound whole, ...... ano not __________ ____ __ up with the ..................... as, in tne typical .estern view, a separate, self-contained actor standing outsue tne syster and manipulating it in the pursuit of self-contained interests, 36 36 Routley, Vai and Richard Routley. Social rneories, oelf management, and Environmental Problems. “&“ln\s annison, .s., iCRobbie, .a. “ .anoX* R. Routley, “&edsX&. Environmental Philosophy. Canberra, am), I960: 319. One of the offsooots ot this no-reductior position is a policy of respect for the systei , its parts, and for the inter-relationships between parts and the parts and the h ole; �Page 19 Tne no-reduction position can thus provide a natural foundation for a genuinely environmental ethic, one *nicn allows human actions to be guided oy respect, cure and concern for the natural world and rejects tne "human Egoist" tnesis that tne only constraints on nunan action concerning nature arise from tne interests of other numans. For sucn relations of interdependence between man and nature must give rise to constraints on numan action in the same *ay tnat appropriate relations of. interdependence between en do, so tne thesis that action can and must oe unconstrained by any concerns other than human ones fails, as does tne thesis tnat nature is no more than a means to hu an ends, a mere tool. 37 37 Routley and Routley. Social theories, Self management, and Environmentaifroblems: Tne respect position .is cased on one or general ooligation principles: 1. ore of three Ine general principle cf respect . .. .. _ _ i for preference-navers (.formerly applied only to human preferences) is transferred to the larger arena of all oeinys or items that can be placed in a disprefer red state> • ..the requisite, important and non-ar.itrary distinction is to ce ora*n which narKS out the class of creatures to.-,arcs -hicn obligations may ce held; tnat is, the usually recognisec principles oi consideration towards others (of tne privileged class) properly extend or should be generalized to consideration for other creatures having preferences, and xgg geaaxal aeXeriSiCle GGliGaiiaa -iu.cci„14i is fiat Lii put aXfaets XoXuui PitfiXetfiaGfisfiaAzexsl iuia a dis^raXaxxfia state 1CC GQ GQGU reuses, 38 Routley and Routley, 2. 39 Hunan Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: Preferences alone, ho-.ever, are still too narro to develop an environmental ethic or ecological outlooK. So tne second principle applies to beings or iters <itn an interest' or 'welfare', v-nere rf...an 'interest' or welfare in tne broaa sense is a Xclus or life-goal, as possessed by living things, or an equilibrium or system goal, as possessed oy living ecosystems." 39 Routley and Routley, 104. ' Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: 106, 319. �Page 20 iherefore, tne second principle is: that the -altaic or of animate objects and also such biological items as ecosystems can ce affected in one way oi another, e.g. increased, decreased, upset. Foi instance, the wellbeing of a coastal community and of the individual trees in it can ce reduced to zero oy sandmining, and it can be seriously threatened by pumping vaste detergent into trie nearoy ocean. Tnere is a general ocligaiton principle corresponding likewise to tnis more comprehensive class of ,»elf are-bearers, namely, dpX to jaopafoxse ttfi ..ulijeiiju ui aaiuxai oPJecxs uc -J.4--UU1 JiCu ±£aiGU. 4<) 40 3. Routiey and Routiey. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics; lOu- /. Beyond preference-havers and beings or systems ith interests or welfares, the environment contains items, sucn as rocKS, soils and «:ater*ays tnat nave value, out no preferences or interests; unlike higher animals sucn items cannot literally be put into dispreferred states (and In obvious sense, as opposed to the ider sense of 'interests' tied to welfare, they have no interests), out they can be damaged or destroyeo or nave their Maiue eroded or impaired. 41 41 Routiey ana Routiey. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics; Tne three generalizable obligation principles are parallel in their structure and application and vary omv in /.hat rings of the annular Picture that they cover. Exclusiveness of the principles to a particuair ring, however, snould not ce assumed. ine principle of not damaging or destroying the value of an object of in oral concern could extend across the entire annular picture. Thus tne overlay of a ^articular ouject of moral concern will indicate which principle(s) of obligation may be applied to a particular case. An object of moral concern, e.g. a wornoat, may very veil be capdole of being placed in a dispreferred state, its wellbeing or interests jeopardizej, or devalued at one ana tne same time. in tne other hand, another object of moral concern, e.g. Ayers Rock, may, perhaps, only be disvalued. 109. �Page 21 Further tne respect position not only gives generalized principi.es of od! igat ion , but it also reverses tne common notion of when tnese principles are applied: Cn tne alternative thoroughgoing respect vie.'., whi.cn is illustrated o y various nonexploitive non- estern ethics, one starts from a restricted position, a position of no interference and no exploitation, a position at peace witn tne natural world so to say, and allots interference -- not as on ■estern tninxlng, restricts i terference -- for aooa reasons. ine onus of ,-roof is tnus entirely inverted: good reasons are required lax interference, not xa siax interference. 42 _____ Routley and Routley. nunan Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: 174. <*?verLi? ’ onus 01 proof leads to shifts and inversions in otner areas as well. Requiring good reasons for interfering crings about a shift in tne notion of property ownership. Operating under a respect position, it can no longer oe assumed that tne environment or pieces of lii?an QofSrivate Property t0 De done with or disposed of at ■'•ill. Before a s-amp can ce drained, or a forest" cut, or a steam polluted seme jooa reason must be given, Human convenience and economic gain would not count as good Respect does not preclude use, nut it does preclude certain sorts of use. it is inco catioie aoove all -itn property vie ano >.itn regarding something as no lore than a eans to tne user's eras. 43 Routley* Social theories, Self management, and Environmental Problems: The respect position is not only incompatible witn the property view, it is also incompatible 1th tne strong dichotomy between use and nonuse: me conventional wisdom of western Society tends to offer a false dichotomy of use versus respectful nonuse - a false choice wnicn cones out especially clearly again in tne treat ent of animals. Here the choice presented in -estern thought is typically one of exxoex use without respect or serious constraint, of using animals for example in the ways cnaracteristic of largescare mass-production farming and a market economic systep wnich are inconpatiole with respect, ox on the otner nand of not making any use of animals at all, for e x ampie, never making use 322 . �Page 22 of animals for food or for farming purposes, •hat is left out in unis choice is trie alternative tne Indians and other non--.estern teople have recognizee, the alternative oi li 'ited and respectful use, which enaoles use to be made of animals, but does not allow animals to oe used in an unconstrained way or merely as means tc human ends. 44 44 Routley and Routley, human Chauvinism aid Environmental Ethics: 179. bt^taKerVup tr^a^a ter °cn^t er*™ pe0fie' sever’di groups of Australian Aborigines, will ^either, then, is tne respect position a reverence position tnat also arises from the use/nonuse oicnotoi y. the lives, preferences, choices, and considerations of otner species or objects of oral concern are not to be taken as sacred and inviolable. out as has been pointed out before a good reason must be given before interference can oe orooKe . interference is acceptable, as in tne case of ’essential predation... nlch is essential to the normal livelihood of the predator, and where tne predator takes tor itself no more than it requires for its livelihood," 45 Routley, Richard. in Defense of Cannibalism•; 32. thus an alternative to tne western dichotomy of use versus nonuse is to mitigate, if possible, tne user's considerations with the considerations of the item: io so ise somethin i itnout treating it as available for unlimited or unconstrained use tor numan ends is characteristic of x;esfcicci.XuX use. In contrast non-respectful use treats the use of the Iten as constrained by no considerations arising from the item itself and tne user's relationship to it, but as constrained only in a derivative way, by considerations of the convenience, welfare ano so forth of otner humans. 4b Routley and Routley. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: For there to be a respectful position that denies tne dichotomy of unconstrained use versus respectful nonuse and tnat allows tor the relationsnip Detween tne user and tne item and the considerations of the item to be taken into account, one fundamental change in tne present relationship between humans and tne environment tnat must eventuate is for individual users to take direct responsibility for their impact: Respect positions can only be generally 179. �Page 23 realized in a society in whicn tne basic social structure and economy enables people to take direct responsibility for tne impact on tne natural world their needs and tneir statisfaction create , such as in tne economy of cooperative, involvement, 47 Routley and Routley. Social theories, Self "anagement, and Environmental Problems: Human users taking direct responsibility tor tneir impact snould lover tneir impact. If users bear tne responsibility tor producing and managing what they need, then they should produce, in a manner like unto tne 'taking' of essential oreaation only wnat they neeo and should 'qo lighter' on tne world: 323 . ..self-management can offer the alternative of a social^ in wnich nothing is produced wnich uoes not correspond to genuine needs an .i in which production is designed to satisfy tnose needs «itn a minimum of aste. Tne possiclity of production of material *nicn does not correspono to genuine neeos is eliminated oy two factores in the ecomony of cooperative exchange ano involvement; first, a direct relationsnip between tne possiblity of use of an iter and direct expenditure of labour on tne part of tne user, and second, direct cooperative involvment bet een producers and users. 48 48 Routley and Routley. social Theories, Self anagement, and Environmental Problems: Tne respect position, tnerefore, is intended to lower the impact of human users on the entire environment, -nile extending tne position's own impact goes far beyond tne interrelations of human and other species. It is intended, when applied to «estern cultures, to face among other issues tne econonic/etnicai conflicts tnat nave been at tne core of many of tne practical ethical problems concerning humans ana nonhumans and that nave given rise to much of tne current debate over inter-specific ethics. ine respect position is a strong repalcement to the Dominion Thesis that has been tne ruleing and guiding principle of western though on etnical relationsnips between numans and nonhumans. bike the Dominion Thesis, tne respect position is a oasic set of principles from whicn a wnoie range of problems, situations, ' and questions can oe approached. Tne alterations to the cut of -estern societies tnat would result from its adoption as tne pattern of etmcal progress would oe more drastic tnan that of either a Stewardship Principle (or some other weakened form of the Dominion Thesis) or an extension principle, sucn as the Utilitarian extension proposed by Singer. fet these seeniniy drastic alterations, or some 313. �Page 24 otnef equally drastic set, r^ay be no more tnan *nat is ■■eeje.; to restyle current practices as a more just ano less ar o i t rary . � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document (SECTIC;. i'v'j 174 /al Plumwood 1 and Richard Rout ley Peter like Singer, so-e basic wish Philosophic to question, assumptions underpinning estern can's attitudes loaros nis role in the moral universe ana his relationship to nonhunan animals. 1 *vai •Plumwood has done most of ner work under ner married name: • v a 1 “Routley. *ln deference, however, to her wish tc establish herself under •Plur »ooi that name ■ill oe used throughout this work. In a passage reiininscent of Singer's call for examination of unguestioneo assumptions, they state: ..nodern moral philosophers -- fulfilling tneir now established function of providing a theoretical superstructure to explain and justify contemporary rather than .oral sensibilities questioning fundamental asumptions -- tend to argue tnat tne bias toward human interests, which is an integral part of going ethical theories, is not just hich is both possible and aesiraole tc eliminate, out another form of class cnauvinism is ratner a restriction nctated by tne logic of evaluative an- .oral concepts, ana tnat the Page 2 coherent, possible, or viable alternative to the "human chauvinism" of. standard etnical theories. 2 there is no “Richard “Routley “sand\& “Vai “Routley. '‘Against the “inevitability of “Human 2 “Cnauvinisr . “>ln\a “Goodpaster, “r.,“E. "&ar At *K.“ . “Sayre, "o.eds\&. “ttric s ano “Problems of tne 21st “Century. “ one “Lame, “.-Diversity of "-otre “Dame “t ress, If class cnauvinism Jo-7. differential, "is discriminatory and inferior treatnent (oy sufficiently many members of the class) for items outside the class, for which there is not suiXiciect chauvinism is tne form of justification"3, class chauvinism in then which human the species, uaao Sapleur., substantially morally discriminates against everything nonhuman by an insufficiently justified assumption of human rnoral uniqueness. “R, “Routley “4<and\i. *v, “Routley, “Hunan "Chauvinisi? and “Environmental “Ethics. “kln\& “ annison, “D.“S., c“Ror>bie, “m.“A., “aand\& “R. “Routley, “Environmental “Philosophy. “Canberra, “A“ "u, 1980; 96. *&eds\&. The contention that man is tne sole subject of value and Page J morality fallacy. by definition This runs contention aground takes the the seif-validating ana unchallengeable; consideration oeing exclusive to on a definitional definition ot moral human realm to be The fallacy of the definitional move is that of believing that by converting the substantive evaluative theses of nu<an chauvinism to matters of definition they become somehow exempt from challenge or need for justification, iris is comparable to justifying discriminatory menbership for a club by referring to the rules, similarly conceived as self-validating and exempt from question or need of justification. 4 v v r'r sr °Ut3sy "&andX& "v • *Routiey. 'Against the 'Inevitability of 'Human In this case the club rules define the Moral Club. These definitions can upon either Physical characteristics or a set of properties that are logically connected with qualification for moral consideration, it is onvious that the physical characteristics are not morally relevant: * x It is impossible to restrict moral terms to particular species, when species distinctions are defined in terms of physical characteristics which are not morally relevant, •ore generally, an attempt to derive a logically necessary connection net eet humanity itself and the applicability of morality is bound to fail, for creatures anatomically ana zoologically aistinct fro hurans >hicii arc identical with humans in terms ot morally relevant features arc logically possible, upsetting any logical linkage. 5 5• and Houtley. W Koutley ■■ Against the inevitability of Human Chauvinism; 39. X rnerefore , the characteristics neeoed to support the defintional move have to be other than physical characteristics. However, if properties logically tiea „itn moral considerations are examined closely, it is fauna that they do not support the exclusive eligibility of hur ans to tne Moral Clue. Three conditions or adequacy ore set down for making tne Clue exclusive to humans: Page 4 1. The set of characteristics must he possessed oy at least all properly functioning humans, since tc omit any si unit leant aroup usually considered subject to iroral consiceratin, suer as infants, young children, prinitive tribesmen, etc., ano to allow that it was ierrissiole to treat these groups in the ay it is considered permissible to treat non-humans, that is, as mere instruments, would certainly lc repugnant to modern moral sensibilities and would offend common intuitions as to the orotherhood of mar., the vie- that all humans are possessors of inalienable rights, Thus human chauvinism , if it is to produce a coherent theory which does not unacceptably rule out some groups of humans, must find so e set cf features cc on to the rust diverse ' en ters of hu" anKiriu.... (luu loiax Auclusloa 2. in order tor nu an chauvinis; to be justified, this sec ot characteristics ust not be possessed by any non-nuran. Uiie ioXai i-xclusiau 3. The set of characteristics must oe not merely norally relevant but sufficient to justify, in a ncn-circuiar way, the cut-oil of moral consideration at exactly tne right point. If human chauvinism is to avoio the charge of arbitrariness and unjustifiability and to demonstrate its inevitability ana tne impossibility of alternatives, it rust erneroe from tne characteristics why items not having tne f ay oe used as i: ere instruments to serve tne interests of those which do possess tne . b (lac Xb^Xxxi&euXai Ju&xxxXcaXXQa liS&UuaXlbU ) b “Routley and "Routley. 39-40. "Against tne "Inevitability of "Human "Chauvinism J But tne properties usually assumed to give humans exclusive entry into tne moral Cluo when tested against these conditions of adequacy either admit nonhumans or exclude humans. Thirty-two such properties are tested oy Plumwood and Routely XuXb£ alia, using tools, using language, self-awareness, ceing a■are of the Inevitability ot one s own death, being aoie to answer questions about moral issues sucn as human chauvinism, having interests, having projects, belonging to a social community, being morally responsible tor one's actions, etc., and all are found anting on at least one count. Page 5 However, the conditions of adequacy night oe challenged as too stmgent. Yet, if tne '<oral Club is to be exclusive to humans and neither arbitrary nor unjustified, then condition 1 - tnat all functioning humans possess the property - must apply, etherise tne requirerents for Club member snip are drawn too narrowly and some humans are excludes. against this condition it might be argued tnat numan is too __ _____ _ _ and it is only persons (where oread________ in scope , . re j_eVdnt_ "para parametre) person is defined by some morally relevant e’tre) who should De considered, this would mean that those humans buran , ,---- -— -no did not qualify as persons aouIo net oe eligible for treatment as oncers of tne oral Clue or if they tie treated as members that eligibiility was arbitrary and unjust. it it is the case that’all humans (persons) must possess this property, then it must also be the case tnat no nonhuman possesses it, otherwise an Argument From Analogy and Anoiiioiy applies. if some nonhumans possess the property or properties then the requirements for Club membership are ara^n too broadly ana some nonnumans are eligible _J. Finally, it is not enough to separate the eligible - ’ J ~ ' •- from the ineligible (or pernaps the edible from tne inediblej, it must oe snown why the ineiigiole are not only ineligible for membership, but why tney cannot even oe consldereo for membership, otherwise tne difference in treatment is not justified. To carry tne Club metaphor .. a little farther, pernaps too far, while remoers n.a, ay h-.nave certain privileges, this aoes not necessarily mean tnat that in addition to not enjoying these special privileges, nonrnembers can also oe un*arrantly deprived of benefits common to memoers and non-memoers. why should membership devalue nonmenoers ano put tneTi at the disposal of members? it is o y this condition that human chauvinism must show why humans are the exclusive subjects of intrinsic value and the value of nonhumans can be handled in terms of instrun.enr.al value to humans. If these conditions of adequacy stand, then tne definitional necessity of exclusiveness fails. Yet another approach at making the realms of value ano morality exclusive to humans is to examine no.< values are thougnt to operate. . prototype argument tor this is laio out as follows: A. values are determined through tne preference rankings of valuers (tne aa dfixacuafiie Karnes , Valuers' preference rankings are determined through valuer s interests (tne preXcifiace £aauci.ioa thesis). C. valuers are humans (persons) (tne saecsas assaaplioa). I. Therefore, values are determines tnrouqn human interests (tnrough tne interests ot persons). 8 Routley and Routley. Against the Inevitability of human Chauvinism: The use of persons in this quotation is a reference to agru.rents aimed at Page 6 saving tne exclusiveness of the doral Club by limiting membership to humans with some given capacity, characteristic or excellence or combination of these. while this argument may succeed in preventing non- u.ans tror consideration, it is at the cost of non-paradigr atic i,.<ins. From this argument It is sometimes concluded that "not only is it perfectly accceptatie for humans to reduce matters of value and morality to natters of human interest, but oreover there is no rational or possible alternative to going so; any alternative is simply incoherent." 9 ithever, it this argument is disrantled it is snown to rest on a set of false assumptions that even Charitable tanipulation cannot save. 9 43. Routley and Routley. Against me Inevitability of Human Chauvinism; an ambiguity resides in the use of 'determined through' in precise I, if 'determined through' means 'have to ce determined*, men Plumwood and Routley feel, mat it is ’Odaliy upgraded "to reveal the sneer necessity of conclusion J." 10 10 “Routley and “Routley. Against the inevitability of Human Chauvinism: no-ever, this involves a similar modificiition of p r e tn i s e C or eise a nodal fallacy is involved. The C._ stronger ci­ necessary sense is preferable in forcing tne conclusion, J -- as shall be seen snortly when premise C is considered, but tne more cnaritaoie move for tne argument is to weaken the use of 'determined mrougn' to something like 'reflect ' or 'are a ratter of'. Despite either modification to resolve the ambiguity of 'determined through' premise A is still susceptide to the charge: value rankings cannot however ce cashed in for preference rankings since, as 1 s well-known, preference rankings and value rankings car diverge; a valuer can prefer wnat has less value and can value what is not , referred. 11 Premise a is , therefore ( modified to read: Al Values are determined through the value rankings of (appropriate) valuers, 12 11 "Routley and “Routley. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism 44. 12 Ro tley and Routley, Against me inevitability of num Chauvinism: 44. Bypassing premise B for a moment, premise C, the St-ficieb aSiuuiptAob, can be seen as a "circular way of reintroducing tne logical version of human chauvinism by restricting tne class of valuers a priori to humans" and at Page 7 Snr1 ^'?2Hy2enriy*-^rae' 13 11 is essential to the argument lse1 c to oe a necessary condition that humans are the only valuers. ithout that the argument ooes not human chauvinsitic conclusion. if persons is usea instead of humans, tnen it becomes -ore defensible, since not all humans are valuers, but not all valuers are human, if not all valuers are numar' or persons, tnen to sustain the human chauvinistic conclusion it becomes necessary either to reject ail non-human (person) values or i? i‘,’o e«- a "'ove m premise a such that 'interests' are United to human (person) interests. 43-4. Routley and Houtley. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism! , „ It is just such a move at premise B , that ma k e s it, tor them, tne most objectionable of the premises, Premise 6 is a group selfisnness To eirrsnness argument. io show tn at the that conclusion and particularly premise ‘ pre ise “B is little more than an argument for group oup egoism in an environmental setting, they oisplay it against ainst an argument baldly for egoism. if pre ise A is recast replacing 'preferences' ith 'values' as ov°'v-i^2'preTn!ern ?rS0 0ds.to have 'preferences' replaced attention in is no- shifted to interests . interests can oe usea either in a weax and - , -se so tnat anything tne valuer values is in tne Ya|uer s interest ,ln stronger, but false sense tnat is intended to support interests as ceing in the valuer's advantage: to sum. up tne dilemma for the argument then: when. "interests" is usea in its weaker sense premise u may be accepted out tne argument does not establish its inter, oea conclusion or in any way sucpoert human chauvinism. For tne intended effect of the argument in the cruae form is this; in determining values it is enough to look at human advantage; nothing else counts. If tne argument -ere correct, tnen one could assess values bv cneckmq out tne local (selfish) advantage of hu ans, or, more generally, tne aavanta ,e of tne case class someho* assembled. it, on thP otner hano, "interests": is usea in its strong sense, tne conclusion would license a form of human crauvinis , but premise no, false. 14 Rout ley ano Routley. “Against the “Inevitability of “Human "Chauvinism: Page 8 This argument has a second , aspect to it which they explore. if tne argument is not acceptable as it stands, then supposelv, neither is tne alternative of rejecting its conclusion. Precise A is opposed to the conclusion D (~a or D / D-> A) to shod either one accepts the conclusion, ith its consequent instru entalist account of value, or one is committed to an intrinsic or cetacned value theory wnich takes values to oe completely independent of valuers, no ------------ , ano and r.c ay determined oy tneit, out, it is assumed, the latter theory is a ell Known as untenable, and rr.ay even _. ____ as involving mysticism be seen or as oeing irrational inus, it may te conduced, there is no real alternative to hu-an chauvinism. lb #15 Routley and Routley. Against tne inevitability of Human Chauvinism; but this choice is rejectee « as a x false «js>c one: u < < c. To reject the instrumentalist conclusion D is bv no means to be commited tc a, or to the view that tne valuers . _____ __ ,____ and their preference rankings play no role in determining values and tnat values are a_ further 'set„ o — __ ___ . of items mysterious independent iters in the world somehow perceived by valuers through a special (even mystical and nonr ational) moral sense. 16 Against, the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism: Parallel to this dichotomy between A and u is the dichotomy Detween instrumental and intrinsic values so central in tne division and treatment of members from nonmembers in tne hor a1 Club; Tne dicnotomy frequently presentea between instrumentalist accounts of. value, on tie one hand, ana detached tneories (or what die mistakenly taken to 0e the same, intrinsic tneories) is, for the same reason, a false one. Instrumental theories ore those men attempt to reduce value to what is instrumental to or contributes to a stated goal. Typically such theories taxe tne goal to oe tne furtherance of the interest of a privileged class; tor example, tne goal may oe taken to be determined in terms of the interests, concerns, advantage, or welfare of tne .class of humans, or of persons, or of sentient creatures, cej ending on t>e type of cnauvinism. In particular, human chauvinist tneories are, characteristically, instrumentalist theories. in contrast, an item is valued intrinsically where it is 16 Routley and Routley. 47. 47. Page 9 valued for its own sake, and not merely as a means to something further; and an intrinsic-value theory allo is that some items are intrinsically valuable. valuable, . intrinsic theories tnen, then, contrast with - it n ___ instr urn on cal theories,, and *hat vhat "intrinsic" tells us is no more tnan that tne the iter taken as intrinsically valuable is not valued merely as a means tc some goal, i.e., is, not merely - - is instrumentally valued. Accordingly - 117 detached value theories, since < disjoint 1 from instrumental theories, are a suo-ciass of intrinsic value theories; and they are a proper suoclass since intrinsic values need not be detached, lSomething may __ ______ _ be valuaole in itself without its ceing detached frott all valuing experience. 17 17 Routley and Routley. Against tne inevitability 01 ■ uman •Chauvinism Because detacned value theories are only a subclass of intrinsic value theories the dichotomies bet een A and b and between instrumental and instrinsic theories are false. Since detached theories cannot be maintained and totally instrumental value theories leao to an infinite regress, which is manifest if, consistent witn tne theory, the goals of a valuer are taken as instrumental, then neither of tnese extremes is acceptable, but values do exist, so some other vie-, besides those offered in the dichotomy must be advanced, Plumwood ana Routley advance one vie* tnat denies the dichotomy, yet does not limit valuers to humans and does not li it tne value of objects to human instrumental values; A person is the source of value-judgments and values .in one sense, i.e. s/he is tne valuer; out not in another, namely s/ne is not responsible for a valued item having its valued properties. or is there any licence for reducing tne values assignee to those tnat serve tne interests of tne valuer. 18 18 Routley and Routley. Hunan chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: This solution seems to do little more than shift the detached value argument back one step. -hy snould tne qualities of an item be valued except that a valuer places some value on them? Tnat is to say, all items (objects of moral concern) have qualities, out tnat some of these Qualities are valued ana some are not inaicates tne (instrumental) choices of a valuer (unless a theory of detacher values, *hich has just teen rejected, is adopted.) me intent behind this value theory is to avoid positing detacned values, yet to maintain sone basis for intrinsic values tnat cannot be cashed in tor instrumental values. io 158 47’8. Page 10 do this requires that the intrinsic value of the qualities not be seen also as instrumental values. it is not, tneretorej a natter of assigning intrinsic values to tne goals of instrumental value tneories, it is a matter of finding a way in which a particular goal or item or being is capable of possessing value that is neither detached from, the notion of a valuer nor , if connected in some manner to a valuer, merely a means to another end. Asserting the valued qualities are resident in the iter; is intended to separate it from the valuer's evaluation and denying the reauction of values to the interests of tne valuer is intended to provide for an intrinsic worth in items and separate intrinsic values from purely instrumental values, if tne intrinsic value of an object is conceptually different from its instrumental value, then tne intrinsic value must be taken into consideration separate from its instrumental uses and instrumental judgments about the item. Therefore, the item (object of moral concern) is granted respect in, of ana tor itself and this is the ultimate goal of the P1U' .-ood/Koutley position. An item can have an Intrinsic and an instrumental worth, but this does not in and of itself remove the humans bias to arcs intrunentai values or towards the properties valued. For this the aerial that humans (persons) are tne only valuers is needed: It is simply a (common) mistake to think mat values and rights do not have a meaning, or an application, outsice tne human context or situation: to establish tnis point (on which i-oore rightly insisted) it is enough to point out again that (hypothetical) valuers, not necessarily nun an or persons, can assign values with respect to situations and worlds devoid of hunans ano of persons altogether. 19 houtley ano "Routley. “Human Chauvinisr and “Environmental “mthics: 19 it can now be asserted tnat items in the environment have a value beyond those assignee to then by humans (persons)) ana that ceings other than humans can be valuers,, but what is left to do is to establish tne relative ranks or 'pecking In this regari tne greater value order' of valuers. things may nave assumption "that ever, trough other instrinsic value, people <or humans are more valuable than anything else, and rank more highlyi (no matter how large their numoer) ' must be denied. 20 Houtley and Pout ley. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: The greater value assumption, a weaker form, ot human chauvinism, is open to most of objections made against numao chauvinisr. and to examples contrasting morally repugnant humans ith norally non-repugnant nonhumans illustrating t.ne 171. 157-b. Page 11 • • unacceptable outcomes of this assumption, such as: if tnere is only roc in one's life boat for one ano one fust cnccse oet-.een saving Adolf Hitler and a combat ^hicn nas lived a decent life and never narirea a living creature, one is morally obliged to choose the former. 21 21 Routley and Routley. Against tne Inevitability of Human Chauvinism: 5 7. Having set aside tne arguments for value being exclusive to humans tney no focus on arguments for morality being exclusive to humans. One such argument is tne contractual argument: J. K. L. M. N. 22 fne only justification of moral principles (only X) is a contractual one, i.e., the entry into contracts of agents (Zry). Agents only enter into contracts (only Z) it it serves tneir. o*n interests. (The Ciaisl. ifiii J Humans (persons) are the only agents that enter into contracts (tout Zj, therefore, oy K ano i; Humans (persons) only enter into contracts (only Z) if it serves tneir own interests. Tnerefore, from J and : Tne only justification for moral principles (only X) is the (selfisn) interests of humans (persons). 22 "Routley ano "Routley. "Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinisms This entire contract argument can oe faulted as a strawman, out tne general effect of the argument ano tne conclusion still carry tne intention of human chauvinistic arguments oased on the exclusiveness of morality to numans. Thus tnis prototype is illustrative ana descriptive of the sorts of conclusions in force and the sorts of premises usea to support then. Therefore, the counterarguments usea against trie contractual argument and its close relatives oesignate the sorts of attacxs that can be launched against arguments for human cnauvlnis ano moral exclusiveness. It is assumed tnat conditions other tnan contractual ones , e.g. community based, can be substituted into pre ■ ise J and with appropriate modifications to the rest of tne argu ent tne same conclusion can be reached. Premise d proports to set tne parameters of tne argument oy selecting an activity with moral relevance that does not violate tne second condition of adequacy previously set down. In an 52. Page 12 attempt to describe an exclusively hui<<an i oral context, premise J's use o£ the ^oro 'only' to support entry into contracts, a purely hu.an (person's) endeavour, makes it obviously raise. turtnernore, in supporting the contract -hdicinq as a purely human (person s) endeavour, however, "premise J imports the very chauvinism that is at issue in tne conclusion." 2J 23 “Routley ana “Routley. Against tne inevitability of Human “Chauvinism: 53. premise J is found to be faulty on several points. If moral obligation is tasen to ce a moral principle then premise J is not sufficient to include all moral obligations. "There is no actual contract underlying tne principle that one ought not to be cruel to animals, children, and otners not in a position to contract." 24 Ii this too narrow scope »ere not enough to condemn tne theory, then; The social contract account of moral obligation is defective because it implies tnat moral obligations can really only hold between responsible moral agents and attempts to account for all. moral ooliqation as based on contract. but of course tne account is correct as an account of the origin of some tyr.es of moral ooligatlon; there are moral ooli ,ations of type that can only hold oetween free and responsible agents and others which only apply within a social and political context. let other types of ooligatlon, such as the obligation not to cause suffering, can arise only with respect to sentient or prefercnce-naving creatures -.•no are not necessarily morally responsible -- ana could not significantly arise itn res.ect to a nonsentient such as a tree or a rock. 25 Routley and Routley. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism: Routley ano Routley. Against tne Ir.evitablility of human Chauvinism: 24 25 A moral agent could have a moral obligation to a being incapable of being or becoming a moral agent. Even when precise J is amended to something besiaes a contractual, foundation, it still comes to grief on tne sticking point of obiigations. Premise K, the egoist assumption; is faulted on the same grounds as egoism itself. For agents sometimes enter into contacts that are not in their awn interests but are in tne interests of other persons or 54. 5b. Page 13 creatures, or are undertaken on behalf of, tor instance to protect, other items tr at do not nave interests at all, e.g., rivers, ouildings, forests. Against the Inevitability of u an Chauvinism: what is not pellucid nere, is that entering into a contract on oenalf of another is not, or cannot, be in the interests of the contracting agentand therefore a denial of premise K, Entering into acontract that protects something that is itself incapable of interests nay indirectly oe in the interests of tne contracting agent even though tne agent's interests are not directly recognized by tne contract. by example, an agent may enter into a contact that proctects a virgin forest and the river that flos through it, in order to protect the agent's access to water downstream of tne forest. Or pernaps even more indirectly, an agent ray sign over his land as a wildflower sanctuary because his neighbour, *no he nates, is allergic to wildflowers. It would seer that wnat has to oe snown is that an agent would enter a contract on behalf gf anotner -nen tne interests of the other are directly opposed to tne interests of tne conrtracting agent, Opposition to tne contracting agent's interests may oe, however, too strinqent a condition. If breaking the premise rests in showing tnat an agent will act outside nis selfish interests, tnen it is only necessary to snow tnat an agent vould enter into a contract when his selfish interests -ere not involved. In sucn a case, entering a contract tc protect a river, building, or forest could ce sufficlent. 26 -^outley and Routiey. 53. Premise K can be amended to reflect the ability to enter into contracts for beings or things other tnan tne contracting agent: 27 However even if premise . K were amended to ad-iiit that agents may enter into contracts on oenalt of nonhuman items, it would still result in a form of numan chauvinis given familiar -assumptions, since nonhun-an items will still ce unable to create moral obligaions except through a human sponsor or patron, who will presumably aole to choose -hetner or not to protect them. 27 "Routley and "Routiey. "Against the "Inevitability of "Human "Chauvinism: but if tnis modification is made and nonhuman items are unable to create a moral, obligation on the agents (agents ceing under moral obligations only where they cnoose to De), then tnis premise assumes tne conclusion ■. It is only the interests of the humans Involved tnat justify the moral obligation imposed by tne contract. 53. Page 14 Premise L is strengthened by trie use of person* "tor otherwise premises suer, as e and its variations are suspect, since tnere is nothing, legally or morally, to prevent consortia, organizations, and other nonhumans from entering into contracts (and tnese items are appropriately counted as persons in the larger ieg.,1 sense)." 2t 28 -? 3 • Routley and Routley. Against the Inevitability of Hunan Chauvinism: ■<hile premise L may be the better by this move premises j and k are both tne worse. J remains false and K is either false or assumes the conclusion if modified to allow for conditions tnat would save tne human chauvinistic elements of it. thus contractual arguments land alter natives of the same form as this prototype) for the substantiation of a human cnauvinistic-oased environmental ethics are lost. ine assumptions underlying tne premises are simply not. equal to the task of supporting the conclusion. Further modification of the premises is at the expense oi violating the conditions of adequacy for exclusive human membership in the .'oral Clue. if the restrictions (such as 'only') on oremdses ltxe J (or variations of it) are removed, then leeway is left for including soie npnhumans oi excluding some humans. Cn the other hand, restrictions may oe retained and tne contractual portion is modified put the result is tne sane. ire -ore vital premise for establishing tne human cnauvinistic conelusion, premises like K tnat 1ink t?e exclusive numan justification ot moral actions to human interests, either assume the conclusion or may re countered by examples that snow them to be false. Plum-ood and Routley conclude; it is not possible to provide criteria hich would jusill* distinguishing, lr the sharp way standard western ethics do, between numans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularily those creatures which have preferences or ^referred states. For sucn criteria appear to depend upon tne mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some ratner axaltbai.ll4=u£.t.££aifi£d and JLaauea tests for membership of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for tne preferences of other creatures. Accordingly tne sharp moral distinction, commonly accepted in ethics bv philosophers and ethers alike, all bureaus aea all olb££ aniial ^pbclax*. lac&£ a Sall^laClQty; Cobfitbul 29 Page 15 29 103. “Koutley ana “Routley. “Chauvinisi ar.) “•.nviron : ental “£tnicss Having broken the exclusiveness of value and morality to humans and naving disconnected the link of values and morals to solely human interests, ■ nat alternatives are there to human chauvinistic systens? Given tne analysis just made of value and morality, Plumwood ano Routley maintain: what emerges ____ __ _ is ________ ____ of __ types of __ ____ a picture oral obligation as associated with a nest of rings or annular bounaary classes, with the innermost class, consisting of highly _ creatures, intelligent, social, sentient having tne full range of moral obligations applicable to them, ana outer classes of sucn nonsentient items as trees and rocks having only a much more restricted range of moral obligations significantly applicable to them, In in some cases there is no sharp division between tne rings, 'but there is no single uniform privileged class of items, no one base class, to which all ano only moral principles directly apply, and moreover the zoological ■class of humans is not one or tne really significant boundary classes. Tne recognition tnat sone types of moral ooiiqation only apply -<ithin tne context of a particular sort of society, or through contract, does nothing to support the case of human cnauvinlsfi . 3 30 55. Routley and “Routley. -gainst tne inevitability of human Chauvinism This notion of nested zones or an annular classes ; ay be diagramed as in Diagram i. 31 picture of Page lb 31 "Routley, "Richard. "Canberra, 1981: 2. "In "defense of "Cannibalise, "Unpublished paper. The laoels for the rings or zones represent; 32 respectively different soils of objects such as, objects of moral concern, /.elf are-having objects, preference-havers (and cnoice-na<ers), right-nolders, obligation-holders and responsibilitybearers, trose contractually- co<ni!'ittea- and tne different sorts of obligations that can significantly apply to such objects. ot all the tyoes of objects indicated are distinct, nor is the listing intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. for strictly the laoels given should oe expanded, as the distinctions are categorical ones, so tnat what matters is net whether an object is, tor instance, contractually committed in sore fasnion out whether it is tne sort of thing that can be, whether it can significantly enter into or be committed by arrangements of a contractual xina, 32 Routley and Routley. human Cnauvinlsin and Environmental Ethics: oreover, tne categorical distinctions that demarcate the various rings or zones are morally relevent categories. ine annular picture does not. reject traditional ethical categories, tut does reject the limitation of categories to one snecies or case class. .Also it rejects unjustified distinctions tnat are not "...categorical distinctions .hich tie analytically -itn ethical notions...." 33 107-8. Page 17 Routley ana "Routley. "Human "cnauvinis and "Environmental "Ethics: inis celng tne case: it is certainly in no «ay species chauvinist or nuian chauvinist. For none of tne zones of tne annular picture couprises the class o£ humans (or its jincr variant tne class of persons); for tnis class is not of moral relevance. 34 _Routley and Routley. Human Chauvinism ana Environmental Ethics: Returning again to tne metaphor of tne oral Club, under tr.e annular ring picture membership in tne Club is automatic to all objects of moral concern, out tne privileges within tne Club are limited by moral capacities to use the facilities ot me Club. Tne obligations and the extent of those ooligations of human members to nonhuman members rest upon tne type of moral object . tne nonhuman is and on its capacities (illustrated by its overlay on the annular rings) not upon a comparison of tne nonhuman to tne human. For example a being capaole of contractual obligation could justifiaoly discriminate against a being unaole to make contracts with reference to contractual ooligations, regardless of the species of tne t/o beings. dy tie same token, it would be unjust of a preference-haver to discriminate against another preference-haver solely because tne two preference-havers were of uifferent species. loo it snould be notes tnat Diagram 1 illustrates tne position of humans as a species ano not tnat ot a particular human. Any given nuran, as ith any given object of noral concern plotted on tne annular rings, .»ould not necessarily mater? in each detail the plot of tne species to «nicn it oelonjs: Just as tnere are relevant divisions beyond tne class of perference-havers , so tnere are ithir. the class. Tnus tne suggestion tnat tne class to.-a rds which noral obligations (ano a corresponding Sait ot moral concern which ta<es account ot creatures* states) ay oe neld is bounded by tne class of preference-havers, does not ot course imply tnat oo disxiUGXicas can be nade -iiwl- the class of preference-navers with respect to tne kind of behaviour appropriate to them. For example, contractual obligations -- wnicn Dy no means exnaust obligation -- can only be nela directly (as distinct from by way of representative) with respect to a n.ucn narrower class of creatures, from which many • 108. P a g e 1« humans are excluded. 35 10 7. 3b “Routley and “Routley. “Human “Chauvinis and “Environmental “Ethics; The shift from determining moral regard by a comparison o£ nonnumans to humans to a determination oy an examination ot categorical distinctions expands tf.e range of nonhuman objects of moral concern. ay rejecting tne base class assumption, value as determined oy use or production by the base class is also rejected. inis does not mean tnat human values *111 be rejected, but tnat values will no longer oe judged solely in human terms and that human values -ill no longer automatically taxe precedent over all other values, inus a particular ecosystem, e.g. a swamp, is recognized a., having value other tnan the possible location of an oil­ bearing geosyncline or a salt dome. It is seen to nave value as the home of a number of various flora and fauna species with a complex set of inter-relationships and as a system in itself that is not reducible to the interests of one species or even group of species within it. Inis last point tnat the value of an ecosystem, or any similar complex of values, interests, preferences, etc,, is not reducible to the values, interests, or preferences of either the individual components or toe whole, ignoring tne individual components, is called by them tne "no-reduction position". Inis position permits a middle ground between tne extremes of particularistic and holistic views and thereby provides a loc is for what they term "the ecological outlook": in a closely related -ay, the no-reduction position can provide a suitable metaphysical base for an ecological outloox vor* i ax vuuxuurs worldview, in which man is seen : as .part _ of a natural community, part of natural systems seen as integrated wholes and with .welfare and interests bound whole, ...... ano not __________ ____ __ up with the ..................... as, in tne typical .estern view, a separate, self-contained actor standing outsue tne syster and manipulating it in the pursuit of self-contained interests, 36 36 Routley, Vai and Richard Routley. Social rneories, oelf management, and Environmental Problems. “&“ln\s annison, .s., iCRobbie, .a. “ .anoX* R. Routley, “&edsX&. Environmental Philosophy. Canberra, am), I960: 319. One of the offsooots ot this no-reductior position is a policy of respect for the systei , its parts, and for the inter-relationships between parts and the parts and the h ole; Page 19 Tne no-reduction position can thus provide a natural foundation for a genuinely environmental ethic, one *nicn allows human actions to be guided oy respect, cure and concern for the natural world and rejects tne "human Egoist" tnesis that tne only constraints on nunan action concerning nature arise from tne interests of other numans. For sucn relations of interdependence between man and nature must give rise to constraints on numan action in the same *ay tnat appropriate relations of. interdependence between en do, so tne thesis that action can and must oe unconstrained by any concerns other than human ones fails, as does tne thesis tnat nature is no more than a means to hu an ends, a mere tool. 37 37 Routley and Routley. Social theories, Self management, and Environmentaifroblems: Tne respect position .is cased on one or general ooligation principles: 1. ore of three Ine general principle cf respect . .. .. _ _ i for preference-navers (.formerly applied only to human preferences) is transferred to the larger arena of all oeinys or items that can be placed in a disprefer red state> • ..the requisite, important and non-ar.itrary distinction is to ce ora*n which narKS out the class of creatures to.-,arcs -hicn obligations may ce held; tnat is, the usually recognisec principles oi consideration towards others (of tne privileged class) properly extend or should be generalized to consideration for other creatures having preferences, and xgg geaaxal aeXeriSiCle GGliGaiiaa -iu.cci„14i is fiat Lii put aXfaets XoXuui PitfiXetfiaGfisfiaAzexsl iuia a dis^raXaxxfia state 1CC GQ GQGU reuses, 38 Routley and Routley, 2. 39 Hunan Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: Preferences alone, ho-.ever, are still too narro to develop an environmental ethic or ecological outlooK. So tne second principle applies to beings or iters <itn an interest' or 'welfare', v-nere rf...an 'interest' or welfare in tne broaa sense is a Xclus or life-goal, as possessed by living things, or an equilibrium or system goal, as possessed oy living ecosystems." 39 Routley and Routley, 104. ' Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: 106, 319. Page 20 iherefore, tne second principle is: that the -altaic or of animate objects and also such biological items as ecosystems can ce affected in one way oi another, e.g. increased, decreased, upset. Foi instance, the wellbeing of a coastal community and of the individual trees in it can ce reduced to zero oy sandmining, and it can be seriously threatened by pumping vaste detergent into trie nearoy ocean. Tnere is a general ocligaiton principle corresponding likewise to tnis more comprehensive class of ,»elf are-bearers, namely, dpX to jaopafoxse ttfi ..ulijeiiju ui aaiuxai oPJecxs uc -J.4--UU1 JiCu ±£aiGU. 4<) 40 3. Routiey and Routiey. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics; lOu- /. Beyond preference-havers and beings or systems ith interests or welfares, the environment contains items, sucn as rocKS, soils and «:ater*ays tnat nave value, out no preferences or interests; unlike higher animals sucn items cannot literally be put into dispreferred states (and In obvious sense, as opposed to the ider sense of 'interests' tied to welfare, they have no interests), out they can be damaged or destroyeo or nave their Maiue eroded or impaired. 41 41 Routiey ana Routiey. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics; Tne three generalizable obligation principles are parallel in their structure and application and vary omv in /.hat rings of the annular Picture that they cover. Exclusiveness of the principles to a particuair ring, however, snould not ce assumed. ine principle of not damaging or destroying the value of an object of in oral concern could extend across the entire annular picture. Thus tne overlay of a ^articular ouject of moral concern will indicate which principle(s) of obligation may be applied to a particular case. An object of moral concern, e.g. a wornoat, may very veil be capdole of being placed in a dispreferred state, its wellbeing or interests jeopardizej, or devalued at one ana tne same time. in tne other hand, another object of moral concern, e.g. Ayers Rock, may, perhaps, only be disvalued. 109. Page 21 Further tne respect position not only gives generalized principi.es of od! igat ion , but it also reverses tne common notion of when tnese principles are applied: Cn tne alternative thoroughgoing respect vie.'., whi.cn is illustrated o y various nonexploitive non- estern ethics, one starts from a restricted position, a position of no interference and no exploitation, a position at peace witn tne natural world so to say, and allots interference -- not as on ■estern tninxlng, restricts i terference -- for aooa reasons. ine onus of ,-roof is tnus entirely inverted: good reasons are required lax interference, not xa siax interference. 42 _____ Routley and Routley. nunan Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: 174. <*?verLi? ’ onus 01 proof leads to shifts and inversions in otner areas as well. Requiring good reasons for interfering crings about a shift in tne notion of property ownership. Operating under a respect position, it can no longer oe assumed that tne environment or pieces of lii?an QofSrivate Property t0 De done with or disposed of at ■'•ill. Before a s-amp can ce drained, or a forest" cut, or a steam polluted seme jooa reason must be given, Human convenience and economic gain would not count as good Respect does not preclude use, nut it does preclude certain sorts of use. it is inco catioie aoove all -itn property vie ano >.itn regarding something as no lore than a eans to tne user's eras. 43 Routley* Social theories, Self management, and Environmental Problems: The respect position is not only incompatible witn the property view, it is also incompatible 1th tne strong dichotomy between use and nonuse: me conventional wisdom of western Society tends to offer a false dichotomy of use versus respectful nonuse - a false choice wnicn cones out especially clearly again in tne treat ent of animals. Here the choice presented in -estern thought is typically one of exxoex use without respect or serious constraint, of using animals for example in the ways cnaracteristic of largescare mass-production farming and a market economic systep wnich are inconpatiole with respect, ox on the otner nand of not making any use of animals at all, for e x ampie, never making use 322 . Page 22 of animals for food or for farming purposes, •hat is left out in unis choice is trie alternative tne Indians and other non--.estern teople have recognizee, the alternative oi li 'ited and respectful use, which enaoles use to be made of animals, but does not allow animals to oe used in an unconstrained way or merely as means tc human ends. 44 44 Routley and Routley, human Chauvinism aid Environmental Ethics: 179. bt^taKerVup tr^a^a ter °cn^t er*™ pe0fie' sever’di groups of Australian Aborigines, will ^either, then, is tne respect position a reverence position tnat also arises from the use/nonuse oicnotoi y. the lives, preferences, choices, and considerations of otner species or objects of oral concern are not to be taken as sacred and inviolable. out as has been pointed out before a good reason must be given before interference can oe orooKe . interference is acceptable, as in tne case of ’essential predation... nlch is essential to the normal livelihood of the predator, and where tne predator takes tor itself no more than it requires for its livelihood," 45 Routley, Richard. in Defense of Cannibalism•; 32. thus an alternative to tne western dichotomy of use versus nonuse is to mitigate, if possible, tne user's considerations with the considerations of the item: io so ise somethin i itnout treating it as available for unlimited or unconstrained use tor numan ends is characteristic of x;esfcicci.XuX use. In contrast non-respectful use treats the use of the Iten as constrained by no considerations arising from the item itself and tne user's relationship to it, but as constrained only in a derivative way, by considerations of the convenience, welfare ano so forth of otner humans. 4b Routley and Routley. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics: For there to be a respectful position that denies tne dichotomy of unconstrained use versus respectful nonuse and tnat allows tor the relationsnip Detween tne user and tne item and the considerations of the item to be taken into account, one fundamental change in tne present relationship between humans and tne environment tnat must eventuate is for individual users to take direct responsibility for their impact: Respect positions can only be generally 179. Page 23 realized in a society in whicn tne basic social structure and economy enables people to take direct responsibility for tne impact on tne natural world their needs and tneir statisfaction create , such as in tne economy of cooperative, involvement, 47 Routley and Routley. Social theories, Self "anagement, and Environmental Problems: Human users taking direct responsibility tor tneir impact snould lover tneir impact. If users bear tne responsibility tor producing and managing what they need, then they should produce, in a manner like unto tne 'taking' of essential oreaation only wnat they neeo and should 'qo lighter' on tne world: 323 . ..self-management can offer the alternative of a social^ in wnich nothing is produced wnich uoes not correspond to genuine needs an .i in which production is designed to satisfy tnose needs «itn a minimum of aste. Tne possiclity of production of material *nicn does not correspono to genuine neeos is eliminated oy two factores in the ecomony of cooperative exchange ano involvement; first, a direct relationsnip between tne possiblity of use of an iter and direct expenditure of labour on tne part of tne user, and second, direct cooperative involvment bet een producers and users. 48 48 Routley and Routley. social Theories, Self anagement, and Environmental Problems: Tne respect position, tnerefore, is intended to lower the impact of human users on the entire environment, -nile extending tne position's own impact goes far beyond tne interrelations of human and other species. It is intended, when applied to «estern cultures, to face among other issues tne econonic/etnicai conflicts tnat nave been at tne core of many of tne practical ethical problems concerning humans ana nonhumans and that nave given rise to much of tne current debate over inter-specific ethics. ine respect position is a strong repalcement to the Dominion Thesis that has been tne ruleing and guiding principle of western though on etnical relationsnips between numans and nonhumans. bike the Dominion Thesis, tne respect position is a oasic set of principles from whicn a wnoie range of problems, situations, ' and questions can oe approached. Tne alterations to the cut of -estern societies tnat would result from its adoption as tne pattern of etmcal progress would oe more drastic tnan that of either a Stewardship Principle (or some other weakened form of the Dominion Thesis) or an extension principle, sucn as the Utilitarian extension proposed by Singer. fet these seeniniy drastic alterations, or some 313. Page 24 otnef equally drastic set, r^ay be no more tnan *nat is ■■eeje.; to restyle current practices as a more just ano less ar o i t rary .  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 3, Item 1744: (Section IV) Subject The topic of the resource Computer print out on Val Plumwood (Val Routley) and Richard Routley's (Richard Sylvan) environmental philosophy, includes 48 literature summaries of their works. Author not identified. Description An account of the resource Title in collection finding aid: ?: computer print out on Routleys’ environmental phil. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Val+Plumwood&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Plumwood</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 3, Item 1744 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [24] leaves. 19.2 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4f13573">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4f13573</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Second Bookcase - Fourth Shelf - Pile 2 Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Second Bookcase > Fourth Shelf > Pile 2 Box 3: Environmental Ethics https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/997fd85057676508d18a88b1e6bf281d.pdf 516f4fd88e81218b85118182cadc8850 PDF Text Text GAEAN GREENHOUSE, NUCLEAR WINTER, AND ANTHROPIC DOOMSDAY? ... climate change, like no other issue, calls the whole notion of human progress into question. The [ever promised] benefits of newer technologies, more efficient economics, and improved political systems could be overwhelmed by uncontrolled global warming. ... the pace of climate change will soon overwhelm natural variability in the earth's climate. Indeed, it can be compared with nuclear war for its potential to disrupt a wide range of human and natural systems, [severely] complicating the task of managing economies and coping with other problems. Irrigation works, settlement patterns, and food production [among others] would be tragically disrupted ... (Worldwatch 89, p.ll, p.10) There are many approaches to the the cluster of problems upon which this philosophical investigation focuses. These approaches range from playing the issue down entirely, dismissing it as not a problem, not something anyone should worry about, at the one end of the range, to playing it up at the other. Those who play it up may even foresee the demise of the human race, unless substantially new socio-economic arrangements - with restructured cities, revitalized lands, rejuvenated oceans - soon eventuate. There is certainly plenty of room for different approaches (see Diagram 1), and for some eclecticism. For what is being relied upon, in every case, comprises shaky and contestable arguments, from flimsy forecasting models lacking many apparently relevant details. No one of sound judgment, aware that weather reports for twelve hours ahead can be wildly astray, would place a very high level of confidence on climatic forecasts for fifty years ahead down a very hazardous track. Nonetheless there is enough information to act; and there is information rationally requiring action. For things in the future are not going to be the same. It is very doubtful that they are going to be any better (though much important economic theorizing presupposes as much, such as the monetary discounting of the future). They are not going to be similar even, because so many parameters important to life are changing, several at exponential rates. Significant in these changes are likely climatic changes. The Greenhouse effect is among these, a result of the increases of "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide and methane, in the Earth's atmosphere, which have followed exponential paths since the highenergy phase of industrial culture (see Diagram 7). The growth in gas concentration produces, what it is lagged by, but is now apparent, a significant increase in mean global temperatures. This has major implications for much of life on Earth. �Course of action Reasons offered Short response No problem Refutable No certainty Irrational Adaptive capacity Exaggerated High-tech resolution Wishful thinking Severe dislocation otherwise Utopian Individual survival Pointless No action^ Moderate action Considerable action These very condensed responses will be expanded and explained as we proceed. In accord with an esteemed philosophical tradition, a medical analogy is first deployed; it serves to throw main points into high relief. Consider the possible illness of the Earth, for instance as a result of brutalisation and poisoning. Look on the Earth then as a patient^, who exhibits some symptoms of a possibly disabling illness; for instance the patient's system is overloaded with troublesome trace elements and her temperature appears to be rising. Compare rational medical practice where a human patient gives indications of possibly disabling illness, for instance the patient shows signs of hypertension. Now consider some of the spectrum of approaches. Suppose the advice is to take no action, to do nothing but monitor the situation until further information comes in, until even (to take a worst case) it becomes evident that the patient indeed has hypertension and suffers a severe consequence. That would be regarded as irresponsible practice. To say that there is no problem when symptoms are there, would be regarded as utterly irresponsible, and medically refutable. To say that no action should be taken until certainty as to the complaint is established would be seen as incompetent medical practice. Taoist no-action would be different. It would not have undertaken excessive industrial action in the first place. This is precisely not the way less modest Gaean hypotheses regard the Earth. For there the Earth is active, actively participating in co-evolutionary developments. But the health analogy does of course go right back to ancient chthonic view, systematically presented in Plato, according to which The Earth is a living being of whom humans are only a part. Right relationship with the Earth means that the total organism is in good health; so environmental problems are seen as illness, as a failure of one part of the organism to interact supportivcly with others' (Hughes, p.60). For Gaean themes in other ancient philosophies, both before and after Plato, see Hughes p.57. �a ? 3 A responsible practitioner begins recommending some remedial action straight away. Naturally there are various options open as to what may be prescribed. These include, at the one end, high-tech procedures, such as, what would be ridiculous simply for hypertension, full medical engine-and-gearbox replacement (heart and kidney transplant), or, a little less ludicrous but ridiculously commonplace, a whole-remaining-life course of pharmaceutical products, e.g. tablets. At the other end, lifestyle changes are proposed, such as more exercise, weight loss, stress reduction, and an improved diet with less sodium input. Reasonable advice would not include pure adaptation, that the patient went on living as before in the expectation that her system would adapt to the situation. Nor would it be reasonably suggested, except in somewhat unusual circumstances, that the patient entirely change her lifestyle, abandon her work, house and so on, and live somewhere else. Even so unusual circumstances, which might include residence in a very polluted environment or work in a nuclear plant, are no doubt on the increase. Like all analogies, the medical analogy has limitations. One feature it does not capture concerns the holistic aspects of the Earth's sickness, and why accordingly an individualistic survival approach, egotistically rational enough for hypertension and perhaps even for a localised nuclear war, cannot succeed. The reason is, of course, that holistic problems are too extensive for individuals, or even small collectives, acting on their own to be effective or to make much difference. Some are too big even for large collectives or states, but would require whole regions of the Earth acting in concert. But of course some state players, such as the superpowers as regards nuclear winter, can make a substantial difference, or even all the difference. The medical analogy also indicates the outcome of further investigation of approaches. Briefly, as with a chronic illness, the conclusion is that there is no very easy path; future humans should expect a hard landing. 1. Investigative philosophy, argument and rational decision as applied to climatic probiematiques. The role of philosophy in such a complex problematique as that of Greenhouse effects is not difficult to state briefly. Philosophy, Anglo-American philosophy especially, is concerned above all with Investigative philosophy resembles philosophy, except that it may upset the philosophy it applies; it investigates arguments, their features - assumptions, reliability, etc. - and their generalisation to rational processes and methods, but normal philosophical topics. The generalisation to rational processes comprehends a wider range of philosophical throughput than the orthodox narrow range of argument typically addressed in logic courses; to probabilistic and plausibilistic reasoning, to decision processing and making. �4 A main objective in this piece of investigative philosophy is to consider certain argumcmj pointing to probabilities of severe dislocation as a result of Greenhouse effects, and the resulting impact on rariana/ formation and action. There are certain arguments of particular interest for radical decision and action: various neo-Malthusian arguments, catastrophe arguments, and doomsday arguments. A main run of arguments to considerable action are limitative in character. Such ZimifafMm arguments are sometimes alternatively called *neo Malthusian', since Malthus presented a very elementary, very controversial, argument of this general type. But such is the hostility, especially in Marxist-influenced quarters, to Malthus's associated themes (some of them admittedly repulsive) that merely to associate an argument terminologically with Malthus is thereby likely to condemn it. To avoid such fallacious condemnation-byassociation, the graphic term 'neo-Malthusian' is largely avoided in what follows. The general form of these limitation arguments is simply this: growth in some parameter over time encounters limits, typically with severe, even catastrophic, effects; for seldom is the transition to severely constrained behaviour smooth. A characteristic graphic representation is as follows: Diagram 2. GrowfA ZimiM growth parameter exponential growth pattern encountering limits subsequent varying behaviour The limits are often imposed just by finitude, for instance finiteness of a resource or a sink. But other limits can be important, for instance where new phenomena or thresholds come into play. General limitation arguments loom in the background in what follows, where we shall be arguing on a double front: �* * 5 A. Significant disequilibrium of the Earth's systems is a real possibility, and accordingly must be reckoned with in decision procedures. Though the probability of such an outcome may only be modest, the case has to be taken seriously because the result (arrived at by a limitation argument typically) is so bad. Suppose, for instance, the outcome is that the Earth ceases to be habitable in present terms, to be able to carry its present demanding load. Such an outcome would have an extremely high negative value, so it would tend to dominate other alternatives. (But it need not be an entirely worst case, where perhaps the dominant terrestrial species becomes extinct, or the Earth becomes devoid of "higher" life. Under the bad result contemplated some better-off humans in special circumstance may subsist for a while.) Such sufficiently bad cases be taken account of in decision making; they have to be taken account of in rgrz'o/ia/ decision procedures. A*. Significant disequilibrium not only has a non-negligible probability, but set in the proper content has a sizeable probability; so it cannot be ignored or discounted as too low to bother about. For such an argument has to be established at the outset than for a rational decision theory argument. Such a different argument, of especial concern as regard climatic changes, is the following argument:- * There is some probability that the Gaean "greenhouse effect", generated by human activity, will get out of control, that Gaean control mechanisms will fail, and that the Earth will, for example, overheat (Runaway Greenhouse, or premiss). * That result would be disastrous for human activities, and indeed for humans Pr<9.sp(?cf). * Because of the unusual, and unusually precarious, position of humans (of certain critical anthropic parameters), such a probability of disaster is not in fact small but decidedly large. As a consequence then, the human species will probably sharply decline, and even become extinct (C^^^p/26 That is, by a rectified version of Murphy's law - that if something can go wrong then in appropriate unusual conditions, it very probably will - an incrementally small probability is inflated into a very large probability. It would be a mistake to conclude that because the argument itself looks an unlikely one, everyone can stop worrying. The argument is but ong of a substantial raft of arguments, suggesting that we are already in deep trouble, that 5/23^ have everyone worried; it is but a final intellectual sting, so to say, from the previously inconspicuous cosmological tail. �6 Such a doomsday argument no doubt puts together, in one more exact form, some of the sorts of considerations that are troubling many people, especially concerned youth, about the Greenhouse business: that humans (including themselves) are on a decline or extinction path. It is no doubt not the only consideration that should be troubling them or us. For whether or not doomsday warnings are warranted, there are other matters that should be sufficiently worrisome, to anyone of moral integrity:* Future times are likely to be exceedingly uncomfortable for very many creatures, as habitats are destroyed, food producing regions are eliminated, and environments seriously impoverished. (Many of these creatures are nonexistents, mere future existents, i.e. creatures that do not yet exist or participate in market or voting rituals, but nonetheless they wzZ/ exist and may participate. But, despite their presently unfavourable ontological status, they are entitled to fair and decent treatment.) * Given such future prospects, present practices which do nothing or vanishingly little to ameliorate these prospects, are decidedly irrational. Indeed a main message that will emerge from the present exercise is the mora/ Zrrtmpna/f/y of critical large-scale human practices. The irrationality, morally-weighed-down irrationality, of present large-scale human practices is already conspicuous from the wintry downside of climatic prospects of which Greenhouse warming is the upside. �7 Diagram 3. Macro-c/wKmc jarring am?Observed global average temperatures, 1880-1987, with forward projections (historic data from Worldwatch p.10). mean global temperature (degrees C) The apparatus for conducting a world-wide nuclear war is entirely in place and indeed on alert The probability of such a war, even if small, is not zero. Among the many awful effects of a large nuclear war is that of nuclear winter, which would probably bring about the demise of present human civilisation, and would at the very least mean enormous dislocation for most surviving humans and other creatures. A sufficiently diabolical chemico-nuclear war, reaching into all inhabited parts of the globe, could indeed drive the human species close to extinction. The decidedly dubious rationality and morality of these general nuclear arrangements both through what they are in themselves for what purposes, and through their moral �8 opportunity costs - are widely appreciated. The thesis that the arrangements and practices are immoral, irradonal, and ought to be dismantled - already much argued, and also contested^ - is not the present concern. The thermonuclear downside is, by comparison, a very easy case to examine philosophically, and argue, as compared with the greenhouse upside.4 For there is, for instance, a case of sorts for much increased use of greenhouse gases, such as CFCs in refrigerators, a case that hardly extends very plausibly to nuclear weapons. It is a case heavily pressed by some "developing" nations, for polluting devices already in widespread use in more affluent places, as necessary for local standards of living. These nations want, or are heavily encouraged, to extend the war against Nature through the habitats they have gained control over, in the name of economic progress. War also joins Greenhouse summer and nuclear winter. For the barely-analogical rapacious war against Nature is a major contributor to Greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, in the domestication of wetlands for rice paddies, through the heavy pillaging of forests, and the like, typically carried on with swords and bayonets reforged to jump ploughs, chemical weapons turned to herbicide guns, and tanks converted to bulldozers. The protracted war against Nature^, carried, it had been supposed, to a victorious conclusion with the rise of science and technology and the ubiquitous advance of industralisation, seems however to have backfired. For it is turning the Earth, Gaea herself, into a patient, with crippled life support systems, thereby endangering the sustained future even of the victorious. Yet another Pyrrhic victory. Greenhouse and nuclear winter are more intricately connected than through war and as the upside and downside of meteorological phenomena. One of the high-tech solutions suggested for atmospheric overheating, involves the generation of wintering effects - to cool things down - by flinging enough dust up into the atmosphere, a trick no doubt most easily achieved on the requisite scale by nuclear explosives. Needless to say, like backbuming against out-of-control fires, artificial winter would be a pretty desperate and, given present expertise, dangerous expedient. 2. The Greenhouse debate, main policy responses, and irrational decision. The Greenhouse debate, as to what to do, if anything, about forecast Greenhouse effects on Earth, is intellectually disturbing. For it has revealed, as we shall soon see, that many of those who have spoken, worse that /pta/ry q/ r/io-yg wAo who have some role For my very small contribution to this, see the War and Peace scries in Papery E/iwv/wig/mxZ RSSS, Australian National University. Global warming, by no means entirely certain, is assumed to be the outcome of increasing greenhouse gas build up. Of course though some mean temperatures will rise, cooling will probably occur also in some localized regions. A war incited and applauded by illustrious philosophical forebears. �* & 9 in decision making (including both experts and politicians), mah'ng in con^'n'on^ p/nncorrainiy or possible riskA a J7rm gra.%? on The main canvassed policy approaches to the Greenhouse problematique lie firmly within the dominant social outlook, the high-tech growth and development ideology. Diagram 4 E?r<9<26? po/z'cy fa rA^ Gr^g/i/z<9^^ /?ra^/^marz^a^. Dominant paradigm options Alternative ecological outlook Procrastination (wait-and-see) Soft energy paths and alternative regulation Adaptation (sink-or-swim) Socio-economic transformation Regulation Intervention (star wars) We will briefly outline, and find wanting, a// the dominant approaches. * Procra^rznaaon, the prevailing response. In fact the main governmental and conservative response thus far has been procrastination, or "wait-and-see" as it is more benignly known.*? The approach makes much of the uncertainties, of the shortcomings, in even the most elaborate general circulation models for future climatic change, of the high noise-to-signal levels. On such bases it contends that it is too early to do anything, except staging some meetings, organising some review committees, undertaking some monitoring, and funding a little more "research". It obviously does nothing to rock the growth ideology boat. Certainly a few scientists, outside main policy making reaches, do have a sound intuitive appreciation of these problems, and of the deficiencies of prevailing practices, e.g. Pittock 87. There is little excuse for prevailing ignorance of or ignoring of decision theory: for the elements of the standard theory are readily accessible and very elementary. In the present essay a modification of standard decision theory (as expounded e.g. in Jeffrey) is assumed as background; for details see Sylvan. Following Knight, many economists (try to) distinguish between uncertainty and risk. Risk is said to obtain when some more or less objective numerical probabilities can be assigned to outcomes, a situation not obtaining as regards global greenhouse effects. Bayesians, who can always assign subjective probabilities tend to eschew the distinction, e.g. Cyert and DeGroot, who say that 'decision making under uncertainty refers to situations in which the outcome of the decision is not precisely predictable'(p.3). Either way, Greenhouse involves uncertainty - to which rational procedures should be applied. There is significant rhetorical art in the choice of classificatory labels, a rather philosophically neglected art. A PR person must have been hired to produce the Greenhouse adaptation of 'adaptation*. �10 There is the pretence that we do not know enough to act.s But it is known that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fast increasing. The main causes and enough likely enough consequences are also known. Theoretical considerations have already been partially confirmed by rising temperatures in the eighties. Outcomes of rising temperatures are also known in broad outline: rising sea levels, and so forth. In addition, there are partial small-scale models of Greenhouse effects in action. For example, a city such as Mexico City, which is situated in the bowl-like valley, is placed in an environment which traps heat as well as polludon. The ecological effects, like the human effects, are pretty dramatic even at this small level, and hardly to be sought, or emulated elsewhere. There is a pretence, fostered also by many sciendsts, that Greenhouse difficuldes have only just been discovered; a date commonly set for that watershed event is the Villiers conference and statement of 1985 (e.g. Pittock 87 pp.2-3). Actually there have been Greenhouse warnings for more than a decade, and there has been a corresponding decade of inacdon. Nor is any acdon of much significance presently seriously contemplated. Back in 1979 Bernard wrote at length about and reported the substantial concern of climatologists about Greenhouse effects. Even the magazine not then noted for its green sympathies, recorded that The release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels is, conceivably, the most important environmental issue in the world today" (May 3 1979). Bernard quotes many other concerned scientists, several asserdng that 'the government must start dealing with this problem now". They meant the United States government. "The"" government didn't take the hint. For more than a decade then, sciendsts have been emphasizing that the Greenhouse threat is a major environmental problem, and that action should be taken immediately. Over 10 years nothing of real significance to counter the effects has happened. There has been more than a q/TKacdo/t, during which matters have got worse, and the time frame for evasive acdon disturbingly shorter. It is already evident that requisite decision making under uncertainty is not taking place. On straight inductive grounds, it would be reasonable to expect nothing will be done. While there are theoretical grounds to back up such an assessment, still it is only just beginning to get through to a much wider public (which can exercise a marginal influence on what politicians say) that there is - or T/zay be, as some more reactionary modal-mongering academics would have - a problem or two. Part of the problem is that scientists have been caught out (e.g. crying wolf) and have become ultra-cautious. With the advent of thermodymamics, for instance, scientists began 'threatening mankind with a rather swift "heat death"' as the universe ran down. Thus M. Alier, on 'blatant ideological use of science even by scientists themselves' (see Bernard p.9). More recently, many rang alarm bells prematurely concerning an impending mini-ice-age. The past predictive failures of scientists have been used as evidence for scepticism concerning greenhouse effects; see Me Kibben p.8. It is an unsatisfactorily selective argument; interestingly it is not used in a similar way against economists, whose predictive record is significantly worse. �11 Many scientists have joined the wait-and-see queue, with their begging bowls, hoping for more hand-outs for research. They assume, rightly enough, that more information would assist with rational decision-making, and also, quite wrongly, that "scientific certainty" is required for action to be taken. Physical scientists are not alone in their misapprehension of rational decision methods. Although there is a good deal of practical experience available of statistical-type decision making under uncertainty, for instance as regards insurance coverage and engineering projects, decision theory, especially as regards unrepeatable situations, has not penetrated very far into standard scientific methodology or much into mainstream parts of social sciences. 'Economists in particular have shown a talent for bringing every problem back to a world of certainty where all solutions are known or can be easily found/ Natural scientists including climatologists are, for the most part, on the same erroneous reducdon-tounattainable-certainty trip. 'This is not to say that economists have not worked on uncertainty. ... however ... uncertainty is introduced and then taken out by assumption' (Cyert and DeGroot, continuing, p.l). But there are several classes of problemadc situations, where decision and action may be required, where uncertainty be removed or discarded by fiat, reducdon stratagems or otherwise, notably:* inherently probabilistic situations, such as those of indeterminacy in quantum theory; * essentially unpredictable situadons (which may be determinisdc) such as those now under invesdgadon in chaos theory; * presently uncertain situations and outcomes, which may eventually resolve into certain cases, or may tum into some of the above classes, where there is not time to wait for resolution. The Greenhouse problem is regularly put into the latter class, a standard assumpdon being that with enough money and research effort thrown at it, it will resolve to decent certainty. But it may well not. Climate is now a prime arena for applications of chaos theory (in any case inidal conditions for application of meteorological equadons are seldom very accurate and are now shifting with the accumulation of Greenhouse gases). There are grounds for supposing that critical parts of climatology will fall into the essentially unpredictable class, that the sought certainly is unattainable. If so the standard begging-bowl posture of too many research scientists: Supply more funding so we can go on researching undl we obtain certainty, is misguided.^ Or, less charitably, downright dishonest. Nor does it seem to have occurred to most research scientists demanding more money that an important reason why they are not obtaining the funding they expect, or even enough to run complex modellings on expensive computers, is because their research results could, if unfavourable, act as a serious drag on the industrial establishment. 77zey are Aar<^/y go//7g to /?e we// jrt/tt/et/ to ^e/eg/twuze woder/i /a^artr/a/ society. �12 There are thus some severe problems with this prevailing response. Firstly, it is irrational. Certainty, achieved, may be achieved too late. What was required for rationality was decision making in advance of certainty. Secondly, certainty may be unobtainable. The meteorological equations may be non-linear (nonadditive) and so incapable of delivering firm results given slightly fluctuating initial data. Not only are many experts and decision makers only comfortable about acting in circumstances of relative certainty; almost as bad, where some uncertainty is involved, only what is considered Zz^/y gets genuine consideration. Rational decision making has however to take account of what may not be very likely at all, but may be quite disastrous should it occur (e.g. a nuclear accident with full meltdown). In this respect too, the standard response is methodologically unsound. * AzZapzarz^n, learning to live with and love the Greenhouse. The policy That tends to be favoured by most economists' is an adaptive strategy: '"Let society adjust to environmental changes without attempting to mitigate or prevent the changes in advance". We could adapt to climate change for example, by planting alternative crop strains [themselves] ... more widely adapted... ' (Schneider p.8). Observe, however, that it is a decidedly rayzrzcf&% "adaptation" that is being proposed, that humans adjust to the results of present economic and industrial practices, rather than adjusting fAem. It is zz^^zz/?z^6Z that economic growth comes first, that we do not change (e.g. through decent regulation) high energy industrial practices. A fuller and smarter adaptation would adapt r/z&yg practices. The policy is like a pernicious agriculture policy that says, "Let farmers adjust to the results of soil erosion, salination and so on, without attempting to mitigate or prevent these deleterious changes in advance." Such "adaptadve agriculture", the present predominant practice in advanced agriculture, is anti-environmental, but is given a spurious air of evolutionary inevitability and evolutionary redistributive justice; you can't buck natural evolution, which is entirely natural, can you? Let us condense such far-from-inevitable and highly artificial mal-adaptation in the neologism Greenhouse adaptation, like nuclear adaptation, is badaptation (some, less kind, would say wa^aptation). There is a pragmatic, if cynical, political argument for badaptation, namely, that zznzZat^raZ action to prevent a warming is unfeasible and requisite international cooperation is unattainable. Both contentions are open to doubt. Unilateral action by the USA, by far the Earth's heaviest resource and energy consumer (per capita and on several other relevant dimensions), could make a major difference, especially when backed up by pressure (familiar from other settings, such as the narcotics war) on other nations and through the United Nations. Unfortunately the USA is also the world's largest supplier of influential growth economists. In any case, international agreements such as those on whaling and �13 concerning Antarctica, are attainable, and sometimes effective. The ozone protocols, limiting production of CFCs, show that results can be achieved to limit trace gas emissions. The adaptadon proposal is presently compatible with wait-and-see; both mean little or no hauling back on trace gas production. Indeed procrastination will force sociedes towards badaptation. Typical of adaptation, like procrastination, is an (over-)emphasis on the uncertainties of Greenhouse forecasts, and on the decision-theoretic paralysis such uncertaindes are alleged to produce. Characterisdc of adaptadon too is a minimisadon of the of Greenhouse modification. No doubt the impression that things won't be so very different, or far removed from what has already been experienced, is important in getting adaptationism more readily accepted, as a radonal course of acdon (instead of the seemingly irradonal course it is). Thus badaptation tends to play with figures at the low end of projected ranges of temperature increase, such as 1.5°C for 2050, when in fact present data indicates something rather in the vicinity of 4° C - in a setting, furthermore, where fracdons of a degree centigrade may well be linked to macro-physical and macro-biological change. Recent modellings deliver, on average, an increase in 2°C attributable to carbon dioxide, and it is widely thought that other trace gases will double the CO2 effect^, thus yielding a 4°C temperature increase around 2050. The colossal extent of future human dislocation has correspondingly been deliberately underemphasized. The adaptive capacides of human arrangements, when humans are living at the margin, to massive natural shifts, has been grossly exaggerated. Consider agriculture alone - set aside flooded cides, sunken atoll islands, and all the rest. Some of the Earth's major grain producing regions - upon which famine relief projects depend - could be pushed substantially out of business. The conditions which prevailed during the American dust­ bowl experience of the nineteen-thirties were benign indeed compared with those which threaten with mid twenty-first century Greenhouse condidons. The mid-continental summer temperatures were only 1-2° C warmer than the present average; under greenhouse conditions they could well be more than 3-4° C warmer. In the dust-bowl rainfall only slipped at critical growing times (e.g. July for northern corn) to 80% of the contemporary norm; but under Greenhouse conditions it could be significantly less again (only winter precipitation increasing). A super dust-bowl is not improbable (for much more detail, see Bernard). Similarly for other similar latitude Northern grain producing regions. But the high-energy industrial superstructure is crucially based upon sufficient cheap food (bread) for the urban masses. 10 See e.g. Pearman p.18. Note that methane is beginning to rival carbon dioxide as a gas whose atmospheric propordons really matter and whose present exponential increase is excessive. �14 * Tnfgrvenn'o?!, high-tech Earth engineering. Interventionist proposals so far floated include (D New oceans in parts of the Earth's land surface lying below, at, or near sea level. These projects would make the mega-dams of recent times look like children's play. @ Wintering effects. Production of sufficient dust in the atmosphere, achieved for instance by nuclear detonations, to mitigate heating effects. Such enterprise would make modification of the weather by cloud seeding look like childs' play. Fortunately these and other expensive and grandiose proposals, which would call for considerable international cooperation, far down the planning track; with these schemes procrastination is rational. * controlling free(-wheeling) enterprise. Regulation itself is of course transparadigmatic; where it belongs depend on what measures (what sorts of constraints, rights, etc.) are proposed and how they are imposed or enforced. If it is, for example, some industrial law-and-order, smokestack scrubbing regulations or Greenhouse polluting rights, within the status quo, that is one thing, but if a minimally- constrained growth paradigm is questioned and alternative socio-economic arrangements advocated, that is quite another, and falls outside the dominant paradigm. Such policies involving regulations controlling fossil fuel emissions especially, are negatively labelled in the predominantly American policy literature, though there is now no preventing some Greenhouse effects; but the worse to follow could still be prevented. What is usually covered under the label is however some regulation within prevailing political arrangements. So energy efficiencies and savings for investment in growth elsewhere is comprehensible, straight growth-curtailing non-consumption is not contemplated. But the latter is just what alternatives do contemplate. Democratic political arrangements do not exclude such alternatives; both the power bases of political leaders and economic prescriptions do. Adequate regulation within prevailing socio-economic arrangements is going to prove impossible, without adjustment of power structures and economic imperatives - in effect without far-reaching systemic and ideological adjustment. While such adjustment appears rational, it seems unlikely (see further section 5). Power holders and the power structures into which they slot have too much to lose. So it is hardly remarkable that regulation itself is not so bureaucratically popular (at least under that mode of presentation) in these latter days of economic irrationalism, and is strongly resented and resisted. Some of the U.S. bureaucratic reaction to the Antarctic ozone hole, now regularly attributed to extensive CFC usage, is instructive. A top Reagan official 'said that since CFO's were useful to industry, people should use sunglasses and baseball caps as protection against retina damage and skin cancer' - individualisdcally distributed adaptationism, terrific �€? & 15 for creatures outside "sunglasses and baseball caps" economies. Other Reagan administrators spoke for procrastination, one academic-turned-bureaucrat observing that 'so far the ozone hole has had little effect on skin cancer rates in the United States'. The prevailing bureaucratic procrastination stance that was applied to the much easier ozone problem (which has belated obtained weak international responses), is now extended to Greenhouse effects. It is typically, typically irrationally, stated by high administrators that 'significant gaps exist in our knowledge .... These scientific uncertainties must be reduced before we commit the economic future to drastic and potentially misplaced policy responses' (preceding quotations from McKibben p.10, p.ll, italics added). and the of the Greenhouse business is thereby also revealed. Like heart disease and cancer, Greenhouse effects are gaining much discussion and some funding because they just may severely effect the affluent, affluent humans and affluent nations, that have a good deal to lose, in United States especially. The impact will, however, be at least as severe in some third world nations, whose lands or much of them will be flooded, countries which cannot afford extensive The extensive expensive dyking (or where such effort would be in the longer term, as seas rise, be pointless), countries such as Pacific coral atoll nations and delta states like Bangladesh. But the really serious losers will no doubt be, not humans , rich or poor, but nonhumans. Biological diversity, already being reduced by various human activities, may be one of the chief casualties of global warming. Massive destruction of forests, wetlands, and even the polar tundra could irrevocably destroy complex eco­ systems that have existed for millennia. Indeed, various biological reserves created in the past decade to protect species diversity could become virtual death traps as wildlife attempt to survive in conditions for which they are poorly suited. Accelerated species extinction is an inevitable consequence of a rapid warming (Worldwatch p.10). 3. Arguments to dislocation and for a Lesser Venus Prospect. There is at least a small probability that predicted increases in mean atmospheric temperatures will seriously interfere with most remaining natural habitats and result in the degeneration or destruction of many of them, especially forests, wetlands, and marine environments. For example, most wetlands will either be flooded or else evaporate under increasing temperatures. Again, the prospect is for the boreal forest to shrink from about 23% of the world's forest to something like 1% of a much diminished forest covering. Nor will adaptationism help here; for natural evolution is much too slow for adaptationism to succeed n. 11 Cf. Keeton pp.763-4, '... typical migration rates for forest boundaries are of the order of 502000m per annum ... [A requisite] shift of 500-1000km would, however, take hundreds of years. ... Pollen evidence... suggests that large changes occurred in forest composition during the Holocene period some 8000-10000 years ago, even though the climate changes then were less �16 Natural ecosystems will not adapt effectively to rapid climatic change.... With regard to forests, habitats for plants and animals cannot be re-created or transplanted rapidly. Continuing climatic changes would strain the capabilities of management practices even in commercial tree plantations (Beijer Institute Report pp.21-3). The decline or demise of these systems, vast reservoirs for greenhouse gases, will accelerate the warming, and accordingly make matters substantially worse: Trees are adapted to a narrow range of temperature and moisture levels, and cannot cope with rapid climate change. A temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius per decade in mid- to upper latitudes translates into a shift in vegetation zones of 60-100 miles northward. Terrestrial ecosystems cannot migrate that fast. Vast numbers of trees are likely to die, and new trees adapted to warmer temperatures are unlikely to be able to replace them rapidly. During such a disruption, huge areas of forest could die and, as they decay or bum, send large quantities of additional CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the warming (Worldwatch p.10). Of course the immediate climatic patterns would be somewhat more complex. If enough soot and ash from fires were flung into the atmosphere there would be a cooling effect, like that of a small nuclear winter, before heating accelerated. The present pattern of ecosystemic loss would also be sharply accelerated. For when natural ecosystems get reduced to about 30% of their initial size, they tend to collapse of themselves. Moreover, there would be other significant positive feedback from ecosystems other than the terrestrial forests, from the oceans especially. As the oceans warm, they lose their capacity to serve as carbon dioxide reservoirs. So they too release additional gases, including previously absorbed CO2, back into the atmosphere, further accelerating the warming. A critical question arises as to how much danger such positive feedback poses? As so often, informed opinions, and so probability estimates differ. However 'several scientists working in the area consider that positive feedback effects will force a very bleak picture to be drawn" (Worldwatch p.19).^ Unlike the interim effect of a small nuclear winter, where after a few years at most, climatic behaviour (as distinct from radioactivity levels and, differently, from ecological communities) would presumably return towards the previous norm, there will be /7<9 similar under greenhouse impact. Technically then, stability would be lost under the than those expected by 2030 [and forests were more extensive and less interfered with]' (Pittock 87a p.209, rearranged). Second order probabilities, probabilities and uncertainties in the light of first order subjective probabilities, enter importantly. �17 impact,^ disequilibrium induced. An eventual long-term return to some different but sufficiently congenial equilibrium could well be excluded. Under new climatic regimes plants themselves may be able to do little more than hang on for part of their own lives. In many places conditions would be too severe for much of the "year" to permit normal plant functioning, including what is crucial for Greenhouse amelioration, photosynthesis. In most plants, photosynthesis only occurs across a narrow band of temperatures (e.g. 6 - 34°C); outside that range the plants shut down operations.^ Even more important, many plants would leave few or no successful successors. Even where plants set seed, seedlings would not survive under the severe conditions expected; for instance, they would be killed by hot dry summer conditions, or in other places by frosts to which they are not adapted, both phenomena already familiar after clearfelling of forests. The situation at a famous place in southern Sahara, where there is but one ancient tree hanging on in thousands of square kilometres of desert, a tree with viable seeds which sets no seedlings, could be more or less replicated in many other places where forests or woody plants once grew. In fact we are already witnessing the demise of the trees in much of Australia. Already dead and dying trees form a predominant feature of the Australian rural landscape. Virtually whichever way ecologists travel in Australia where trees remain, they are confronted with dead and dying trees The reasons for the present decline of trees in rural Australia is, for the most part, not to be attributed to early Greenhouse or even pollution effects. "6 It is thought to be due to a complex of factors, including a range of insect predators whose efforts are concentrated on isolated trees left after an excessive zeal for clearing (i.e. holistic effects enter as regards healthy persistence of trees). Excessive disturbance of ecological systems, though overclearing of trees, has seriously upset the systems. Types of systemic stress and disturbance are likely to be much accelerated given the additional impact of Greenhouse warming on plant functioning and reproduction. f<9 some q/ worth disentangling. Firstly, a system may be disturbed by interfering with critical components There are several within the system structure, processing parts, such as botanical systems or their interconnections. As with a computer, if a cridcal component is broken or a circuit cut, the probability of serious malfunction increases. Secondly, a system normally operates within a Stability is defined in physics in terms of immediate return to an initial (inertial) position after small disturbance. The upper bound may be difficult to appreciate in most of Aotearoa. But in much of Australia, during the summer, many plants close down their operations for much of the day. Other effects of increased heat on major food plants matter for human affairs. Severe heat interferes with fertilization and reproduction in com, and apparently affects the ability of rice in Asia to reproduce; so considerably reduced yields of staple foods may be anticipated. Reported by Recher on EarfAworw. Thus coastline vegctational destruction through detergents in sewerage waters. �18 certain range of condition. Take it outside these conditions or push it towards limits (let the computer get too hot or too cold), and probability of breakdown is much increased. Feedback loops, which are an important feature of cybernetic systems are particularly vulnerable to normality disturbance. Cybernetic systems afford one example of more holistic behaviour; dissipative systems, where perhaps strange new features may enter as systemic loading is increased, another. Such new features may not be at all congenial to dominant forms, or to maintenance of life support arrangements. It should be evident from details already assembled that there is some probability the Greenhouse efforts could seriously disturb the crucial carbon cycle. The carbon cycle loops, in major fashion, through both the higher plant complexes and the oceans, both major carbon dioxide reservoirs - but just how critically through them is uncertain. However, with the serious disturbance of main components in the cycle, the real possibility of cycle malfunction can hardly be excluded. Much the same holds with other crucial chemical cycles, such as the sulphur cycle (though woody plants are perhaps less important here, the oceans are highly significant, the oceans Costeau has already pronounced moribund). To a lesser extent, several of the other well-known bio-chemical cycles, such as those for nitrogen, sodium, and so forth, depend for their stability and maintenance on the adequate operation of active ecological structures. Plainly if a cycle loops through a component, such as a tropical forest, which is severely disturbed then the crucial cycle itself could be locally disrupted. There is some probability, furthermore, that the changes will disturb other physical cycles crucial to the stability of systems. For some of the Earth's feedback systems are in fact maintained in equilibrium through natural ecosystems. A striking example appears to be the regulating of the Earth's temperature itself. Lovelock and collaborators have devised an elementary daiyy wor/d m(9dg/ which reveals how a feedback system with two types of daisies can, within limits, stabilize temperatures despite increasing solar energy input (see the next diagram). The limits are important, for as these limits are approached the maintenance systems break down. Thus again, instability could ensue under disturbance. �19 Diagram 5.77z^rm<9.s7anc r^ga/aizoa a/*rA^ Earr/z j ^zayac^ i^mp^ramrf rAraag/z p/a/zM (a much simplified picture from Lovelock 88 p.58). !n the "Datsyworid" mode), tife adjusts the pfanefs temperature to suit ttseif. A basic assumption is that on Daisyworid, as on Earth, the sun is getting progressive^ hotter. Biack daisies grow best when the surface temperature is tow, because their petals absorb radiation. As the sun's heat increases, the white daisies begin to nourish. Their petais reflect radiation, thus heipingto iower surface temperature. Between the time the seeds first germinate and when the sun gets too hot, the piants maintain a steady surface temperature by adjusting the pfanefs aibedo. Without doubt these matters are bad enough. Demise of most of the Earth's richness^ is not a minor matter. Worse could follow. Apart from direct ecological breakdown, there are several other major ways through which the maintenance structures of the Earth can be not merely awkwardly disturbed, but thrown right out of kilter - perhaps, given the d^/zcacy of several critical matters, never to return present norms. Most obvious and immediately threatening is * nuclear warfare, and therewith nuclear winter. But there are of course other severe shocks that the planet could suffer than those chemonuclear warfare, some human induced, some a "chance" matter of the planets' posidon in space; namely * a mini Big Bang, or an undermining of metastability, brought about through very high energy experimentadon (see Leslie); * a collision with a large meteorite or asteroid. Such uncertaindes, not germane to the main climatic arguments, are listed, not to achieve a bogus completeness, but to emphasize that complete certainty is not to expected, not radonally. Should we obtain it, should we obtain easy relatively unproblemadc lives, then we have, by world standards, been rather lucky. Moreover, these latter uncertaindes do so 17 Natural richness is its main richness, much exceeding human arufice. �20 far appear negligible compared with those bound up with climate.is The Greenhouse problemadque differs (as do nuclear winter and also high energy experimentation) from such possibilities as destruction of the Earth's favourable climate or life-supports by collision with an asteroid in two crucial respects: the poor prognoses are largely a matter of human making (meaning the making of certain among humans) and the damaging situations could be substantially averted by positive or concerted human activity. According analogies with remote phenomena such as decline of the sun, asteroid collisions, etc., sometimes applied to dismiss concerns with global environmental problems, do not hold up, and should be resisted. The human-induced climatic problems are primarily ascribable to: * excess economic development. The practices involve a complex and sustained assault on most of the Earth's major ecosystems, forests, seas, and so on, along with the alteration of atmospheric composition by greenhouse gases. For example, the forests are cut down, burnt, poisoned by herbicides and acid rain, or otherwise removed or destroyed. (Therewith too a great deal more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and major sinks of carbon dioxide are removed.) As a result of these concerted growth-and-development activities such systems are driven to limits, and breakdown occurs. Once it occurs at some weak point it can escalate elsewhere, like a conflagradon; thus again ecosystemic collapse for example. Quite apart from breakdown at or approaching limits, for instance because of systemic overload, remarkable changes can occur in dissipative systems under stress or strain. * excess energy or chemical loading. Though such striking examples as the chemical clock, it has been demonstrated that dissipative systems can suddenly, and often rather unpredictably, undergo extraordinary changes, as for instance energy flux is increased (Prigogine and others). Such non-additive or nonlinear effects, characteristic of more holistic dissipative systems, seem bound to occur within the Earth's atmosphere and oceans as they undergo compositional changes. Carbon dioxide itself provides a good example: None of these assessments are strikingly objective, but are a matter of appearance. The risk of catastrophic destruction of Earth civilization by an asteroid or comet is discussed, and compared with either less exotic risks, in Chapman and Morrison, chapter 19. It has been guesstimated at a 1 in 300,000 chance per year, a much smaller probability than that serious Greenhouse effect will eventuate (often put at about 85%), but comparable with some rather more mundane risks (see p.283). The risks from very high energy experimentation will no doubt rise sharply as orders of attainable energy increase. �21 With small quantities its effect on the temperature of the air is proportional to the amount added; there is a linear effect. However once the carbon dioxide concentration in the air approaches 1%, new nonlinear effects come into play and heating greatly increases. In the absence of a biosphere to fix carbon dioxide, its concentration in the atmosphere would probably exceed the critical figure of 1%. The Earth would then heat up rapidly to a temperature near to that of boiling water. Increasing temperatures would speed up chemical reacdons and accelerate their progress towards chemical equilibrium. ... eventually ... the Earth would become permanently cocooned in a brilliant white cloud - a second Venus, although not quite as hot (Lovelock pp.45-6). Fortunately for Gaean prospects, the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now nowhere near 1% nor likely to be pushed near 1% by projected increases in carbon dioxide levels under economic activity over the next 50 years^. However eventual exponential growth will lead towards accentuated levels, and the side effect of such growth, the release of carbon dioxide from forests and oceans and the considerable reduction in fixadon of carbon dioxide with the decline of forests, will lead in that disastrous direction rather more rapidly. The 1% bound constitutes just one of the many serious limits (fortunately a fairly remote one) to condnuation of present developmental pracdces. Now there can be no radonal confidence with respect to complex dissipadve systems about the behaviour of which we presendy know comparadvely little - that other nonaddidve effects will not be encountered at a much earlier stage. After all, the Gaean system, its atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems, will be pushed into essendally unexperienced and substandally unknown reaches. There is, for example, no experience from comparable past times of such elevated temperatures as Greenhouse effects will lead to, to draw upon. 'There is no evidence that the land-bound glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have ever completely melted in the last two million years'. There is experience of much colder periods. 'During ice ages, the earth's average temperature has been about 5°C colder than at present, with glaciers covering major portions of continents' (Barth p.7). But there is no similar experience of temperatures 4-5° C warmer than at present (in any warm interglacial period), 'a global increase of more than 2°C above present is unprecedented in the era of human civilization' (Schneider p.6). It would accordingly be decidedly rash, rash decision making, to assign a zero or negligible probability to the emergence of new or unknown effects of relevance, to assume all will go smoothly and well. That would presuppose, in any event, a completeness in present scientific knowledge, contrary to the information we actually have that present investigation of holistic systems, among much else, is still in its infancy. The probability of 19 In the atmosphere of the very early Earth, CO? exceeded the critical 1% figure; but solar luminosity was about 25% less than now. With increasing solar flux the Earth would have overheated had the proportion of CO2 not been much reduced (e.g. see Lovelock 88 p.56). �22 something critical (e.g. perhaps radicals like hydroxyl) having been left out of estimations, of room accordingly for something unexpected or for something to go wrong, may be small (though experience implies it is not always so), but it certainly appears to be non-zero. For the overconfident, with excess faith in the flimsy scientific edifice, there is a salutary lesson to be drawn from the erratic and stumbling path of the main proponent of Gaia hypotheses, Lovelock. Lovelock, coming from a working life as an industrial chemist, part of that time for a giant chemical transnational, had, and retained for a considerable time after he began his holistic hypothesizing, a strong antipathy for environmentalists.^ Even Gaia was for industry and against the environmentalists; she was going to laughingly soak up all the pollution, courtesy of the chemical companies especially, that we humans could throw at her. In particular, we did not really need to worry much about ozone depletion or greenhouse gas escalations^ 'Contrary to the forebodings of many environmentalists, finding a suitable" destructive agent to bring about a 'doom scenario" 'turns out to be an almost insoluble problem" (79 p.40). Lovelock makes it easier for himself by helping himself to the assumption that a doomsday scenario involves the destruction of all "life"', 'down to the last spore of some deep-buried anaerobic bacteria" (p.40). But even for the least chauvinistic of environmentalists, destruction of all humans but the select elect would be quite enough for a decent doomsday. Lovelock's high redefinition of a environmental 'doomsday scenario" is unacceptable. Lovelock does not however stay within the bound of his redefinition. He proceeds to pooh-pooh the idea that anything much that we humans could accomplish would make any difference to Gaia (p.41) or even to most humans, including use of nuclear devices. Unfortunately for Lovelock's credibility, he was writing three years before the seemingly obvious wintering effects of a major nuclear war were realised by the accredited scientific community. Appealing in a common scienufic fashion to scientific authority, he proceeds to minimalize the human and ecological effects of a major war. The report he relies upon as authoritative was a 1975 (unreferenced) one of 'the US Nadonal Academy of Sciences ... prepared by an eight-man committee of their own assisted by forty-eight other explosions and a// chosen from those members, in the effects of nuclear to them" (p.41, italics added). Lovelock draws from the disdnguished expert report the findings that Coupled with this, there was a certain schizophrenia in Lovelock's attitude to the natural environment. There was also a matching schizophrenia as to the fragility of life on Earth. On the one side, it required very delicate settings and fine tuning to arise; this is part of the argument for a Gaia hypothesis. On the other side, life is 'tough, robust, and [highly] adaptable', virtually indestructible (79 p.90). But though a flawed hero, Lovelock is a hero nonetheless. See e.g. Lovelock 79, p.40ff; and also, on ozone, 88 p.63. �23 ... if half of all the nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals, about 10,000 megatons, were used in a nuclear war the effects on most of the human and man-made ecosystems of the world would be small at first and would become negligible within thirty years. Both aggressor and victim nations would of course suffer catastrophic local devastation, but areas remote from the battle and, especially important in the biosphere, marine and coastal ecosystems would be minimally disturbed (p.41). Three years later Turco and others proceeded to detail a very different scenario, that of widespread and ecologically damaging nuclear winter. Not for the only time, Lovelock had been caught out badly. As with pollution, Lovelock has more recently shifted ground,^ considerably, on the vulnerability of the Earth to human-induced disturbance. When a system such as Gaea in homeostatis is stressed to near the limits of regulation even a small disturbance may cause it to jump to a new stable state or even fail entirely.... It could be that the regulation of the Earth's climate is not far from one of these limits. Thus if some part of climate regulation is connected with the natural level of CO2 then clearly we are close to the limits of its regulation. This is because CO2 cannot be reduced much below the level observed for the last glaciation, about 180 ppm, without seriously limiting the rate of growth of the more abundant C3 type plants. If we perturb the Earth's radiation balance by adding more CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or reduce its capacity to regulate by decreasing the area of forests or both of these together then we could be surprised by a sudden jump of both CO2 and temperature to a new and much warmer steady state; or by the initiation of periodic fluctuations between that state and our present climate. The anomalously low abundance of CO2 on Earth when compared with the other terrestrial planets and especially the fact that the mean temperature of the Earth is on the cool side of the optimum for regulation, suggests strongly that the biota is regulating the climate by pumping CO2 from the air. The common feature of most of our pollutions and of our exploitation of the land surface seems to be unintentionally to thwart this natural process (Lovelock 85 pp.5354). The argument to the lesser par/i, to significant disequilibrium with the Earth's ecological support system destabilized, takes the following lines. The Earth appears to be a dissipative (far-from-equilibrium) system held at its present by a combinadon of an (increasing) solar flux - a main energy input into the system - and its major ecological arrangements, especially vegetational complexes and live oceans. The sheer extent to which the resulting system differs from the stable dead system it could otherwise be is shown by the following table for atmospheric and oceanic composidon. Shifdng ground may be fine, especially when it is to an improved position. But it should be done honesdy and openly, not stealthily or shiftily. Lovelock proceeds to attribute a cancature of his <9WH previous position to cdtics of the Gaia hypothesis (as a clever Tabneation', which also it was not): that it is 'an argument developed to allow industry to pollute at will, since mother Gaia will clean up the mess '(85 p.53). �24 TABLE 1. Substance Funerary Equilibrium (principal components per cent). Venus Earth Carbon dioxide A Nitrogen 1 R Oxygen Argon 0 C E A N S Water Lifeless Mars Earth 99 0 98 1.9 98 1.9 0 trace trace 1 0.1 0.1 Earth 95 2.7 0.13 2 63 Salt 3.5 Sodium nitrate 1.7 Present 0.03 79 21 1 96 n.a. n.a. 3.5 traces Surface temperatures (°C) n.a 477 Total pressure (bars) n.a. 90 290+50 60 -53 13 0064 1 The table is based upon tables 1 and 2 of Lovelock 79, p.37 and p.39. The whole Earth system is accordingly far from equilibrium. Unpredictable behaviour as loads increase is therefore almost to be expected. A likely moral is presumably: stress the system, or destabilize ecosystem controls sufficiently, and the system may be in deep trouble. It is relevant to inquire briefly into what evidence we so far have on this score. To do so let us reconsider some of the array of arguments there are from some sort of holistic organisation of the Earth (for a modest Gaea hypothesis, to the effect that the (outer) Earth is a naturally regulated nonadditive cybernetic system, important attributes of which are regulated by the biota). /or the participation of the Earth's ecological support systems, plant complexes especially, the Earth would not be blessed with its present life- benign physical characteristics. The oceans would be much saltier and too salty for most life, the air would not contain the present rich mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide so important for terrestrial life, and so on; perhaps most important the Earth would be significantly hotter and too hot for most life, for most of what does the regulating and stabilizing of present conditions. For the solar flux has increased in intensity about 30% since life appeared on Earth, whereas the mean global temperatures have exhibited no �25 corresponding increase, but have remained relatively constant. Such an expected constancy in the face of disturbing inputs is ascribed, under holistic approaches that do something to explain it, to the concerted activity of plant life, as already indicated. The general tenor of the argument is so far this:- By arguments from physical and other models, and because of uncertainties, the probability that something could go badly wrong is not merely nonzero^ but indeed far from negligible. Part of the argument can be put as follows:- There is a decent probability that a modest Gaea hypothesis holds. But then, there is a considerable probability that excessive Greenhouse build-up will lead to damaging system destabilization. So combining probabilities, there at least a nonnegligible probability of such destabilization. An analogy should now emphasize both the dubiousness of what is being proposed under adaptationism and the precariousness of the human predicament. The proposal is to take this ancient craft, now overloaded with human passengers and their heavy baggage, a cargo it was never organised to carry, out on new routes and run it faster and higher than it has ever travelled before. Even for an experimental prototype, a now very fast (air-)bus say, with a select test crew, such a procedure, of running over new uncharted routes at speeds and heights never attained before, would be risky enterprise. With an ancient craft, with a heavy non-elite cargo of baggage and passengers (some whom try to interfere with the controls), the proposal is extremely rash. For the chances that the craft will break/down and perhaps crash, with serious consequences to passengers and for the baggage, are greatly elevated over the risks of proceeding as usual much more slowly. With the costs of crashing so severe, rational operators and sensible pilots would not take them.^ Unfortunately the analogy is not at all far-fetched, but resembles what is in store for spaceship Earth, already under significant stress with its excessive human passenger load and their heavy ecological practices. Not only is the future itself pretty new territory, but it is a future at terrestrial temperatures never before attained. As a result too of these enhanced temperatures, important processes will proceed faster than ever before, in particular all chemical processes. Simply to take the craft up there, as do-nothing and adaptation approaches would have is to emulate the risks and hubris of Daedelus; such approaches are From logical theories of probability such as Camap's non-zero probabilities are rather easily reached (perhaps too easily, with the converse feature that natural laws never obtain high probabilities. The difficulty can be averted, to some extent, by restriction to physical models.) The analogy is an old one, which we exploited before in the nuclear case; for the "bus analogy", see Routley and Routley. The analogy admits of much graphic variation. Instead of running the craft at excess speed, an alternative or additional image is that of destroying the controls of the craft. Lovelock deploys this apposite image (88 p.63), which corresponds to the demolition of Gaean control systems. Others speak of a colossal experiment with the Earth; but strictly the conditions for a controlled experiment are not met. �26 aptly named D<2^Zfa?i. Given anthropic terrestrial practices, a Daedelian future and fate should not be excluded. 4. A Sting in the Cosmic Tail: the mini-Furphy theorem and on the iikeiy decline of Homo sapiens spp. economicus. The anthropic doomsday argument developed relies upon a modified Murphy's law. The trouble with the initial formulation of Murphy's law: ^anyf/ung can go wrong, if wii/, was that it was insufficiently qualified, much too absolutist, and apparently self-refuting.^ Certain crucial qualifications are required:* Replacement of the too certain conclusion by a somewhat weaker probabilistic one: for instance, it pro&a&/y will. * Correlative to weakening the conclusion, strengthening the premiss, by rendering it more specific; namely, in place of "anything" or "something" put "some thing ... given a chancy situation". The modified formulation is accordingly the following mini-Furphy proposition^ r/HKg can ge/iMZMe/y go wrong, given o re/onvefy cAoncy Mfi/ohon, zf pro/MZ&iy wi/i. Here "chancy" means more or less what it means according to the dictionaries: doubtful, decidedly risky, or as we shall construe it, having a comparadvely low probability vis-a-vis its altemadves. The precise extent of relative chanciness will be explained as we go. The proposidon is itself a corollary of a more general result, an ancient principle. The generalisadon replaces "go wrong" by "happen'; the ancient principle is that of jy/^ndfM^, sometimes stated, with quite insufficient reservations, as that all places are full, or ony ggnfdn^/y ^fofg &onn<% fo rgo/fy^Z (when genuinely possible states are compadble with all that is already transpiring). The principle, whose distinguished history is traced in Lovejoy, has emerged in contemporary particle physics, in such forms as the For this and other formulations of Murphy's law, and many loosely associated humorous maxims with grains of truth encapsulated, see Block. As to the history of the "law", which originated with J.M. Chase, editor of Aw'adPH see the A/nerzcgmi; Chase's inidal formulation in a 1955 issue read 'If an aircraft part can be installed incorrectly, someone will install it that way". Silberman's paradox, that if Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will, is not a genuine paradox. For it can simply be asserted that where Murphy's Law is a real law it will not go wrong. The connection of Murphy's Law with the pnnciple of plendtude appears to have escaped much notice. This little theorem was originally titled the Murphy-Leslie theorem. It is an adaptation, suggested by Leslie's work, of Murphy's Law. While this secuon is overwhelmingly indebted to Leslie, the arguments developed from those Leslie advances. For Leslie's arguments and also his debts, and so the transitive debts of this section, see Leslie himself, who deserves to be read in defence his own legidmate doomsday apprehensions. The Appendix indicates the very limited extent to which Leslie's arguments arc here endorsed. �27 following: if a thing (e.g. an elementary particle) is not forbidden, excluded by quantum rules, then it is bound to occur (or be realised), even is "compulsory". For things and events generally, such completeness (all nonexcluded particle niches are occupied) cannot reasonably be expected.^ The main mini-plentitude proposition has, like its mini-Furphy specialization to bad outcomes, to take the much more hedged form: if something can genuinely happen, given a relatively chancy situation, it probably will. To prove this proposition, let us first recast it in appropriate symbolic form. Let D be some arbitrary (bad) situation, a suitable disaster in the intended application. Let the possibility of D's happening - such as something's going wrong - be represented by a non­ zero probability, and genuineness by non-negligible probability. It can be assumed that that probability, P(D), is small; if it were large enough the requisite conclusion would follow in any case. Let C represent the relativizing features, what is given that renders the situation chancy. Then what we aim to show is that where P(D) is small positive, P(D { C) is probable. The proof applies a special case of Bayes' theorem, which takes the following form where there are n alternative hvpotheses hi,...,hn including h: P(h { i) = " * Pd 1 M I P(hr) X P(i { hr) r = 1 Here h is the hypothesis, which in our application is D, i is the additional information (or, as in Carnap, a new observation), which in our case is C.28 P(h j i) is the probability of h given i, or of h on condition i (the backward arrow notation, { , symbolises the condition There is a marvellous Greek term, which could serve to cover items where the particle physics "principle" is satisfied. 'We may call an event agathonic to convey that, though in itself it was highly unlikely, we might have known that something of that sort was bound to happen. ... from the name of the tragic poet to whom Aristotle attributes the view that it is very probable that the improbable should happen. (Kaplan p.9 rearranged). Is the chronic chthonic Greenhouse escalation agathonic? The formulation is a special case of that proved in Carnap, p.331; namely that (absolute) case where the evidence e is elided, or e set = 1. A similar result follows, subject to slightly more rigorous conditions, in relevant probability theory; see Routley 79 p.954. In effect we shall look at the form P(h ) ,) = --------------- * PC < D ' P(h) X P(i { h) + XP(hr) X P(i { hr) n with the sum excluding the product for h. Though demonstrable given satisfiable exclusion and exhaustion conditions, Bayes' theorem is not lacking critics, in part because of the surprises this bit of logic can deliver. Carnap meets the objection that Bayes' theorem has sometimes 'been applied to cases where it led to strange or even absurd results' thus: 'This was mostly due to an uncritical use of the principle of indifference :... [The] theorem is provable ... on the basis of those weak assumptions which practically all theories of probability seem to have in common' (p.331, sub 1 elided). Of course the present applications could (just) be objected to on the grounds that the logical conditions for the theorem to apply are not fully satisfied. �28 involved and shows its direction). For simplicity we shall suppose that all the alternatives to D are concentrated (as far as symbolic exposure goes) in one, namely D*. Then the form we seek to apply is simply: P(D { C) = __________ { D)_______________ _ ' P(D) x P(C { D) + P(D*) x P(C { D*) The arithmetic details needed can be tabulated in a revealing form as follows: C<2.$ay D D* Initial (or prior) probability d 1-d m, say 1/d m/L,say 1/d! of outcome relative chance that C As it is the chance of C that matters, we can rescale to set m = 1/d. To make C relatively chancy, L has some modest size; specifically let L exceed 1-d/d. Then the probability to be estimated, P(D { C), is d x 1/d dxl/d + (l-d)/dL _ " __ 1 1+^ where k - - That is, P(D { C) = y where k = 1, andP(D { C)> when -when L > . Thus D is probable, at least in being more probable than not, given C, when L is of at least modest size, i.e. given C is relatively chancy. In a merely apparently more general form of the estimation, where we do not align m to d, P(D { C) ______ d x m______ d x m + (1-d) x m/1 1 1 1 + k' as before. That is, m drops out, only the relative chanciness really matters. The little plendtude theorem follows as before. Now to put some relevant flesh on these abstract statements and figures. Let D be some future disaster such as the catastrophic decline, for instance, through summer or winter phenomena, of the human species, from which the enormous present population never recovers. At worst (from a chauvinistic angle) the population, like many catastrophically effected by human activities, goes extinct. Suppose, for a bifurcating outcome, there is a �29 catastrophe stage, before halfway through next century, 2050. If humans do not get their act together before then, they go into catastrophic decline, as already indicated. If however they do get their ecopolitical act together then humans, while they hardly live happily ever after (poverty, inequality, domination, and other evils not being removed), continue to persist or even grow in numbers, perhaps fanning out through the solar system (in the way envisaged by too many physicists). Suppose further we are optimists, imagining that the prior probability of D, ecodisaster and human decline, is small, say 1%. That is d = .01, and the inidal probability of D*, human "success", is .99. The figures are pretty notional. Supreme optimists would want to set d much smaller, pessimists rather at a higher probability. Table 2. D human decline D* human success Initial probabilities 1%, i.e. .01 99%, i.e. .99 Relative chanciness, 1/100, i.e. .01 1/100 x 1/1 ofC Then the probability of human decline given C, .01 X .01 P(D { C) .01 x .01 + .99 x .01/1 1/2 , when 1 > 99. For example, when 1 is set, conservatively, at 1,000, then the probability of human decline given present chanciness is approximately 90%. It remains to fill out C, thereby showing that 1 is very likely much much larger than 99, and correspondingly human decline so much the more probable in the light of additional information, i.e. 6! usual jargon. probable in the There are several high risk factors, acting in a certain concert, factors emphasized more than a decade ago in world systems modellings (such as, most famously, that of the Club of Rome), Malthusian factors such as human population, economic product, pollution, energy consumption, ... . (The list rolls on.) It is appropriate to estimate posterior probability relative to any one of these, any of which can serve as C, in order to expose the riskiness of present gross human practices. In brief, because there are several high risk factors, so there are several appropriate relative or reference classes. Thus the posterior probability is assessed relative to such matters as humans now being thus and so, our or my being alive �30 now (Leslie's first-person reference class), this being present energy use, present waste output, present forest destruction and so forth. The upshot is not the triviality that probability can be jacked up by placement in a suitably restricted context, though that analyticity is established.^ The point is that, environmentally, more affluent humans have fdgmjg/vgj produced such adverse circumstances, which are upon us, the very circumstances typically productive of limitadon results. In sum, the aadirapfc argument considers the environmentally invidious situadon of present humans on the Earth. The argument can be carried through either in terms of sheer population, gross numbers, or in terms of human resource grabbing, as esdmated for instance through energy consumption. In fact all the other factors are anthropically tied, to gross human numbers, via the environmental impact equation and because the levels are human-use numbers. Let us consider the prospects given addidonal information as to the present phase of gross human population. C will be some such proposition as: the proportional preponderance of humans who have ever lived alive now, or to personalize it: the chance that you or your family, are alive now. Diagram 6: (?ar praf^nf popidadon pred/camg/zf <?n die /wo jce/iarioj. Humans have got themselves - to some extent pat themselves, though much may be the result of muddling through - into an extremely dubious, environmentally insidious, and One of the weaknesses in the argument may appear to be its dependence on an appropnate choice of relative class. For, the high relative probabilities can fall away if different reference classes, not exhibiting such growth patterns are taken, c.g. present wattle distribution, birds being thus and so. On the other hand, probabilities can be elevated even more by selection of more unusual reference classes, such as our being scientists, or being computer programmers, etc.. It is not so remarkable that probabilities can be wound up - or down - perhaps quite dramatically, by appropriate relativisation, by appropriate selection of a reference class. �31 unsustainable position, on a range of critical parameters. Their numbers are excessive, their high energy use is excessive, their waste and their polludon are both excessive - and all these and other excesses are at the steep end of upward exponendal curves. Several relevant graphs are distressingly exponendal, with the present in the near verdeal growth phase: Digram 7 : GrowrA in are drawn from Boyden). envzronm^nfgZZy r^Z^vanr parg/neter-P (all graphs exhibited �32 Many other similarly shaped graphs could be added, for instance for growth of pollution, of waste products, of weapons (in terms of tonnes of explosive power), of other greenhouse gases such as the chlorofluorocarbons (which accelerated from zero in the nineteen thirties), and so on. The display typifies the accelerating human roller coaster (or air bus). Those curves are dghtly interconnected, in criss-crossing fashion. For example, the productivity of contemporary agriculture which enables the feeding of huge urbanised human populations depends on a very high energy use (in term of energy efficiency, contemporary high-tech agriculture falls below that of much traditional agriculture). The maintenance of high populations with supplies of cheap food depends in tum on fossil fuel agriculture. Because of the intertwining of these phenomena, there is no easy way of getting off the accelerating roller-coaster. Nor, as observed, is there much real effort devoted to slowing the coaster. For politicians it would be politically risky and inexpedient to try (for them the rhetoric about an ecologically sustainable future must remain just that, more rhetoric). For many other power holders and brokers such ideas are ideologically excluded: growth remains the gospel. So a precarious position becomes ever more precarious. Humans are in a decidedly chancy position, because of their population situation and other limitative factors; they are becoming very disaster-prone. If humans want an acceptable future for themselves - they have virtually ruled out an acceptable future for many other creatures, through their predominantly selfish thoughtless greedy practices - then they will probably have to mend their collective ways, very considerably and very soon. But, given the nature of the beast, that itself seems improbable. Humans, if they seek a more assured future, should make a concerted effort to put themselves into a less precarious position. That could be achieved by proceeding to reduce relative risks. These relative risks, sharply reducing prospects for a reliable future, fall into two classes:- * Manufactured risk factors, including weaponry such as mega-nuclear devices and elements of biochemical warfare, and experimental equipment such as very high energy particle accelerators (which could perhaps tunnel under a metastable state or induce a miniBig-Bang; see again Leslie). * Accumulated risk factors, such as the huge relative size of human population, energy consumption, greenhouse gas production, etc.30 30 As before, there are various different reasons why these induce risk, limitative and probabilistic in particular. �33 Despite the ideological obstacles - enormous political, religious and economic obstacles blocking the way of requisite change - major efforts should be put into reducing these types of risks. Philosophers, beyond other intellectuals, cozdd have a significant role in breaking down the ideological barriers and in clarifying and developing the arguments involved. Given the track-record of professional philosophers, don't expect very much.31 5. Further notes on human prospects and improved practices: What in generai ought to be done about the Greenhouse problematique? The general result already reached, that humans collectively should substantially reduce their risk taking, and in particular reduce their gross numbers, extends to radonal Greenhouse decision and action theory. But that large and difficult challenge - with all that it entails by way of radical change upon present arrangements - is not all that there is to try, all that should radonally be attempted. While some increase in mean global temperatures, and what that implies, can no longer be averted, the potentially most damaging effects can be: namely, by curtailing humaninduced output of Greenhouse gases. Moreover, there is an approximate upper bound of importance, upon temperature, which can serve to supply a significant limit on output. That bound - which conrrnns rfyZr raZd/zg by confining encountered situadons a? those where there is some ba-sds* - is given by esdmated temperatures during Aldthermal and Eemian eras. Those temperatures are estimated to have been between about 1/2 a degree and 1 degree Centigrade above contemporary (pre-1980) temperatures; so the upper bound is about PC. 31 There is much else for philosophers to contribute in these fields, especially on the expanding issues of future redistributive justice, ecological equity, genuinely pluralistic arrangements, etc. �34 gZo^zzZ zznd^r Z&ree zn/^rcy/zzzg sc^zzzzrzoy. AT (°C ) Dnzgram # : B^zckgroz/nd in/orw^hozz: 'Annual mean global surface air temperature computed for trace gas scenarios A, B, and C .... Scenario A assumes continued growth rates of greenhouse gas emissions typical of the past 20 years, i.e., about 1.5% per year emission growth; scenario B has emission rates approximately fixed at current rates; scenario C drastically reduces trace gas emissions between 1990 and 2000.... The shaded range is an estimate of global temperature during the peak of the current and previous interglacial periods, about 6,000 and 120,000 years before present, respectively. The zero point fbr observation is the 1951-1980 mean; the zero point for the model is the control run mean' (Walsh p.14, from whom the diagram is drawn). Not only will a continuation of current emission trends take global temperatures clean through and way beyond that bound, so also will an alternative set-up where emission rates are fixed more or less at current rates. The only apparent way to remain rationally within an experiential domain is to curtail sharply trace gas emissions, beginning early in the 1990s. That means shifting from the dominant growth ideology; it means expensive re- and de­ industrialisation. Short of catastrophic nuclear war it seems unlikely. �35 There are several reasons why requisite change looks unlikely. Firstly, requisite changes are generally difficult, ideologically unwelcome, extensive and expensive. Politicians will accordingly be extremely loath to undertake them, to offer more than tokenism. Moreover, those states and corporations that avoid making hard changes will, like free riders, be at a comparadve advantage in the short term as regards both profits and power. Secondly, then, there are Tragedy-of-Commons reasons, i.e. those deriving from general Prisoners' Dilemma situations. However the troughs induced by such dilemmas could be climbed out of; they can be transcended given, for instance, some resolute players committed to major change, despite heavy commercial and political disadvantages, and prepared to pursue judicious tit-for-tat strategies. Thirdly, because main Greenhouse effects are gradual, long-term by polidcal standards, and uncertain, the main pohdcal temptation will undoubtedly again be to avoid the problems - to muddle incrementally along, and hope that the problems will dissolve or that something (some magical technology perhaps) will turn up or that adaptadon will occur or, at worst, that the problems will fall to some successors. Meanwhile the problems will continue to be dismissed as "too hard", "too uncertain", and their costs, polidcal and economic and ideological, as "too great". We have already accumulated substantial experience of these inadequate evasive, dismissive and postponement procedures. What should of course be attempted involves extensive changes and restructuring across virtually the entire face of industrialisation and urbanisation, and therewith extensive alterations in the demands they impose upon new urban environments. The ultimate objective as regards the Greenhouse problems - a reduction in the rate of increase of, and then in the gross levels of, emissions of Greenhouse gases - direcdy implies, above all, constraints on the combustion of fossil fuels, both decelerating use and improved use, but also much better regulation, in one way or another, of production of other Greenhouse gases and of interference with ecosystems storing or absorbing Greenhouse gases. The main burden as regards requisite changes falls on the main users of fossil fuels and main consumers of Greenhouse relevant products, namely the Earth's most affluent centres: North America, Japan and Europe. In these centres especially, the work should be started on reducing consumption of fossil fuel involved goods and services. (In a thoroughly methodical approach a GG, Greenhouse gas, rating would be assigned to each sort of good and service, the objective being to reduce these ratings, an effort that would no doubt concentrate upon highly rated and easily altered items.) The general types of changes needed or desirable are well enough known to environmental planners, and include: restructuring of cides into network systems, so that reliance upon automobile commudng and truck transport of goods is much reduced, improved building practices for energy efficiency cogeneration and related technologies, increased reliance on solar energy technologies, and so on. �36 Venturing much further into unknown territory are the types of political and economic alterations required to implement the planning changes. It has already been insinuated that conventional governmental and public policy practices, analyses and procedures are inadequate to the tasks ahead. For these presuppose, for example, reladvely short-term and quite bounded settings, in which most information (as to costs, benefits, beneficiaries, etc.) is more or less certain, and where an ethical/ideological framework is taken for granted. Indeed most of the favoured procedures - such as reliance on standard cost-benefit analyses, on markets of orthodox economics, on muddling through, etc - not only depend on certainty and are unfitted for situations of uncertainty, and assume at best a decidedly shallow approach to environmental matters; but further they tend to exhibit, what is quite compatible with short-term rationality, long-term irrationality. Much intellectual effort should be invested, straightaway, in designing and developing improved political structures and matching decision-making procedures. Such structures deserve to be better articulated and understood - a large task - before the struggle is begun in earnest - perhaps in East European style - to put some of them into place. From the angle of radical change, then, impact of the Greenhouse problematique is far from entirely negative. For it may encourage or even force many more of us into thinking about and doing what should be done from a deep perspective anyway, such as rectifying recent heavy human impact upon environments, and beginning at once to put in place more environment-friendly arrangements and structures'^ Richard Sylvan APPENDIX: As to the Doomsday Argument circulated by Leslie. The anthropic argument of the penultimate section applies limitation results to escalate probabilities. By contrast, the argument deployed by Leslie has comparatively little to do with limitation features or the special risks of the present times (it does depend upon some features of the temporal distribution of the total human population). As a consequence also, 32 This more positive conclusion contrasts with final pessimistic corollary which ended the previous interim version of this essay. The corollary, which followed the gloomy (but warranted) claim that requisite restructuring change seems unlikely, and was intended to underpin it, was simply this: Humans collectively are not (particularly) rational. But we had already been told as much by philosophers like Russell and surmised as much from the latest perambulations in the long history of human wars. Finally, a significant debt should be recorded at least to all the following: to John Leslie for leading ideas and for comments, to David Bennett for comments and for research and production assistance, to Pat Troy for an opportunity to read his unpublished paper on the topic, to Malcolm Slade and Joseph Wayne Smith for encouragement to write on the topic, and to several members of the audience at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, held in Christchurch, New Zealand, during August 1989, where parts of the essay were fruitfully discussed and several worthwhile suggestions or objections made. �37 it has no direct application to the special environmental problems of the present. It yields at best a general admonition against human risk taking - and even the inference to that is shaky the argument itself is unavoidable. The central claim of Leslie's argument comes to this: unless the human race ends soon, then any one of us present humans is not an ordinary one at all, but an exceptionally early one. (Such statistical ordinariness is presumably supposed analytic upon total human populadon distributions.) Thus (contraposing and distributing a reasonable expectation functor), since it is reasonable to expect that such humans are ordinary (minor premiss), it is reasonable to expect the human race will soon die out of the weaknesses of Leslie's Doomsday Argument, especially in its quasiinductive guise (e.g. PQ p.2), is its background reliance upon an indifference principle assumpdon, much as in faulty applicadons of Bayes' theorem, already noted. (The principle is used in Leslie's um argument; see p.12.) The problemadc assumption shows up in c^rz.y clauses in Leslie's deontic probability (typicality) principle, what he describes as "the Argument's underlying principle' (in fact a minor premiss): one should. %ZZ eZ^ &^Zng take one's position to be fairly typical rather than very untypical, or in different formulation: whenever Zach'/zg gvz'^nce to r/zg ccnfra/y, one should prefer to think of one's own position as fairly typical rather than highly untypical (both principles are stated, though with different emphases in PQ p.2). Much the same principle, but in stronger form, operates in what he calls 'the crux of the argument': dmZ^yj you /zav^ specially jfrong to believe that you are a very untypically early human, you ought not to believe it' (p.10, rearranged, different emphasis). Unfortunately for the Argument's principle, matters are not so indifferent, things are not so equal, some sciendsts have reasons which they think are cogent, for believing that present humans are fairly early members of the species. Consider Lovelock, whom, as we have seen, used to think that the Earth and its life systems were virtually indestructible; it is only necessary to add the familiar belief that humans themselves (like rats) are very resourceful beings, virtually impossible to exterminate, to arrive at the result that there is reason to believe that the human race is bound to persist for many more generations. That is, of course, both the informed and not unreasoned popular view, guiding much practice. As a result the principle is, at the very least, in doubt. Accordingly what Leslie presents as the crux of the argument is not endorsed here. The Argument is vulnerable in other ways as well. For one, the main premiss is, in duly contraposed form, not quite so evident, as for instance the human race could just tail off at low population levels on Earth. For another, the distribution of the functor 'it is reasonable to expect that' across the conditional involved is not unproblematic: the �38 distribution principle itself is contested in the literature, and here the result it is supposed to yield looks unreasonable! References H. W. Bernard, T/za GraaK/zazz^a E)/acr, Ballinger, Cambridge Mass., 1980. A. Block, Mzap/zy'.? Law. Boo/: Two, Magnum, Methuen Paperbacks, London, 1980. S. Boyden, WasfarK Czvz'ZzzarzaK zn EzaZagzcaZ Parspacrzva, Clarendon, Oxford, 1987. L.R. Brown and others, ^rara a/r/za WarZzZ 79^9, Norton/Worldwatch, New York, 1989; referred to as Worldwatch. R. Carnap, Eagz'caZ FazzK<7a?zaK.s' a/ PraZ?a/?zZzzy, Second edition, University of Chicago Press, 1962. C.R. Chapman and D. Morrison, Ca^mzc Cara^rrap/za^, Plenum, New York, 1989. R.M. Cyert and M.H. DeGroot, 7?ayasz'aK AKaZy^z^ aK<7 (/zzcortoz/zzy ZK EcaKaKzzc T/zaary, Rowman & LittEeld, New Jersey, 1987. 'Developing policies for responding to climatic change", Report of the Beijer Institute, February 1988. W.T. Keeton, BzaZagzcaZ -SczaKca, Third edition, Norton, New York, 1980. I. Prigogine, Or^ar azTra/C/zaag , Batam, Toronto, 1984. J. D. Hughes, 'Gaia: an ancient view of our planet", T/za EcaZagz^r 13(1983) 54-60. R. Jeffrey, T/za Eagzc p/Dacz\YzaK 2ed., University Chicago Press, 1983. A. Kaplan, 7K Pz/r^zzz'r p/Wz'-y&wz, Glencoe, Beverly Hills Ca., 1977. J. Leslie, 'Risking and World's End", EzzZZazzK a/ r/za C<2K<2<7Z<2K Azzc/aar 5aczary 10(3) (1989) 10-15; all references to Leslie are to this article unless otherwise indicated. J. Leslie, 'Is the end of the world nigh?", T/za E/zzZa^ap/zzcaZ Czzarrar/y, to appear; referred to as PQ. J.E. Lovelock, Gaza. A Kaw Zaa/z ar Zz/a <9K Earr/z, Oxford University Press, 1979. J. Lovelock, 'Are we destabilising world climate?", T/za Eaa/agz^r 15(1985) 52-55. J.Lovelock, 'Man and Gaia", T/za Earr/z E apart. MaKz'zarzKg z/za Eazz/a/ar Czzr EKVz'raKKzaKZ (ed. E. Goldsmith and N. Hilyard), Mitchell Beazley, London, 1988, 51-64. A. Lovejoy, T/za Graaf C/zaz'K p/EazKg, Harvard University Press, Massuchusetts, 1950. B. McKibben, 'Is the world getting hotter?" T/za Aaw Yar% Eavz'aw, 8 December 1988, 711. G.I. Pearman (ed.), GraaK/zazz^a. P/aKKZKg /ar c/zKzaza c/zaKga, Division of Atmospheric Research,CSIRO, 1988. �39 B. Pittock, 'Climatic catastrophes: The international implications of the greenhouse effect and nuclear winter', Peace Research Centre, Working Paper No. 20, RSPacS, Australian National University, 1987. B. Pittock, 'Forests beyond 2000 - effect of atmospheric change', AM.yfra/i(2M For^rry 50(1987a) 205-215. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', 7E%zEry 21(1978) 133179. R. Routley, 'Ultralogic as universal?' reprinted as an Appendix in Expiring Jzz/tgZ^ RM^E^yafxZ, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979. S. Schneider, 'Not to decide is to decide', in '88: P/anm/ig/br OZ/ware C/zange (ed. T. Dendy), Department of Environment and Planning, Adelaide, 1989, 5-10. R. Sylvan, 'Modern myths concerning rationality: the imperatives of consistency and (constrained) maximality', 1988, Rarzona/zzy antZ ZrrazfpfzaZzzy.* E^r <2HtZ (ed. S. Bidermann and B. Scharfstein), Brill, 1989. R.P. Turco and others, 'Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions', 5cz^nce 222 (1983) 1283-1292. K. Walsh, 'Greenhouse-induced climatic change in Australia' in Urgex/zazAfe '88., op.czf., 10-19. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document GAEAN GREENHOUSE, NUCLEAR WINTER, AND ANTHROPIC DOOMSDAY? ... climate change, like no other issue, calls the whole notion of human progress into question. The [ever promised] benefits of newer technologies, more efficient economics, and improved political systems could be overwhelmed by uncontrolled global warming. ... the pace of climate change will soon overwhelm natural variability in the earth's climate. Indeed, it can be compared with nuclear war for its potential to disrupt a wide range of human and natural systems, [severely] complicating the task of managing economies and coping with other problems. Irrigation works, settlement patterns, and food production [among others] would be tragically disrupted ... (Worldwatch 89, p.ll, p.10) There are many approaches to the the cluster of problems upon which this philosophical investigation focuses. These approaches range from playing the issue down entirely, dismissing it as not a problem, not something anyone should worry about, at the one end of the range, to playing it up at the other. Those who play it up may even foresee the demise of the human race, unless substantially new socio-economic arrangements - with restructured cities, revitalized lands, rejuvenated oceans - soon eventuate. There is certainly plenty of room for different approaches (see Diagram 1), and for some eclecticism. For what is being relied upon, in every case, comprises shaky and contestable arguments, from flimsy forecasting models lacking many apparently relevant details. No one of sound judgment, aware that weather reports for twelve hours ahead can be wildly astray, would place a very high level of confidence on climatic forecasts for fifty years ahead down a very hazardous track. Nonetheless there is enough information to act; and there is information rationally requiring action. For things in the future are not going to be the same. It is very doubtful that they are going to be any better (though much important economic theorizing presupposes as much, such as the monetary discounting of the future). They are not going to be similar even, because so many parameters important to life are changing, several at exponential rates. Significant in these changes are likely climatic changes. The Greenhouse effect is among these, a result of the increases of "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide and methane, in the Earth's atmosphere, which have followed exponential paths since the highenergy phase of industrial culture (see Diagram 7). The growth in gas concentration produces, what it is lagged by, but is now apparent, a significant increase in mean global temperatures. This has major implications for much of life on Earth. Course of action Reasons offered Short response No problem Refutable No certainty Irrational Adaptive capacity Exaggerated High-tech resolution Wishful thinking Severe dislocation otherwise Utopian Individual survival Pointless No action^ Moderate action Considerable action These very condensed responses will be expanded and explained as we proceed. In accord with an esteemed philosophical tradition, a medical analogy is first deployed; it serves to throw main points into high relief. Consider the possible illness of the Earth, for instance as a result of brutalisation and poisoning. Look on the Earth then as a patient^, who exhibits some symptoms of a possibly disabling illness; for instance the patient's system is overloaded with troublesome trace elements and her temperature appears to be rising. Compare rational medical practice where a human patient gives indications of possibly disabling illness, for instance the patient shows signs of hypertension. Now consider some of the spectrum of approaches. Suppose the advice is to take no action, to do nothing but monitor the situation until further information comes in, until even (to take a worst case) it becomes evident that the patient indeed has hypertension and suffers a severe consequence. That would be regarded as irresponsible practice. To say that there is no problem when symptoms are there, would be regarded as utterly irresponsible, and medically refutable. To say that no action should be taken until certainty as to the complaint is established would be seen as incompetent medical practice. Taoist no-action would be different. It would not have undertaken excessive industrial action in the first place. This is precisely not the way less modest Gaean hypotheses regard the Earth. For there the Earth is active, actively participating in co-evolutionary developments. But the health analogy does of course go right back to ancient chthonic view, systematically presented in Plato, according to which The Earth is a living being of whom humans are only a part. Right relationship with the Earth means that the total organism is in good health; so environmental problems are seen as illness, as a failure of one part of the organism to interact supportivcly with others' (Hughes, p.60). For Gaean themes in other ancient philosophies, both before and after Plato, see Hughes p.57. a ? 3 A responsible practitioner begins recommending some remedial action straight away. Naturally there are various options open as to what may be prescribed. These include, at the one end, high-tech procedures, such as, what would be ridiculous simply for hypertension, full medical engine-and-gearbox replacement (heart and kidney transplant), or, a little less ludicrous but ridiculously commonplace, a whole-remaining-life course of pharmaceutical products, e.g. tablets. At the other end, lifestyle changes are proposed, such as more exercise, weight loss, stress reduction, and an improved diet with less sodium input. Reasonable advice would not include pure adaptation, that the patient went on living as before in the expectation that her system would adapt to the situation. Nor would it be reasonably suggested, except in somewhat unusual circumstances, that the patient entirely change her lifestyle, abandon her work, house and so on, and live somewhere else. Even so unusual circumstances, which might include residence in a very polluted environment or work in a nuclear plant, are no doubt on the increase. Like all analogies, the medical analogy has limitations. One feature it does not capture concerns the holistic aspects of the Earth's sickness, and why accordingly an individualistic survival approach, egotistically rational enough for hypertension and perhaps even for a localised nuclear war, cannot succeed. The reason is, of course, that holistic problems are too extensive for individuals, or even small collectives, acting on their own to be effective or to make much difference. Some are too big even for large collectives or states, but would require whole regions of the Earth acting in concert. But of course some state players, such as the superpowers as regards nuclear winter, can make a substantial difference, or even all the difference. The medical analogy also indicates the outcome of further investigation of approaches. Briefly, as with a chronic illness, the conclusion is that there is no very easy path; future humans should expect a hard landing. 1. Investigative philosophy, argument and rational decision as applied to climatic probiematiques. The role of philosophy in such a complex problematique as that of Greenhouse effects is not difficult to state briefly. Philosophy, Anglo-American philosophy especially, is concerned above all with Investigative philosophy resembles philosophy, except that it may upset the philosophy it applies; it investigates arguments, their features - assumptions, reliability, etc. - and their generalisation to rational processes and methods, but normal philosophical topics. The generalisation to rational processes comprehends a wider range of philosophical throughput than the orthodox narrow range of argument typically addressed in logic courses; to probabilistic and plausibilistic reasoning, to decision processing and making. 4 A main objective in this piece of investigative philosophy is to consider certain argumcmj pointing to probabilities of severe dislocation as a result of Greenhouse effects, and the resulting impact on rariana/ formation and action. There are certain arguments of particular interest for radical decision and action: various neo-Malthusian arguments, catastrophe arguments, and doomsday arguments. A main run of arguments to considerable action are limitative in character. Such ZimifafMm arguments are sometimes alternatively called *neo Malthusian', since Malthus presented a very elementary, very controversial, argument of this general type. But such is the hostility, especially in Marxist-influenced quarters, to Malthus's associated themes (some of them admittedly repulsive) that merely to associate an argument terminologically with Malthus is thereby likely to condemn it. To avoid such fallacious condemnation-byassociation, the graphic term 'neo-Malthusian' is largely avoided in what follows. The general form of these limitation arguments is simply this: growth in some parameter over time encounters limits, typically with severe, even catastrophic, effects; for seldom is the transition to severely constrained behaviour smooth. A characteristic graphic representation is as follows: Diagram 2. GrowfA ZimiM growth parameter exponential growth pattern encountering limits subsequent varying behaviour The limits are often imposed just by finitude, for instance finiteness of a resource or a sink. But other limits can be important, for instance where new phenomena or thresholds come into play. General limitation arguments loom in the background in what follows, where we shall be arguing on a double front: * * 5 A. Significant disequilibrium of the Earth's systems is a real possibility, and accordingly must be reckoned with in decision procedures. Though the probability of such an outcome may only be modest, the case has to be taken seriously because the result (arrived at by a limitation argument typically) is so bad. Suppose, for instance, the outcome is that the Earth ceases to be habitable in present terms, to be able to carry its present demanding load. Such an outcome would have an extremely high negative value, so it would tend to dominate other alternatives. (But it need not be an entirely worst case, where perhaps the dominant terrestrial species becomes extinct, or the Earth becomes devoid of "higher" life. Under the bad result contemplated some better-off humans in special circumstance may subsist for a while.) Such sufficiently bad cases be taken account of in decision making; they have to be taken account of in rgrz'o/ia/ decision procedures. A*. Significant disequilibrium not only has a non-negligible probability, but set in the proper content has a sizeable probability; so it cannot be ignored or discounted as too low to bother about. For such an argument has to be established at the outset than for a rational decision theory argument. Such a different argument, of especial concern as regard climatic changes, is the following argument:- * There is some probability that the Gaean "greenhouse effect", generated by human activity, will get out of control, that Gaean control mechanisms will fail, and that the Earth will, for example, overheat (Runaway Greenhouse, or premiss). * That result would be disastrous for human activities, and indeed for humans Pr<9.sp(?cf). * Because of the unusual, and unusually precarious, position of humans (of certain critical anthropic parameters), such a probability of disaster is not in fact small but decidedly large. As a consequence then, the human species will probably sharply decline, and even become extinct (C^^^p/26 That is, by a rectified version of Murphy's law - that if something can go wrong then in appropriate unusual conditions, it very probably will - an incrementally small probability is inflated into a very large probability. It would be a mistake to conclude that because the argument itself looks an unlikely one, everyone can stop worrying. The argument is but ong of a substantial raft of arguments, suggesting that we are already in deep trouble, that 5/23^ have everyone worried; it is but a final intellectual sting, so to say, from the previously inconspicuous cosmological tail. 6 Such a doomsday argument no doubt puts together, in one more exact form, some of the sorts of considerations that are troubling many people, especially concerned youth, about the Greenhouse business: that humans (including themselves) are on a decline or extinction path. It is no doubt not the only consideration that should be troubling them or us. For whether or not doomsday warnings are warranted, there are other matters that should be sufficiently worrisome, to anyone of moral integrity:* Future times are likely to be exceedingly uncomfortable for very many creatures, as habitats are destroyed, food producing regions are eliminated, and environments seriously impoverished. (Many of these creatures are nonexistents, mere future existents, i.e. creatures that do not yet exist or participate in market or voting rituals, but nonetheless they wzZ/ exist and may participate. But, despite their presently unfavourable ontological status, they are entitled to fair and decent treatment.) * Given such future prospects, present practices which do nothing or vanishingly little to ameliorate these prospects, are decidedly irrational. Indeed a main message that will emerge from the present exercise is the mora/ Zrrtmpna/f/y of critical large-scale human practices. The irrationality, morally-weighed-down irrationality, of present large-scale human practices is already conspicuous from the wintry downside of climatic prospects of which Greenhouse warming is the upside. 7 Diagram 3. Macro-c/wKmc jarring am?Observed global average temperatures, 1880-1987, with forward projections (historic data from Worldwatch p.10). mean global temperature (degrees C) The apparatus for conducting a world-wide nuclear war is entirely in place and indeed on alert The probability of such a war, even if small, is not zero. Among the many awful effects of a large nuclear war is that of nuclear winter, which would probably bring about the demise of present human civilisation, and would at the very least mean enormous dislocation for most surviving humans and other creatures. A sufficiently diabolical chemico-nuclear war, reaching into all inhabited parts of the globe, could indeed drive the human species close to extinction. The decidedly dubious rationality and morality of these general nuclear arrangements both through what they are in themselves for what purposes, and through their moral 8 opportunity costs - are widely appreciated. The thesis that the arrangements and practices are immoral, irradonal, and ought to be dismantled - already much argued, and also contested^ - is not the present concern. The thermonuclear downside is, by comparison, a very easy case to examine philosophically, and argue, as compared with the greenhouse upside.4 For there is, for instance, a case of sorts for much increased use of greenhouse gases, such as CFCs in refrigerators, a case that hardly extends very plausibly to nuclear weapons. It is a case heavily pressed by some "developing" nations, for polluting devices already in widespread use in more affluent places, as necessary for local standards of living. These nations want, or are heavily encouraged, to extend the war against Nature through the habitats they have gained control over, in the name of economic progress. War also joins Greenhouse summer and nuclear winter. For the barely-analogical rapacious war against Nature is a major contributor to Greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, in the domestication of wetlands for rice paddies, through the heavy pillaging of forests, and the like, typically carried on with swords and bayonets reforged to jump ploughs, chemical weapons turned to herbicide guns, and tanks converted to bulldozers. The protracted war against Nature^, carried, it had been supposed, to a victorious conclusion with the rise of science and technology and the ubiquitous advance of industralisation, seems however to have backfired. For it is turning the Earth, Gaea herself, into a patient, with crippled life support systems, thereby endangering the sustained future even of the victorious. Yet another Pyrrhic victory. Greenhouse and nuclear winter are more intricately connected than through war and as the upside and downside of meteorological phenomena. One of the high-tech solutions suggested for atmospheric overheating, involves the generation of wintering effects - to cool things down - by flinging enough dust up into the atmosphere, a trick no doubt most easily achieved on the requisite scale by nuclear explosives. Needless to say, like backbuming against out-of-control fires, artificial winter would be a pretty desperate and, given present expertise, dangerous expedient. 2. The Greenhouse debate, main policy responses, and irrational decision. The Greenhouse debate, as to what to do, if anything, about forecast Greenhouse effects on Earth, is intellectually disturbing. For it has revealed, as we shall soon see, that many of those who have spoken, worse that /pta/ry q/ r/io-yg wAo who have some role For my very small contribution to this, see the War and Peace scries in Papery E/iwv/wig/mxZ RSSS, Australian National University. Global warming, by no means entirely certain, is assumed to be the outcome of increasing greenhouse gas build up. Of course though some mean temperatures will rise, cooling will probably occur also in some localized regions. A war incited and applauded by illustrious philosophical forebears. * & 9 in decision making (including both experts and politicians), mah'ng in con^'n'on^ p/nncorrainiy or possible riskA a J7rm gra.%? on The main canvassed policy approaches to the Greenhouse problematique lie firmly within the dominant social outlook, the high-tech growth and development ideology. Diagram 4 E?r<9<26? po/z'cy fa rA^ Gr^g/i/z<9^^ /?ra^/^marz^a^. Dominant paradigm options Alternative ecological outlook Procrastination (wait-and-see) Soft energy paths and alternative regulation Adaptation (sink-or-swim) Socio-economic transformation Regulation Intervention (star wars) We will briefly outline, and find wanting, a// the dominant approaches. * Procra^rznaaon, the prevailing response. In fact the main governmental and conservative response thus far has been procrastination, or "wait-and-see" as it is more benignly known.*? The approach makes much of the uncertainties, of the shortcomings, in even the most elaborate general circulation models for future climatic change, of the high noise-to-signal levels. On such bases it contends that it is too early to do anything, except staging some meetings, organising some review committees, undertaking some monitoring, and funding a little more "research". It obviously does nothing to rock the growth ideology boat. Certainly a few scientists, outside main policy making reaches, do have a sound intuitive appreciation of these problems, and of the deficiencies of prevailing practices, e.g. Pittock 87. There is little excuse for prevailing ignorance of or ignoring of decision theory: for the elements of the standard theory are readily accessible and very elementary. In the present essay a modification of standard decision theory (as expounded e.g. in Jeffrey) is assumed as background; for details see Sylvan. Following Knight, many economists (try to) distinguish between uncertainty and risk. Risk is said to obtain when some more or less objective numerical probabilities can be assigned to outcomes, a situation not obtaining as regards global greenhouse effects. Bayesians, who can always assign subjective probabilities tend to eschew the distinction, e.g. Cyert and DeGroot, who say that 'decision making under uncertainty refers to situations in which the outcome of the decision is not precisely predictable'(p.3). Either way, Greenhouse involves uncertainty - to which rational procedures should be applied. There is significant rhetorical art in the choice of classificatory labels, a rather philosophically neglected art. A PR person must have been hired to produce the Greenhouse adaptation of 'adaptation*. 10 There is the pretence that we do not know enough to act.s But it is known that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fast increasing. The main causes and enough likely enough consequences are also known. Theoretical considerations have already been partially confirmed by rising temperatures in the eighties. Outcomes of rising temperatures are also known in broad outline: rising sea levels, and so forth. In addition, there are partial small-scale models of Greenhouse effects in action. For example, a city such as Mexico City, which is situated in the bowl-like valley, is placed in an environment which traps heat as well as polludon. The ecological effects, like the human effects, are pretty dramatic even at this small level, and hardly to be sought, or emulated elsewhere. There is a pretence, fostered also by many sciendsts, that Greenhouse difficuldes have only just been discovered; a date commonly set for that watershed event is the Villiers conference and statement of 1985 (e.g. Pittock 87 pp.2-3). Actually there have been Greenhouse warnings for more than a decade, and there has been a corresponding decade of inacdon. Nor is any acdon of much significance presently seriously contemplated. Back in 1979 Bernard wrote at length about and reported the substantial concern of climatologists about Greenhouse effects. Even the magazine not then noted for its green sympathies, recorded that The release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels is, conceivably, the most important environmental issue in the world today" (May 3 1979). Bernard quotes many other concerned scientists, several asserdng that 'the government must start dealing with this problem now". They meant the United States government. "The"" government didn't take the hint. For more than a decade then, sciendsts have been emphasizing that the Greenhouse threat is a major environmental problem, and that action should be taken immediately. Over 10 years nothing of real significance to counter the effects has happened. There has been more than a q/TKacdo/t, during which matters have got worse, and the time frame for evasive acdon disturbingly shorter. It is already evident that requisite decision making under uncertainty is not taking place. On straight inductive grounds, it would be reasonable to expect nothing will be done. While there are theoretical grounds to back up such an assessment, still it is only just beginning to get through to a much wider public (which can exercise a marginal influence on what politicians say) that there is - or T/zay be, as some more reactionary modal-mongering academics would have - a problem or two. Part of the problem is that scientists have been caught out (e.g. crying wolf) and have become ultra-cautious. With the advent of thermodymamics, for instance, scientists began 'threatening mankind with a rather swift "heat death"' as the universe ran down. Thus M. Alier, on 'blatant ideological use of science even by scientists themselves' (see Bernard p.9). More recently, many rang alarm bells prematurely concerning an impending mini-ice-age. The past predictive failures of scientists have been used as evidence for scepticism concerning greenhouse effects; see Me Kibben p.8. It is an unsatisfactorily selective argument; interestingly it is not used in a similar way against economists, whose predictive record is significantly worse. 11 Many scientists have joined the wait-and-see queue, with their begging bowls, hoping for more hand-outs for research. They assume, rightly enough, that more information would assist with rational decision-making, and also, quite wrongly, that "scientific certainty" is required for action to be taken. Physical scientists are not alone in their misapprehension of rational decision methods. Although there is a good deal of practical experience available of statistical-type decision making under uncertainty, for instance as regards insurance coverage and engineering projects, decision theory, especially as regards unrepeatable situations, has not penetrated very far into standard scientific methodology or much into mainstream parts of social sciences. 'Economists in particular have shown a talent for bringing every problem back to a world of certainty where all solutions are known or can be easily found/ Natural scientists including climatologists are, for the most part, on the same erroneous reducdon-tounattainable-certainty trip. 'This is not to say that economists have not worked on uncertainty. ... however ... uncertainty is introduced and then taken out by assumption' (Cyert and DeGroot, continuing, p.l). But there are several classes of problemadc situations, where decision and action may be required, where uncertainty be removed or discarded by fiat, reducdon stratagems or otherwise, notably:* inherently probabilistic situations, such as those of indeterminacy in quantum theory; * essentially unpredictable situadons (which may be determinisdc) such as those now under invesdgadon in chaos theory; * presently uncertain situations and outcomes, which may eventually resolve into certain cases, or may tum into some of the above classes, where there is not time to wait for resolution. The Greenhouse problem is regularly put into the latter class, a standard assumpdon being that with enough money and research effort thrown at it, it will resolve to decent certainty. But it may well not. Climate is now a prime arena for applications of chaos theory (in any case inidal conditions for application of meteorological equadons are seldom very accurate and are now shifting with the accumulation of Greenhouse gases). There are grounds for supposing that critical parts of climatology will fall into the essentially unpredictable class, that the sought certainly is unattainable. If so the standard begging-bowl posture of too many research scientists: Supply more funding so we can go on researching undl we obtain certainty, is misguided.^ Or, less charitably, downright dishonest. Nor does it seem to have occurred to most research scientists demanding more money that an important reason why they are not obtaining the funding they expect, or even enough to run complex modellings on expensive computers, is because their research results could, if unfavourable, act as a serious drag on the industrial establishment. 77zey are Aar<^/y go//7g to /?e we// jrt/tt/et/ to ^e/eg/twuze woder/i /a^artr/a/ society. 12 There are thus some severe problems with this prevailing response. Firstly, it is irrational. Certainty, achieved, may be achieved too late. What was required for rationality was decision making in advance of certainty. Secondly, certainty may be unobtainable. The meteorological equations may be non-linear (nonadditive) and so incapable of delivering firm results given slightly fluctuating initial data. Not only are many experts and decision makers only comfortable about acting in circumstances of relative certainty; almost as bad, where some uncertainty is involved, only what is considered Zz^/y gets genuine consideration. Rational decision making has however to take account of what may not be very likely at all, but may be quite disastrous should it occur (e.g. a nuclear accident with full meltdown). In this respect too, the standard response is methodologically unsound. * AzZapzarz^n, learning to live with and love the Greenhouse. The policy That tends to be favoured by most economists' is an adaptive strategy: '"Let society adjust to environmental changes without attempting to mitigate or prevent the changes in advance". We could adapt to climate change for example, by planting alternative crop strains [themselves] ... more widely adapted... ' (Schneider p.8). Observe, however, that it is a decidedly rayzrzcf&% "adaptation" that is being proposed, that humans adjust to the results of present economic and industrial practices, rather than adjusting fAem. It is zz^^zz/?z^6Z that economic growth comes first, that we do not change (e.g. through decent regulation) high energy industrial practices. A fuller and smarter adaptation would adapt r/z&yg practices. The policy is like a pernicious agriculture policy that says, "Let farmers adjust to the results of soil erosion, salination and so on, without attempting to mitigate or prevent these deleterious changes in advance." Such "adaptadve agriculture", the present predominant practice in advanced agriculture, is anti-environmental, but is given a spurious air of evolutionary inevitability and evolutionary redistributive justice; you can't buck natural evolution, which is entirely natural, can you? Let us condense such far-from-inevitable and highly artificial mal-adaptation in the neologism Greenhouse adaptation, like nuclear adaptation, is badaptation (some, less kind, would say wa^aptation). There is a pragmatic, if cynical, political argument for badaptation, namely, that zznzZat^raZ action to prevent a warming is unfeasible and requisite international cooperation is unattainable. Both contentions are open to doubt. Unilateral action by the USA, by far the Earth's heaviest resource and energy consumer (per capita and on several other relevant dimensions), could make a major difference, especially when backed up by pressure (familiar from other settings, such as the narcotics war) on other nations and through the United Nations. Unfortunately the USA is also the world's largest supplier of influential growth economists. In any case, international agreements such as those on whaling and 13 concerning Antarctica, are attainable, and sometimes effective. The ozone protocols, limiting production of CFCs, show that results can be achieved to limit trace gas emissions. The adaptadon proposal is presently compatible with wait-and-see; both mean little or no hauling back on trace gas production. Indeed procrastination will force sociedes towards badaptation. Typical of adaptation, like procrastination, is an (over-)emphasis on the uncertainties of Greenhouse forecasts, and on the decision-theoretic paralysis such uncertaindes are alleged to produce. Characterisdc of adaptadon too is a minimisadon of the of Greenhouse modification. No doubt the impression that things won't be so very different, or far removed from what has already been experienced, is important in getting adaptationism more readily accepted, as a radonal course of acdon (instead of the seemingly irradonal course it is). Thus badaptation tends to play with figures at the low end of projected ranges of temperature increase, such as 1.5°C for 2050, when in fact present data indicates something rather in the vicinity of 4° C - in a setting, furthermore, where fracdons of a degree centigrade may well be linked to macro-physical and macro-biological change. Recent modellings deliver, on average, an increase in 2°C attributable to carbon dioxide, and it is widely thought that other trace gases will double the CO2 effect^, thus yielding a 4°C temperature increase around 2050. The colossal extent of future human dislocation has correspondingly been deliberately underemphasized. The adaptive capacides of human arrangements, when humans are living at the margin, to massive natural shifts, has been grossly exaggerated. Consider agriculture alone - set aside flooded cides, sunken atoll islands, and all the rest. Some of the Earth's major grain producing regions - upon which famine relief projects depend - could be pushed substantially out of business. The conditions which prevailed during the American dust­ bowl experience of the nineteen-thirties were benign indeed compared with those which threaten with mid twenty-first century Greenhouse condidons. The mid-continental summer temperatures were only 1-2° C warmer than the present average; under greenhouse conditions they could well be more than 3-4° C warmer. In the dust-bowl rainfall only slipped at critical growing times (e.g. July for northern corn) to 80% of the contemporary norm; but under Greenhouse conditions it could be significantly less again (only winter precipitation increasing). A super dust-bowl is not improbable (for much more detail, see Bernard). Similarly for other similar latitude Northern grain producing regions. But the high-energy industrial superstructure is crucially based upon sufficient cheap food (bread) for the urban masses. 10 See e.g. Pearman p.18. Note that methane is beginning to rival carbon dioxide as a gas whose atmospheric propordons really matter and whose present exponential increase is excessive. 14 * Tnfgrvenn'o?!, high-tech Earth engineering. Interventionist proposals so far floated include (D New oceans in parts of the Earth's land surface lying below, at, or near sea level. These projects would make the mega-dams of recent times look like children's play. @ Wintering effects. Production of sufficient dust in the atmosphere, achieved for instance by nuclear detonations, to mitigate heating effects. Such enterprise would make modification of the weather by cloud seeding look like childs' play. Fortunately these and other expensive and grandiose proposals, which would call for considerable international cooperation, far down the planning track; with these schemes procrastination is rational. * controlling free(-wheeling) enterprise. Regulation itself is of course transparadigmatic; where it belongs depend on what measures (what sorts of constraints, rights, etc.) are proposed and how they are imposed or enforced. If it is, for example, some industrial law-and-order, smokestack scrubbing regulations or Greenhouse polluting rights, within the status quo, that is one thing, but if a minimally- constrained growth paradigm is questioned and alternative socio-economic arrangements advocated, that is quite another, and falls outside the dominant paradigm. Such policies involving regulations controlling fossil fuel emissions especially, are negatively labelled in the predominantly American policy literature, though there is now no preventing some Greenhouse effects; but the worse to follow could still be prevented. What is usually covered under the label is however some regulation within prevailing political arrangements. So energy efficiencies and savings for investment in growth elsewhere is comprehensible, straight growth-curtailing non-consumption is not contemplated. But the latter is just what alternatives do contemplate. Democratic political arrangements do not exclude such alternatives; both the power bases of political leaders and economic prescriptions do. Adequate regulation within prevailing socio-economic arrangements is going to prove impossible, without adjustment of power structures and economic imperatives - in effect without far-reaching systemic and ideological adjustment. While such adjustment appears rational, it seems unlikely (see further section 5). Power holders and the power structures into which they slot have too much to lose. So it is hardly remarkable that regulation itself is not so bureaucratically popular (at least under that mode of presentation) in these latter days of economic irrationalism, and is strongly resented and resisted. Some of the U.S. bureaucratic reaction to the Antarctic ozone hole, now regularly attributed to extensive CFC usage, is instructive. A top Reagan official 'said that since CFO's were useful to industry, people should use sunglasses and baseball caps as protection against retina damage and skin cancer' - individualisdcally distributed adaptationism, terrific €? & 15 for creatures outside "sunglasses and baseball caps" economies. Other Reagan administrators spoke for procrastination, one academic-turned-bureaucrat observing that 'so far the ozone hole has had little effect on skin cancer rates in the United States'. The prevailing bureaucratic procrastination stance that was applied to the much easier ozone problem (which has belated obtained weak international responses), is now extended to Greenhouse effects. It is typically, typically irrationally, stated by high administrators that 'significant gaps exist in our knowledge .... These scientific uncertainties must be reduced before we commit the economic future to drastic and potentially misplaced policy responses' (preceding quotations from McKibben p.10, p.ll, italics added). and the of the Greenhouse business is thereby also revealed. Like heart disease and cancer, Greenhouse effects are gaining much discussion and some funding because they just may severely effect the affluent, affluent humans and affluent nations, that have a good deal to lose, in United States especially. The impact will, however, be at least as severe in some third world nations, whose lands or much of them will be flooded, countries which cannot afford extensive The extensive expensive dyking (or where such effort would be in the longer term, as seas rise, be pointless), countries such as Pacific coral atoll nations and delta states like Bangladesh. But the really serious losers will no doubt be, not humans , rich or poor, but nonhumans. Biological diversity, already being reduced by various human activities, may be one of the chief casualties of global warming. Massive destruction of forests, wetlands, and even the polar tundra could irrevocably destroy complex eco­ systems that have existed for millennia. Indeed, various biological reserves created in the past decade to protect species diversity could become virtual death traps as wildlife attempt to survive in conditions for which they are poorly suited. Accelerated species extinction is an inevitable consequence of a rapid warming (Worldwatch p.10). 3. Arguments to dislocation and for a Lesser Venus Prospect. There is at least a small probability that predicted increases in mean atmospheric temperatures will seriously interfere with most remaining natural habitats and result in the degeneration or destruction of many of them, especially forests, wetlands, and marine environments. For example, most wetlands will either be flooded or else evaporate under increasing temperatures. Again, the prospect is for the boreal forest to shrink from about 23% of the world's forest to something like 1% of a much diminished forest covering. Nor will adaptationism help here; for natural evolution is much too slow for adaptationism to succeed n. 11 Cf. Keeton pp.763-4, '... typical migration rates for forest boundaries are of the order of 502000m per annum ... [A requisite] shift of 500-1000km would, however, take hundreds of years. ... Pollen evidence... suggests that large changes occurred in forest composition during the Holocene period some 8000-10000 years ago, even though the climate changes then were less 16 Natural ecosystems will not adapt effectively to rapid climatic change.... With regard to forests, habitats for plants and animals cannot be re-created or transplanted rapidly. Continuing climatic changes would strain the capabilities of management practices even in commercial tree plantations (Beijer Institute Report pp.21-3). The decline or demise of these systems, vast reservoirs for greenhouse gases, will accelerate the warming, and accordingly make matters substantially worse: Trees are adapted to a narrow range of temperature and moisture levels, and cannot cope with rapid climate change. A temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius per decade in mid- to upper latitudes translates into a shift in vegetation zones of 60-100 miles northward. Terrestrial ecosystems cannot migrate that fast. Vast numbers of trees are likely to die, and new trees adapted to warmer temperatures are unlikely to be able to replace them rapidly. During such a disruption, huge areas of forest could die and, as they decay or bum, send large quantities of additional CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the warming (Worldwatch p.10). Of course the immediate climatic patterns would be somewhat more complex. If enough soot and ash from fires were flung into the atmosphere there would be a cooling effect, like that of a small nuclear winter, before heating accelerated. The present pattern of ecosystemic loss would also be sharply accelerated. For when natural ecosystems get reduced to about 30% of their initial size, they tend to collapse of themselves. Moreover, there would be other significant positive feedback from ecosystems other than the terrestrial forests, from the oceans especially. As the oceans warm, they lose their capacity to serve as carbon dioxide reservoirs. So they too release additional gases, including previously absorbed CO2, back into the atmosphere, further accelerating the warming. A critical question arises as to how much danger such positive feedback poses? As so often, informed opinions, and so probability estimates differ. However 'several scientists working in the area consider that positive feedback effects will force a very bleak picture to be drawn" (Worldwatch p.19).^ Unlike the interim effect of a small nuclear winter, where after a few years at most, climatic behaviour (as distinct from radioactivity levels and, differently, from ecological communities) would presumably return towards the previous norm, there will be /7<9 similar under greenhouse impact. Technically then, stability would be lost under the than those expected by 2030 [and forests were more extensive and less interfered with]' (Pittock 87a p.209, rearranged). Second order probabilities, probabilities and uncertainties in the light of first order subjective probabilities, enter importantly. 17 impact,^ disequilibrium induced. An eventual long-term return to some different but sufficiently congenial equilibrium could well be excluded. Under new climatic regimes plants themselves may be able to do little more than hang on for part of their own lives. In many places conditions would be too severe for much of the "year" to permit normal plant functioning, including what is crucial for Greenhouse amelioration, photosynthesis. In most plants, photosynthesis only occurs across a narrow band of temperatures (e.g. 6 - 34°C); outside that range the plants shut down operations.^ Even more important, many plants would leave few or no successful successors. Even where plants set seed, seedlings would not survive under the severe conditions expected; for instance, they would be killed by hot dry summer conditions, or in other places by frosts to which they are not adapted, both phenomena already familiar after clearfelling of forests. The situation at a famous place in southern Sahara, where there is but one ancient tree hanging on in thousands of square kilometres of desert, a tree with viable seeds which sets no seedlings, could be more or less replicated in many other places where forests or woody plants once grew. In fact we are already witnessing the demise of the trees in much of Australia. Already dead and dying trees form a predominant feature of the Australian rural landscape. Virtually whichever way ecologists travel in Australia where trees remain, they are confronted with dead and dying trees The reasons for the present decline of trees in rural Australia is, for the most part, not to be attributed to early Greenhouse or even pollution effects. "6 It is thought to be due to a complex of factors, including a range of insect predators whose efforts are concentrated on isolated trees left after an excessive zeal for clearing (i.e. holistic effects enter as regards healthy persistence of trees). Excessive disturbance of ecological systems, though overclearing of trees, has seriously upset the systems. Types of systemic stress and disturbance are likely to be much accelerated given the additional impact of Greenhouse warming on plant functioning and reproduction. f<9 some q/ worth disentangling. Firstly, a system may be disturbed by interfering with critical components There are several within the system structure, processing parts, such as botanical systems or their interconnections. As with a computer, if a cridcal component is broken or a circuit cut, the probability of serious malfunction increases. Secondly, a system normally operates within a Stability is defined in physics in terms of immediate return to an initial (inertial) position after small disturbance. The upper bound may be difficult to appreciate in most of Aotearoa. But in much of Australia, during the summer, many plants close down their operations for much of the day. Other effects of increased heat on major food plants matter for human affairs. Severe heat interferes with fertilization and reproduction in com, and apparently affects the ability of rice in Asia to reproduce; so considerably reduced yields of staple foods may be anticipated. Reported by Recher on EarfAworw. Thus coastline vegctational destruction through detergents in sewerage waters. 18 certain range of condition. Take it outside these conditions or push it towards limits (let the computer get too hot or too cold), and probability of breakdown is much increased. Feedback loops, which are an important feature of cybernetic systems are particularly vulnerable to normality disturbance. Cybernetic systems afford one example of more holistic behaviour; dissipative systems, where perhaps strange new features may enter as systemic loading is increased, another. Such new features may not be at all congenial to dominant forms, or to maintenance of life support arrangements. It should be evident from details already assembled that there is some probability the Greenhouse efforts could seriously disturb the crucial carbon cycle. The carbon cycle loops, in major fashion, through both the higher plant complexes and the oceans, both major carbon dioxide reservoirs - but just how critically through them is uncertain. However, with the serious disturbance of main components in the cycle, the real possibility of cycle malfunction can hardly be excluded. Much the same holds with other crucial chemical cycles, such as the sulphur cycle (though woody plants are perhaps less important here, the oceans are highly significant, the oceans Costeau has already pronounced moribund). To a lesser extent, several of the other well-known bio-chemical cycles, such as those for nitrogen, sodium, and so forth, depend for their stability and maintenance on the adequate operation of active ecological structures. Plainly if a cycle loops through a component, such as a tropical forest, which is severely disturbed then the crucial cycle itself could be locally disrupted. There is some probability, furthermore, that the changes will disturb other physical cycles crucial to the stability of systems. For some of the Earth's feedback systems are in fact maintained in equilibrium through natural ecosystems. A striking example appears to be the regulating of the Earth's temperature itself. Lovelock and collaborators have devised an elementary daiyy wor/d m(9dg/ which reveals how a feedback system with two types of daisies can, within limits, stabilize temperatures despite increasing solar energy input (see the next diagram). The limits are important, for as these limits are approached the maintenance systems break down. Thus again, instability could ensue under disturbance. 19 Diagram 5.77z^rm<9.s7anc r^ga/aizoa a/*rA^ Earr/z j ^zayac^ i^mp^ramrf rAraag/z p/a/zM (a much simplified picture from Lovelock 88 p.58). !n the "Datsyworid" mode), tife adjusts the pfanefs temperature to suit ttseif. A basic assumption is that on Daisyworid, as on Earth, the sun is getting progressive^ hotter. Biack daisies grow best when the surface temperature is tow, because their petals absorb radiation. As the sun's heat increases, the white daisies begin to nourish. Their petais reflect radiation, thus heipingto iower surface temperature. Between the time the seeds first germinate and when the sun gets too hot, the piants maintain a steady surface temperature by adjusting the pfanefs aibedo. Without doubt these matters are bad enough. Demise of most of the Earth's richness^ is not a minor matter. Worse could follow. Apart from direct ecological breakdown, there are several other major ways through which the maintenance structures of the Earth can be not merely awkwardly disturbed, but thrown right out of kilter - perhaps, given the d^/zcacy of several critical matters, never to return present norms. Most obvious and immediately threatening is * nuclear warfare, and therewith nuclear winter. But there are of course other severe shocks that the planet could suffer than those chemonuclear warfare, some human induced, some a "chance" matter of the planets' posidon in space; namely * a mini Big Bang, or an undermining of metastability, brought about through very high energy experimentadon (see Leslie); * a collision with a large meteorite or asteroid. Such uncertaindes, not germane to the main climatic arguments, are listed, not to achieve a bogus completeness, but to emphasize that complete certainty is not to expected, not radonally. Should we obtain it, should we obtain easy relatively unproblemadc lives, then we have, by world standards, been rather lucky. Moreover, these latter uncertaindes do so 17 Natural richness is its main richness, much exceeding human arufice. 20 far appear negligible compared with those bound up with climate.is The Greenhouse problemadque differs (as do nuclear winter and also high energy experimentation) from such possibilities as destruction of the Earth's favourable climate or life-supports by collision with an asteroid in two crucial respects: the poor prognoses are largely a matter of human making (meaning the making of certain among humans) and the damaging situations could be substantially averted by positive or concerted human activity. According analogies with remote phenomena such as decline of the sun, asteroid collisions, etc., sometimes applied to dismiss concerns with global environmental problems, do not hold up, and should be resisted. The human-induced climatic problems are primarily ascribable to: * excess economic development. The practices involve a complex and sustained assault on most of the Earth's major ecosystems, forests, seas, and so on, along with the alteration of atmospheric composition by greenhouse gases. For example, the forests are cut down, burnt, poisoned by herbicides and acid rain, or otherwise removed or destroyed. (Therewith too a great deal more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and major sinks of carbon dioxide are removed.) As a result of these concerted growth-and-development activities such systems are driven to limits, and breakdown occurs. Once it occurs at some weak point it can escalate elsewhere, like a conflagradon; thus again ecosystemic collapse for example. Quite apart from breakdown at or approaching limits, for instance because of systemic overload, remarkable changes can occur in dissipative systems under stress or strain. * excess energy or chemical loading. Though such striking examples as the chemical clock, it has been demonstrated that dissipative systems can suddenly, and often rather unpredictably, undergo extraordinary changes, as for instance energy flux is increased (Prigogine and others). Such non-additive or nonlinear effects, characteristic of more holistic dissipative systems, seem bound to occur within the Earth's atmosphere and oceans as they undergo compositional changes. Carbon dioxide itself provides a good example: None of these assessments are strikingly objective, but are a matter of appearance. The risk of catastrophic destruction of Earth civilization by an asteroid or comet is discussed, and compared with either less exotic risks, in Chapman and Morrison, chapter 19. It has been guesstimated at a 1 in 300,000 chance per year, a much smaller probability than that serious Greenhouse effect will eventuate (often put at about 85%), but comparable with some rather more mundane risks (see p.283). The risks from very high energy experimentation will no doubt rise sharply as orders of attainable energy increase. 21 With small quantities its effect on the temperature of the air is proportional to the amount added; there is a linear effect. However once the carbon dioxide concentration in the air approaches 1%, new nonlinear effects come into play and heating greatly increases. In the absence of a biosphere to fix carbon dioxide, its concentration in the atmosphere would probably exceed the critical figure of 1%. The Earth would then heat up rapidly to a temperature near to that of boiling water. Increasing temperatures would speed up chemical reacdons and accelerate their progress towards chemical equilibrium. ... eventually ... the Earth would become permanently cocooned in a brilliant white cloud - a second Venus, although not quite as hot (Lovelock pp.45-6). Fortunately for Gaean prospects, the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now nowhere near 1% nor likely to be pushed near 1% by projected increases in carbon dioxide levels under economic activity over the next 50 years^. However eventual exponential growth will lead towards accentuated levels, and the side effect of such growth, the release of carbon dioxide from forests and oceans and the considerable reduction in fixadon of carbon dioxide with the decline of forests, will lead in that disastrous direction rather more rapidly. The 1% bound constitutes just one of the many serious limits (fortunately a fairly remote one) to condnuation of present developmental pracdces. Now there can be no radonal confidence with respect to complex dissipadve systems about the behaviour of which we presendy know comparadvely little - that other nonaddidve effects will not be encountered at a much earlier stage. After all, the Gaean system, its atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems, will be pushed into essendally unexperienced and substandally unknown reaches. There is, for example, no experience from comparable past times of such elevated temperatures as Greenhouse effects will lead to, to draw upon. 'There is no evidence that the land-bound glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have ever completely melted in the last two million years'. There is experience of much colder periods. 'During ice ages, the earth's average temperature has been about 5°C colder than at present, with glaciers covering major portions of continents' (Barth p.7). But there is no similar experience of temperatures 4-5° C warmer than at present (in any warm interglacial period), 'a global increase of more than 2°C above present is unprecedented in the era of human civilization' (Schneider p.6). It would accordingly be decidedly rash, rash decision making, to assign a zero or negligible probability to the emergence of new or unknown effects of relevance, to assume all will go smoothly and well. That would presuppose, in any event, a completeness in present scientific knowledge, contrary to the information we actually have that present investigation of holistic systems, among much else, is still in its infancy. The probability of 19 In the atmosphere of the very early Earth, CO? exceeded the critical 1% figure; but solar luminosity was about 25% less than now. With increasing solar flux the Earth would have overheated had the proportion of CO2 not been much reduced (e.g. see Lovelock 88 p.56). 22 something critical (e.g. perhaps radicals like hydroxyl) having been left out of estimations, of room accordingly for something unexpected or for something to go wrong, may be small (though experience implies it is not always so), but it certainly appears to be non-zero. For the overconfident, with excess faith in the flimsy scientific edifice, there is a salutary lesson to be drawn from the erratic and stumbling path of the main proponent of Gaia hypotheses, Lovelock. Lovelock, coming from a working life as an industrial chemist, part of that time for a giant chemical transnational, had, and retained for a considerable time after he began his holistic hypothesizing, a strong antipathy for environmentalists.^ Even Gaia was for industry and against the environmentalists; she was going to laughingly soak up all the pollution, courtesy of the chemical companies especially, that we humans could throw at her. In particular, we did not really need to worry much about ozone depletion or greenhouse gas escalations^ 'Contrary to the forebodings of many environmentalists, finding a suitable" destructive agent to bring about a 'doom scenario" 'turns out to be an almost insoluble problem" (79 p.40). Lovelock makes it easier for himself by helping himself to the assumption that a doomsday scenario involves the destruction of all "life"', 'down to the last spore of some deep-buried anaerobic bacteria" (p.40). But even for the least chauvinistic of environmentalists, destruction of all humans but the select elect would be quite enough for a decent doomsday. Lovelock's high redefinition of a environmental 'doomsday scenario" is unacceptable. Lovelock does not however stay within the bound of his redefinition. He proceeds to pooh-pooh the idea that anything much that we humans could accomplish would make any difference to Gaia (p.41) or even to most humans, including use of nuclear devices. Unfortunately for Lovelock's credibility, he was writing three years before the seemingly obvious wintering effects of a major nuclear war were realised by the accredited scientific community. Appealing in a common scienufic fashion to scientific authority, he proceeds to minimalize the human and ecological effects of a major war. The report he relies upon as authoritative was a 1975 (unreferenced) one of 'the US Nadonal Academy of Sciences ... prepared by an eight-man committee of their own assisted by forty-eight other explosions and a// chosen from those members, in the effects of nuclear to them" (p.41, italics added). Lovelock draws from the disdnguished expert report the findings that Coupled with this, there was a certain schizophrenia in Lovelock's attitude to the natural environment. There was also a matching schizophrenia as to the fragility of life on Earth. On the one side, it required very delicate settings and fine tuning to arise; this is part of the argument for a Gaia hypothesis. On the other side, life is 'tough, robust, and [highly] adaptable', virtually indestructible (79 p.90). But though a flawed hero, Lovelock is a hero nonetheless. See e.g. Lovelock 79, p.40ff; and also, on ozone, 88 p.63. 23 ... if half of all the nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals, about 10,000 megatons, were used in a nuclear war the effects on most of the human and man-made ecosystems of the world would be small at first and would become negligible within thirty years. Both aggressor and victim nations would of course suffer catastrophic local devastation, but areas remote from the battle and, especially important in the biosphere, marine and coastal ecosystems would be minimally disturbed (p.41). Three years later Turco and others proceeded to detail a very different scenario, that of widespread and ecologically damaging nuclear winter. Not for the only time, Lovelock had been caught out badly. As with pollution, Lovelock has more recently shifted ground,^ considerably, on the vulnerability of the Earth to human-induced disturbance. When a system such as Gaea in homeostatis is stressed to near the limits of regulation even a small disturbance may cause it to jump to a new stable state or even fail entirely.... It could be that the regulation of the Earth's climate is not far from one of these limits. Thus if some part of climate regulation is connected with the natural level of CO2 then clearly we are close to the limits of its regulation. This is because CO2 cannot be reduced much below the level observed for the last glaciation, about 180 ppm, without seriously limiting the rate of growth of the more abundant C3 type plants. If we perturb the Earth's radiation balance by adding more CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or reduce its capacity to regulate by decreasing the area of forests or both of these together then we could be surprised by a sudden jump of both CO2 and temperature to a new and much warmer steady state; or by the initiation of periodic fluctuations between that state and our present climate. The anomalously low abundance of CO2 on Earth when compared with the other terrestrial planets and especially the fact that the mean temperature of the Earth is on the cool side of the optimum for regulation, suggests strongly that the biota is regulating the climate by pumping CO2 from the air. The common feature of most of our pollutions and of our exploitation of the land surface seems to be unintentionally to thwart this natural process (Lovelock 85 pp.5354). The argument to the lesser par/i, to significant disequilibrium with the Earth's ecological support system destabilized, takes the following lines. The Earth appears to be a dissipative (far-from-equilibrium) system held at its present by a combinadon of an (increasing) solar flux - a main energy input into the system - and its major ecological arrangements, especially vegetational complexes and live oceans. The sheer extent to which the resulting system differs from the stable dead system it could otherwise be is shown by the following table for atmospheric and oceanic composidon. Shifdng ground may be fine, especially when it is to an improved position. But it should be done honesdy and openly, not stealthily or shiftily. Lovelock proceeds to attribute a cancature of his <9WH previous position to cdtics of the Gaia hypothesis (as a clever Tabneation', which also it was not): that it is 'an argument developed to allow industry to pollute at will, since mother Gaia will clean up the mess '(85 p.53). 24 TABLE 1. Substance Funerary Equilibrium (principal components per cent). Venus Earth Carbon dioxide A Nitrogen 1 R Oxygen Argon 0 C E A N S Water Lifeless Mars Earth 99 0 98 1.9 98 1.9 0 trace trace 1 0.1 0.1 Earth 95 2.7 0.13 2 63 Salt 3.5 Sodium nitrate 1.7 Present 0.03 79 21 1 96 n.a. n.a. 3.5 traces Surface temperatures (°C) n.a 477 Total pressure (bars) n.a. 90 290+50 60 -53 13 0064 1 The table is based upon tables 1 and 2 of Lovelock 79, p.37 and p.39. The whole Earth system is accordingly far from equilibrium. Unpredictable behaviour as loads increase is therefore almost to be expected. A likely moral is presumably: stress the system, or destabilize ecosystem controls sufficiently, and the system may be in deep trouble. It is relevant to inquire briefly into what evidence we so far have on this score. To do so let us reconsider some of the array of arguments there are from some sort of holistic organisation of the Earth (for a modest Gaea hypothesis, to the effect that the (outer) Earth is a naturally regulated nonadditive cybernetic system, important attributes of which are regulated by the biota). /or the participation of the Earth's ecological support systems, plant complexes especially, the Earth would not be blessed with its present life- benign physical characteristics. The oceans would be much saltier and too salty for most life, the air would not contain the present rich mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide so important for terrestrial life, and so on; perhaps most important the Earth would be significantly hotter and too hot for most life, for most of what does the regulating and stabilizing of present conditions. For the solar flux has increased in intensity about 30% since life appeared on Earth, whereas the mean global temperatures have exhibited no 25 corresponding increase, but have remained relatively constant. Such an expected constancy in the face of disturbing inputs is ascribed, under holistic approaches that do something to explain it, to the concerted activity of plant life, as already indicated. The general tenor of the argument is so far this:- By arguments from physical and other models, and because of uncertainties, the probability that something could go badly wrong is not merely nonzero^ but indeed far from negligible. Part of the argument can be put as follows:- There is a decent probability that a modest Gaea hypothesis holds. But then, there is a considerable probability that excessive Greenhouse build-up will lead to damaging system destabilization. So combining probabilities, there at least a nonnegligible probability of such destabilization. An analogy should now emphasize both the dubiousness of what is being proposed under adaptationism and the precariousness of the human predicament. The proposal is to take this ancient craft, now overloaded with human passengers and their heavy baggage, a cargo it was never organised to carry, out on new routes and run it faster and higher than it has ever travelled before. Even for an experimental prototype, a now very fast (air-)bus say, with a select test crew, such a procedure, of running over new uncharted routes at speeds and heights never attained before, would be risky enterprise. With an ancient craft, with a heavy non-elite cargo of baggage and passengers (some whom try to interfere with the controls), the proposal is extremely rash. For the chances that the craft will break/down and perhaps crash, with serious consequences to passengers and for the baggage, are greatly elevated over the risks of proceeding as usual much more slowly. With the costs of crashing so severe, rational operators and sensible pilots would not take them.^ Unfortunately the analogy is not at all far-fetched, but resembles what is in store for spaceship Earth, already under significant stress with its excessive human passenger load and their heavy ecological practices. Not only is the future itself pretty new territory, but it is a future at terrestrial temperatures never before attained. As a result too of these enhanced temperatures, important processes will proceed faster than ever before, in particular all chemical processes. Simply to take the craft up there, as do-nothing and adaptation approaches would have is to emulate the risks and hubris of Daedelus; such approaches are From logical theories of probability such as Camap's non-zero probabilities are rather easily reached (perhaps too easily, with the converse feature that natural laws never obtain high probabilities. The difficulty can be averted, to some extent, by restriction to physical models.) The analogy is an old one, which we exploited before in the nuclear case; for the "bus analogy", see Routley and Routley. The analogy admits of much graphic variation. Instead of running the craft at excess speed, an alternative or additional image is that of destroying the controls of the craft. Lovelock deploys this apposite image (88 p.63), which corresponds to the demolition of Gaean control systems. Others speak of a colossal experiment with the Earth; but strictly the conditions for a controlled experiment are not met. 26 aptly named D<2^Zfa?i. Given anthropic terrestrial practices, a Daedelian future and fate should not be excluded. 4. A Sting in the Cosmic Tail: the mini-Furphy theorem and on the iikeiy decline of Homo sapiens spp. economicus. The anthropic doomsday argument developed relies upon a modified Murphy's law. The trouble with the initial formulation of Murphy's law: ^anyf/ung can go wrong, if wii/, was that it was insufficiently qualified, much too absolutist, and apparently self-refuting.^ Certain crucial qualifications are required:* Replacement of the too certain conclusion by a somewhat weaker probabilistic one: for instance, it pro&a&/y will. * Correlative to weakening the conclusion, strengthening the premiss, by rendering it more specific; namely, in place of "anything" or "something" put "some thing ... given a chancy situation". The modified formulation is accordingly the following mini-Furphy proposition^ r/HKg can ge/iMZMe/y go wrong, given o re/onvefy cAoncy Mfi/ohon, zf pro/MZ&iy wi/i. Here "chancy" means more or less what it means according to the dictionaries: doubtful, decidedly risky, or as we shall construe it, having a comparadvely low probability vis-a-vis its altemadves. The precise extent of relative chanciness will be explained as we go. The proposidon is itself a corollary of a more general result, an ancient principle. The generalisadon replaces "go wrong" by "happen'; the ancient principle is that of jy/^ndfM^, sometimes stated, with quite insufficient reservations, as that all places are full, or ony ggnfdn^/y ^fofg &onn<% fo rgo/fy^Z (when genuinely possible states are compadble with all that is already transpiring). The principle, whose distinguished history is traced in Lovejoy, has emerged in contemporary particle physics, in such forms as the For this and other formulations of Murphy's law, and many loosely associated humorous maxims with grains of truth encapsulated, see Block. As to the history of the "law", which originated with J.M. Chase, editor of Aw'adPH see the A/nerzcgmi; Chase's inidal formulation in a 1955 issue read 'If an aircraft part can be installed incorrectly, someone will install it that way". Silberman's paradox, that if Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will, is not a genuine paradox. For it can simply be asserted that where Murphy's Law is a real law it will not go wrong. The connection of Murphy's Law with the pnnciple of plendtude appears to have escaped much notice. This little theorem was originally titled the Murphy-Leslie theorem. It is an adaptation, suggested by Leslie's work, of Murphy's Law. While this secuon is overwhelmingly indebted to Leslie, the arguments developed from those Leslie advances. For Leslie's arguments and also his debts, and so the transitive debts of this section, see Leslie himself, who deserves to be read in defence his own legidmate doomsday apprehensions. The Appendix indicates the very limited extent to which Leslie's arguments arc here endorsed. 27 following: if a thing (e.g. an elementary particle) is not forbidden, excluded by quantum rules, then it is bound to occur (or be realised), even is "compulsory". For things and events generally, such completeness (all nonexcluded particle niches are occupied) cannot reasonably be expected.^ The main mini-plentitude proposition has, like its mini-Furphy specialization to bad outcomes, to take the much more hedged form: if something can genuinely happen, given a relatively chancy situation, it probably will. To prove this proposition, let us first recast it in appropriate symbolic form. Let D be some arbitrary (bad) situation, a suitable disaster in the intended application. Let the possibility of D's happening - such as something's going wrong - be represented by a non­ zero probability, and genuineness by non-negligible probability. It can be assumed that that probability, P(D), is small; if it were large enough the requisite conclusion would follow in any case. Let C represent the relativizing features, what is given that renders the situation chancy. Then what we aim to show is that where P(D) is small positive, P(D { C) is probable. The proof applies a special case of Bayes' theorem, which takes the following form where there are n alternative hvpotheses hi,...,hn including h: P(h { i) = " * Pd 1 M I P(hr) X P(i { hr) r = 1 Here h is the hypothesis, which in our application is D, i is the additional information (or, as in Carnap, a new observation), which in our case is C.28 P(h j i) is the probability of h given i, or of h on condition i (the backward arrow notation, { , symbolises the condition There is a marvellous Greek term, which could serve to cover items where the particle physics "principle" is satisfied. 'We may call an event agathonic to convey that, though in itself it was highly unlikely, we might have known that something of that sort was bound to happen. ... from the name of the tragic poet to whom Aristotle attributes the view that it is very probable that the improbable should happen. (Kaplan p.9 rearranged). Is the chronic chthonic Greenhouse escalation agathonic? The formulation is a special case of that proved in Carnap, p.331; namely that (absolute) case where the evidence e is elided, or e set = 1. A similar result follows, subject to slightly more rigorous conditions, in relevant probability theory; see Routley 79 p.954. In effect we shall look at the form P(h ) ,) = --------------- * PC < D ' P(h) X P(i { h) + XP(hr) X P(i { hr) n with the sum excluding the product for h. Though demonstrable given satisfiable exclusion and exhaustion conditions, Bayes' theorem is not lacking critics, in part because of the surprises this bit of logic can deliver. Carnap meets the objection that Bayes' theorem has sometimes 'been applied to cases where it led to strange or even absurd results' thus: 'This was mostly due to an uncritical use of the principle of indifference :... [The] theorem is provable ... on the basis of those weak assumptions which practically all theories of probability seem to have in common' (p.331, sub 1 elided). Of course the present applications could (just) be objected to on the grounds that the logical conditions for the theorem to apply are not fully satisfied. 28 involved and shows its direction). For simplicity we shall suppose that all the alternatives to D are concentrated (as far as symbolic exposure goes) in one, namely D*. Then the form we seek to apply is simply: P(D { C) = __________ { D)_______________ _ ' P(D) x P(C { D) + P(D*) x P(C { D*) The arithmetic details needed can be tabulated in a revealing form as follows: C<2.$ay D D* Initial (or prior) probability d 1-d m, say 1/d m/L,say 1/d! of outcome relative chance that C As it is the chance of C that matters, we can rescale to set m = 1/d. To make C relatively chancy, L has some modest size; specifically let L exceed 1-d/d. Then the probability to be estimated, P(D { C), is d x 1/d dxl/d + (l-d)/dL _ " __ 1 1+^ where k - - That is, P(D { C) = y where k = 1, andP(D { C)> when -when L > . Thus D is probable, at least in being more probable than not, given C, when L is of at least modest size, i.e. given C is relatively chancy. In a merely apparently more general form of the estimation, where we do not align m to d, P(D { C) ______ d x m______ d x m + (1-d) x m/1 1 1 1 + k' as before. That is, m drops out, only the relative chanciness really matters. The little plendtude theorem follows as before. Now to put some relevant flesh on these abstract statements and figures. Let D be some future disaster such as the catastrophic decline, for instance, through summer or winter phenomena, of the human species, from which the enormous present population never recovers. At worst (from a chauvinistic angle) the population, like many catastrophically effected by human activities, goes extinct. Suppose, for a bifurcating outcome, there is a 29 catastrophe stage, before halfway through next century, 2050. If humans do not get their act together before then, they go into catastrophic decline, as already indicated. If however they do get their ecopolitical act together then humans, while they hardly live happily ever after (poverty, inequality, domination, and other evils not being removed), continue to persist or even grow in numbers, perhaps fanning out through the solar system (in the way envisaged by too many physicists). Suppose further we are optimists, imagining that the prior probability of D, ecodisaster and human decline, is small, say 1%. That is d = .01, and the inidal probability of D*, human "success", is .99. The figures are pretty notional. Supreme optimists would want to set d much smaller, pessimists rather at a higher probability. Table 2. D human decline D* human success Initial probabilities 1%, i.e. .01 99%, i.e. .99 Relative chanciness, 1/100, i.e. .01 1/100 x 1/1 ofC Then the probability of human decline given C, .01 X .01 P(D { C) .01 x .01 + .99 x .01/1 1/2 , when 1 > 99. For example, when 1 is set, conservatively, at 1,000, then the probability of human decline given present chanciness is approximately 90%. It remains to fill out C, thereby showing that 1 is very likely much much larger than 99, and correspondingly human decline so much the more probable in the light of additional information, i.e. 6! usual jargon. probable in the There are several high risk factors, acting in a certain concert, factors emphasized more than a decade ago in world systems modellings (such as, most famously, that of the Club of Rome), Malthusian factors such as human population, economic product, pollution, energy consumption, ... . (The list rolls on.) It is appropriate to estimate posterior probability relative to any one of these, any of which can serve as C, in order to expose the riskiness of present gross human practices. In brief, because there are several high risk factors, so there are several appropriate relative or reference classes. Thus the posterior probability is assessed relative to such matters as humans now being thus and so, our or my being alive 30 now (Leslie's first-person reference class), this being present energy use, present waste output, present forest destruction and so forth. The upshot is not the triviality that probability can be jacked up by placement in a suitably restricted context, though that analyticity is established.^ The point is that, environmentally, more affluent humans have fdgmjg/vgj produced such adverse circumstances, which are upon us, the very circumstances typically productive of limitadon results. In sum, the aadirapfc argument considers the environmentally invidious situadon of present humans on the Earth. The argument can be carried through either in terms of sheer population, gross numbers, or in terms of human resource grabbing, as esdmated for instance through energy consumption. In fact all the other factors are anthropically tied, to gross human numbers, via the environmental impact equation and because the levels are human-use numbers. Let us consider the prospects given addidonal information as to the present phase of gross human population. C will be some such proposition as: the proportional preponderance of humans who have ever lived alive now, or to personalize it: the chance that you or your family, are alive now. Diagram 6: (?ar praf^nf popidadon pred/camg/zf <?n die /wo jce/iarioj. Humans have got themselves - to some extent pat themselves, though much may be the result of muddling through - into an extremely dubious, environmentally insidious, and One of the weaknesses in the argument may appear to be its dependence on an appropnate choice of relative class. For, the high relative probabilities can fall away if different reference classes, not exhibiting such growth patterns are taken, c.g. present wattle distribution, birds being thus and so. On the other hand, probabilities can be elevated even more by selection of more unusual reference classes, such as our being scientists, or being computer programmers, etc.. It is not so remarkable that probabilities can be wound up - or down - perhaps quite dramatically, by appropriate relativisation, by appropriate selection of a reference class. 31 unsustainable position, on a range of critical parameters. Their numbers are excessive, their high energy use is excessive, their waste and their polludon are both excessive - and all these and other excesses are at the steep end of upward exponendal curves. Several relevant graphs are distressingly exponendal, with the present in the near verdeal growth phase: Digram 7 : GrowrA in are drawn from Boyden). envzronm^nfgZZy r^Z^vanr parg/neter-P (all graphs exhibited 32 Many other similarly shaped graphs could be added, for instance for growth of pollution, of waste products, of weapons (in terms of tonnes of explosive power), of other greenhouse gases such as the chlorofluorocarbons (which accelerated from zero in the nineteen thirties), and so on. The display typifies the accelerating human roller coaster (or air bus). Those curves are dghtly interconnected, in criss-crossing fashion. For example, the productivity of contemporary agriculture which enables the feeding of huge urbanised human populations depends on a very high energy use (in term of energy efficiency, contemporary high-tech agriculture falls below that of much traditional agriculture). The maintenance of high populations with supplies of cheap food depends in tum on fossil fuel agriculture. Because of the intertwining of these phenomena, there is no easy way of getting off the accelerating roller-coaster. Nor, as observed, is there much real effort devoted to slowing the coaster. For politicians it would be politically risky and inexpedient to try (for them the rhetoric about an ecologically sustainable future must remain just that, more rhetoric). For many other power holders and brokers such ideas are ideologically excluded: growth remains the gospel. So a precarious position becomes ever more precarious. Humans are in a decidedly chancy position, because of their population situation and other limitative factors; they are becoming very disaster-prone. If humans want an acceptable future for themselves - they have virtually ruled out an acceptable future for many other creatures, through their predominantly selfish thoughtless greedy practices - then they will probably have to mend their collective ways, very considerably and very soon. But, given the nature of the beast, that itself seems improbable. Humans, if they seek a more assured future, should make a concerted effort to put themselves into a less precarious position. That could be achieved by proceeding to reduce relative risks. These relative risks, sharply reducing prospects for a reliable future, fall into two classes:- * Manufactured risk factors, including weaponry such as mega-nuclear devices and elements of biochemical warfare, and experimental equipment such as very high energy particle accelerators (which could perhaps tunnel under a metastable state or induce a miniBig-Bang; see again Leslie). * Accumulated risk factors, such as the huge relative size of human population, energy consumption, greenhouse gas production, etc.30 30 As before, there are various different reasons why these induce risk, limitative and probabilistic in particular. 33 Despite the ideological obstacles - enormous political, religious and economic obstacles blocking the way of requisite change - major efforts should be put into reducing these types of risks. Philosophers, beyond other intellectuals, cozdd have a significant role in breaking down the ideological barriers and in clarifying and developing the arguments involved. Given the track-record of professional philosophers, don't expect very much.31 5. Further notes on human prospects and improved practices: What in generai ought to be done about the Greenhouse problematique? The general result already reached, that humans collectively should substantially reduce their risk taking, and in particular reduce their gross numbers, extends to radonal Greenhouse decision and action theory. But that large and difficult challenge - with all that it entails by way of radical change upon present arrangements - is not all that there is to try, all that should radonally be attempted. While some increase in mean global temperatures, and what that implies, can no longer be averted, the potentially most damaging effects can be: namely, by curtailing humaninduced output of Greenhouse gases. Moreover, there is an approximate upper bound of importance, upon temperature, which can serve to supply a significant limit on output. That bound - which conrrnns rfyZr raZd/zg by confining encountered situadons a? those where there is some ba-sds* - is given by esdmated temperatures during Aldthermal and Eemian eras. Those temperatures are estimated to have been between about 1/2 a degree and 1 degree Centigrade above contemporary (pre-1980) temperatures; so the upper bound is about PC. 31 There is much else for philosophers to contribute in these fields, especially on the expanding issues of future redistributive justice, ecological equity, genuinely pluralistic arrangements, etc. 34 gZo^zzZ zznd^r Z&ree zn/^rcy/zzzg sc^zzzzrzoy. AT (°C ) Dnzgram # : B^zckgroz/nd in/orw^hozz: 'Annual mean global surface air temperature computed for trace gas scenarios A, B, and C .... Scenario A assumes continued growth rates of greenhouse gas emissions typical of the past 20 years, i.e., about 1.5% per year emission growth; scenario B has emission rates approximately fixed at current rates; scenario C drastically reduces trace gas emissions between 1990 and 2000.... The shaded range is an estimate of global temperature during the peak of the current and previous interglacial periods, about 6,000 and 120,000 years before present, respectively. The zero point fbr observation is the 1951-1980 mean; the zero point for the model is the control run mean' (Walsh p.14, from whom the diagram is drawn). Not only will a continuation of current emission trends take global temperatures clean through and way beyond that bound, so also will an alternative set-up where emission rates are fixed more or less at current rates. The only apparent way to remain rationally within an experiential domain is to curtail sharply trace gas emissions, beginning early in the 1990s. That means shifting from the dominant growth ideology; it means expensive re- and de­ industrialisation. Short of catastrophic nuclear war it seems unlikely. 35 There are several reasons why requisite change looks unlikely. Firstly, requisite changes are generally difficult, ideologically unwelcome, extensive and expensive. Politicians will accordingly be extremely loath to undertake them, to offer more than tokenism. Moreover, those states and corporations that avoid making hard changes will, like free riders, be at a comparadve advantage in the short term as regards both profits and power. Secondly, then, there are Tragedy-of-Commons reasons, i.e. those deriving from general Prisoners' Dilemma situations. However the troughs induced by such dilemmas could be climbed out of; they can be transcended given, for instance, some resolute players committed to major change, despite heavy commercial and political disadvantages, and prepared to pursue judicious tit-for-tat strategies. Thirdly, because main Greenhouse effects are gradual, long-term by polidcal standards, and uncertain, the main pohdcal temptation will undoubtedly again be to avoid the problems - to muddle incrementally along, and hope that the problems will dissolve or that something (some magical technology perhaps) will turn up or that adaptadon will occur or, at worst, that the problems will fall to some successors. Meanwhile the problems will continue to be dismissed as "too hard", "too uncertain", and their costs, polidcal and economic and ideological, as "too great". We have already accumulated substantial experience of these inadequate evasive, dismissive and postponement procedures. What should of course be attempted involves extensive changes and restructuring across virtually the entire face of industrialisation and urbanisation, and therewith extensive alterations in the demands they impose upon new urban environments. The ultimate objective as regards the Greenhouse problems - a reduction in the rate of increase of, and then in the gross levels of, emissions of Greenhouse gases - direcdy implies, above all, constraints on the combustion of fossil fuels, both decelerating use and improved use, but also much better regulation, in one way or another, of production of other Greenhouse gases and of interference with ecosystems storing or absorbing Greenhouse gases. The main burden as regards requisite changes falls on the main users of fossil fuels and main consumers of Greenhouse relevant products, namely the Earth's most affluent centres: North America, Japan and Europe. In these centres especially, the work should be started on reducing consumption of fossil fuel involved goods and services. (In a thoroughly methodical approach a GG, Greenhouse gas, rating would be assigned to each sort of good and service, the objective being to reduce these ratings, an effort that would no doubt concentrate upon highly rated and easily altered items.) The general types of changes needed or desirable are well enough known to environmental planners, and include: restructuring of cides into network systems, so that reliance upon automobile commudng and truck transport of goods is much reduced, improved building practices for energy efficiency cogeneration and related technologies, increased reliance on solar energy technologies, and so on. 36 Venturing much further into unknown territory are the types of political and economic alterations required to implement the planning changes. It has already been insinuated that conventional governmental and public policy practices, analyses and procedures are inadequate to the tasks ahead. For these presuppose, for example, reladvely short-term and quite bounded settings, in which most information (as to costs, benefits, beneficiaries, etc.) is more or less certain, and where an ethical/ideological framework is taken for granted. Indeed most of the favoured procedures - such as reliance on standard cost-benefit analyses, on markets of orthodox economics, on muddling through, etc - not only depend on certainty and are unfitted for situations of uncertainty, and assume at best a decidedly shallow approach to environmental matters; but further they tend to exhibit, what is quite compatible with short-term rationality, long-term irrationality. Much intellectual effort should be invested, straightaway, in designing and developing improved political structures and matching decision-making procedures. Such structures deserve to be better articulated and understood - a large task - before the struggle is begun in earnest - perhaps in East European style - to put some of them into place. From the angle of radical change, then, impact of the Greenhouse problematique is far from entirely negative. For it may encourage or even force many more of us into thinking about and doing what should be done from a deep perspective anyway, such as rectifying recent heavy human impact upon environments, and beginning at once to put in place more environment-friendly arrangements and structures'^ Richard Sylvan APPENDIX: As to the Doomsday Argument circulated by Leslie. The anthropic argument of the penultimate section applies limitation results to escalate probabilities. By contrast, the argument deployed by Leslie has comparatively little to do with limitation features or the special risks of the present times (it does depend upon some features of the temporal distribution of the total human population). As a consequence also, 32 This more positive conclusion contrasts with final pessimistic corollary which ended the previous interim version of this essay. The corollary, which followed the gloomy (but warranted) claim that requisite restructuring change seems unlikely, and was intended to underpin it, was simply this: Humans collectively are not (particularly) rational. But we had already been told as much by philosophers like Russell and surmised as much from the latest perambulations in the long history of human wars. Finally, a significant debt should be recorded at least to all the following: to John Leslie for leading ideas and for comments, to David Bennett for comments and for research and production assistance, to Pat Troy for an opportunity to read his unpublished paper on the topic, to Malcolm Slade and Joseph Wayne Smith for encouragement to write on the topic, and to several members of the audience at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, held in Christchurch, New Zealand, during August 1989, where parts of the essay were fruitfully discussed and several worthwhile suggestions or objections made. 37 it has no direct application to the special environmental problems of the present. It yields at best a general admonition against human risk taking - and even the inference to that is shaky the argument itself is unavoidable. The central claim of Leslie's argument comes to this: unless the human race ends soon, then any one of us present humans is not an ordinary one at all, but an exceptionally early one. (Such statistical ordinariness is presumably supposed analytic upon total human populadon distributions.) Thus (contraposing and distributing a reasonable expectation functor), since it is reasonable to expect that such humans are ordinary (minor premiss), it is reasonable to expect the human race will soon die out of the weaknesses of Leslie's Doomsday Argument, especially in its quasiinductive guise (e.g. PQ p.2), is its background reliance upon an indifference principle assumpdon, much as in faulty applicadons of Bayes' theorem, already noted. (The principle is used in Leslie's um argument; see p.12.) The problemadc assumption shows up in c^rz.y clauses in Leslie's deontic probability (typicality) principle, what he describes as "the Argument's underlying principle' (in fact a minor premiss): one should. %ZZ eZ^ &^Zng take one's position to be fairly typical rather than very untypical, or in different formulation: whenever Zach'/zg gvz'^nce to r/zg ccnfra/y, one should prefer to think of one's own position as fairly typical rather than highly untypical (both principles are stated, though with different emphases in PQ p.2). Much the same principle, but in stronger form, operates in what he calls 'the crux of the argument': dmZ^yj you /zav^ specially jfrong to believe that you are a very untypically early human, you ought not to believe it' (p.10, rearranged, different emphasis). Unfortunately for the Argument's principle, matters are not so indifferent, things are not so equal, some sciendsts have reasons which they think are cogent, for believing that present humans are fairly early members of the species. Consider Lovelock, whom, as we have seen, used to think that the Earth and its life systems were virtually indestructible; it is only necessary to add the familiar belief that humans themselves (like rats) are very resourceful beings, virtually impossible to exterminate, to arrive at the result that there is reason to believe that the human race is bound to persist for many more generations. That is, of course, both the informed and not unreasoned popular view, guiding much practice. As a result the principle is, at the very least, in doubt. Accordingly what Leslie presents as the crux of the argument is not endorsed here. The Argument is vulnerable in other ways as well. For one, the main premiss is, in duly contraposed form, not quite so evident, as for instance the human race could just tail off at low population levels on Earth. For another, the distribution of the functor 'it is reasonable to expect that' across the conditional involved is not unproblematic: the 38 distribution principle itself is contested in the literature, and here the result it is supposed to yield looks unreasonable! References H. W. Bernard, T/za GraaK/zazz^a E)/acr, Ballinger, Cambridge Mass., 1980. A. Block, Mzap/zy'.? Law. Boo/: Two, Magnum, Methuen Paperbacks, London, 1980. S. Boyden, WasfarK Czvz'ZzzarzaK zn EzaZagzcaZ Parspacrzva, Clarendon, Oxford, 1987. L.R. Brown and others, ^rara a/r/za WarZzZ 79^9, Norton/Worldwatch, New York, 1989; referred to as Worldwatch. R. Carnap, Eagz'caZ FazzK<7a?zaK.s' a/ PraZ?a/?zZzzy, Second edition, University of Chicago Press, 1962. C.R. Chapman and D. Morrison, Ca^mzc Cara^rrap/za^, Plenum, New York, 1989. R.M. Cyert and M.H. DeGroot, 7?ayasz'aK AKaZy^z^ aK<7 (/zzcortoz/zzy ZK EcaKaKzzc T/zaary, Rowman & LittEeld, New Jersey, 1987. 'Developing policies for responding to climatic change", Report of the Beijer Institute, February 1988. W.T. Keeton, BzaZagzcaZ -SczaKca, Third edition, Norton, New York, 1980. I. Prigogine, Or^ar azTra/C/zaag , Batam, Toronto, 1984. J. D. Hughes, 'Gaia: an ancient view of our planet", T/za EcaZagz^r 13(1983) 54-60. R. Jeffrey, T/za Eagzc p/Dacz\YzaK 2ed., University Chicago Press, 1983. A. Kaplan, 7K Pz/r^zzz'r p/Wz'-y&wz, Glencoe, Beverly Hills Ca., 1977. J. Leslie, 'Risking and World's End", EzzZZazzK a/ r/za C<2K<2<7Z<2K Azzc/aar 5aczary 10(3) (1989) 10-15; all references to Leslie are to this article unless otherwise indicated. J. Leslie, 'Is the end of the world nigh?", T/za E/zzZa^ap/zzcaZ Czzarrar/y, to appear; referred to as PQ. J.E. Lovelock, Gaza. A Kaw Zaa/z ar Zz/a <9K Earr/z, Oxford University Press, 1979. J. Lovelock, 'Are we destabilising world climate?", T/za Eaa/agz^r 15(1985) 52-55. J.Lovelock, 'Man and Gaia", T/za Earr/z E apart. MaKz'zarzKg z/za Eazz/a/ar Czzr EKVz'raKKzaKZ (ed. E. Goldsmith and N. Hilyard), Mitchell Beazley, London, 1988, 51-64. A. Lovejoy, T/za Graaf C/zaz'K p/EazKg, Harvard University Press, Massuchusetts, 1950. B. McKibben, 'Is the world getting hotter?" T/za Aaw Yar% Eavz'aw, 8 December 1988, 711. G.I. Pearman (ed.), GraaK/zazz^a. P/aKKZKg /ar c/zKzaza c/zaKga, Division of Atmospheric Research,CSIRO, 1988. 39 B. Pittock, 'Climatic catastrophes: The international implications of the greenhouse effect and nuclear winter', Peace Research Centre, Working Paper No. 20, RSPacS, Australian National University, 1987. B. Pittock, 'Forests beyond 2000 - effect of atmospheric change', AM.yfra/i(2M For^rry 50(1987a) 205-215. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', 7E%zEry 21(1978) 133179. R. Routley, 'Ultralogic as universal?' reprinted as an Appendix in Expiring Jzz/tgZ^ RM^E^yafxZ, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979. S. Schneider, 'Not to decide is to decide', in '88: P/anm/ig/br OZ/ware C/zange (ed. T. Dendy), Department of Environment and Planning, Adelaide, 1989, 5-10. R. Sylvan, 'Modern myths concerning rationality: the imperatives of consistency and (constrained) maximality', 1988, Rarzona/zzy antZ ZrrazfpfzaZzzy.* E^r <2HtZ (ed. S. Bidermann and B. Scharfstein), Brill, 1989. R.P. Turco and others, 'Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions', 5cz^nce 222 (1983) 1283-1292. K. Walsh, 'Greenhouse-induced climatic change in Australia' in Urgex/zazAfe '88., op.czf., 10-19.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 148, Item 1: Draft of Gaean greenhouse, nuclear winter and anthropic doomsday? Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft of paper published, Sylvan R (1990), 'Gaean greenhouse, nuclear winter, and anthropic doomsday', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, 4. , Division of Philosophy and Law, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 148, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [39] leaves. 42.24 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:00341fd">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:00341fd</a> Box 148: Offprints of Publications (to Como) https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/6b77012c0a66d38b0416c8154df0b2c9.pdf 76b38d3523658bc16adbace6e129781e PDF Text Text <* Nuclear waste, obligations to the future, and social choice. The bus example. very long journey. Suppose we consider a bus which, hopefully, is to make a Early in the journey of the bus someone consigns on it, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explo­ sive gas. This is packaged in a thin container, which as the consigner well knows may well not contain the gas for the full distance for which it is con­ signed, and certainly will not do so if the bus should strike any trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the bus becomes very hot, if the bus should strike a very large bump or pothole of the sort commonly found on some of the bad roads it has to traverse, or if some passenger should interfere deliberately or inadvertently with the cargo or perhaps try to steal some of the freight. If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the bus, while others could be maimed or contract serious diseases. Most of us would condemn such an action. parcel say to try to justify it? What might the consigner of the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the bus or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however would normally be seen as ludicrous. Suppose he says that it is his own pressing needs which justify his action. The firm he owns, which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial straits, and couldn't afford to produce a better container (even if it knew how to make one). If the firm goes broke, he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the whole village, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. The poor of the village whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer especially. Few people would accept this story,even if correct, as justification. Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneself or some group for whom one is concerned^one is usually thought not to be entitled to simply transfer the burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise from one's own chosen life style and the transfer of costs creates a risk of serious harm to others (the transfer principle). �Tbe nuclear comparison. One of the major problems arising from the use of nuclear power is the disposal of highly radioactive wastes which must be segregated from the biosphere for periods on the order of a million years (Ringwood 78, p.l). The wastes are highly toxic and will be spread around the world if large-scale nuclear development goes ahead as planned. Yet there is no method of packaging them whose safety has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt and which we can be confident will be generally used. Despite recent 'new strategies for safe disposal of nuclear waste', it remains true that there is at present no generally accepted means by which high level waste can be permanently isolated from the environment and remain safe for very long periods. (Fox Report, p.110). It was presumably largely for this sort of reason that the Fox Report endorsed the conclusion of the British (Flowers) Report 'with respect to nuclear waste' namely:- There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived radioactive waste for the indefinite future (Fox Report, p.189; our italics). - a reliable method, the Report should have added, whose commercial viability and use is assured. example. The need for these further conditions can be seen from the bus The consigner can hardly justify his action as regards the people on the bus, the people of the future, by saying that a better container is too expensive, or that he does have a strategy for producing or theory which will enable him to produce a superior container,if he has failed to use the method. It is thus a non sequitur to argue as Ringwood does on the basis of his proposed strategy for the safe disposal of radwastes (i.e. high-level nuclear wastes) that the radwaste problem is no reasonable ground upon which to curtail use of nuclear power: The principle conclusion of this book is that the problem of isolating high level nuclear wastes from the biosphere can be solved. Although there may be other objections to the use of nuclear power, the radwaste problem cannot reasonably be cited in justification of policies to abandon its use (78, Ringwood's italics). Even if the premiss that the problem can be solved had been established - it 2 hasn't at all - the no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion in no way fellows. There is a large gap between the theoretical possibility of a method of safe storage (hardly an important issue in the nuclear debate) and the availability of a commercial containment method whose reliability has been demonstrated beyond �3. reasonable doubt and whose general use can be reasonably assumed. It is the latter that is required for Ringwood's no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion; but of the latter Ringwood's strategy gives no assurance.^ There is in fact little reason to believe that nuclear pollution will be treated in a different fashion from other forms of pollution, where the availability of more satisfactory methods of control is by no means sufficient to guarantee their effective employ­ ment, especially if they are expensive. It is methodologically unsound to ignore social, ethical and political factors and to regard the radwaste problem as a purely technological one which can be classed as solved should a theoretical solution with practical application possibilities be reached. The practical likelihood, even given (what we lack) a disposal method proven safe beyond reasonable doubt, remains - that nuclear wastes will not be adequately contained, with the result that nuclear power will impose serious costs and risks on future people who do not benefit. Por nuclear fission generates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the breeder reactor it could be an energy source for perhaps only 150 years. Thus 30,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks,without any corresponding benefits, resulting from the provision ot the extravagant energy use of only 5 generations or so. Like the consigner in the bus example, contemporary industrial society proposes, in extricating itself ^rom a mess arising from its own life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy which is limited in physical supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding energy benefits. The solution may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner's action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties. For these reasons the nuclear energy option is, like the consigner's What makes matters worse is that present industrial action morally unacceptable. society has clear alternatives to its nuclear choice, which is made essentially to avoid changing wasteful patterns of consumption and to protect the interests of those who profit from them. Obligations to the future. One way of trying to escape the conclusion that present large-scale nuclear development involves serious injustice with respect to people of the distant future is to deny, as the occasional philosopher has, that there are moral obligations to remotely future people. But the view that there are no such obligations, that we are free to do as we like with respect to future people, is a very difficult one to sustain. Would scientists, for example, in the course of conducting an experiment, be entitled to do something, say release a disease-carrying organism with a very long incubation period, which �4. while not affecting the present, could cause death and disease for many future people, for example? Most people would say they certainly are not. Nevertheless 'The future can take case of itself; why should we worry about it, we have enough problems' is also a common attitude. But it is not as if in the nuclear case we are simply leaving the future alone to take care of itself. We are causally influencing it and in doing so acquire moral responsibilities with respect to future people, namely the obligation to take account of people affected and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability of our actions causing harm, and to see that we do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life - and a satisfactory environment. That there are obligations to the distant future^-which follows logically from examples, such as that of scientists who act wrongly in deliberately or carelessly damaging people displaced in timej-may be argued, more generally, on the basis of the spatial analogy (that the temporal dimension is like spatial dimensions and remoteness in space does not eliminate, or substantially diminish, obligation), or on the basis of ethical theories, and general principles common to such theories. ^The main modern theories of obligation^ e.g. utilitarian, contractual, intuitionisti when properly applied, converge to show that there are moral obligations to people in the distant future of the same sort that there are to present people. (Thus the rejection of nuclear development as morally unacceptable does not depend on a particular ethical theory, but uses only ground common to the main theories.) The convergence of theories may be accounted for in terms of conditions of adequacy an ethical theory should meet. The principles of obligation of such a theory should be universalisable or lawlike in that they do not make exceptions for particular times or places or peoples (such as those of contemporary industrial society): to make exceptions would be to accept unfairness, and so injustice. Thus the temporal position of a person cannot affect that person's entitlement to just and fair treatment; are the same sorts of general obligations to future people as to present. Engineering and economic comparisons and assessments of different energy options are usually inadequate because they neglect these general features of obligation. Just as the fact that the consigner and his immediate environment will benefit from sending the parcel does not show it is morally acceptable, so arguments for nuclear power based on alleged economic benefits for the present, or a favourable benefit-risk analysis, do not even begin to show that it is morally acceptable. Economics and engineering must (like law) operate within the framework of moral constraints, not determine those constraints. �5. Uncertainty arguments. Elements of uncertainty or indeterminacy in a situation (especially in our knowledge of the situation) provide no exemptions from general obligations, any more than they upset or modify the operation of general physical laws. It is commonly argued, however that we cannot really be expected to take account of the interests of future people, because the damage to the future from nuclear waste is by no means certain, we cannot be sure that future people will not develop a way of coping with the problem or will care about the risk anyway. Aren't we being asked to forego tangible benefits for the present for the sake of avoiding a merely speculative risk of harm to people we do not even know will exist? This sort of argument may seem initially plausible, but a little reflection on examples, such as the bus example, shows that it is mistaken. It is like the consigner saying that there is nothing wrong in his sending his parcel, since it is not certain the gas will escape, or that there will be anybody on the bus when it does, or that the people on the bus may think of a way of coping with the problem, or may not care anyway. Can he really be expected to forego tangible benefits for himself and his family just to avoid speculative harm to the possibly non-existent passengers? The answer of course is yes. The damage to the passengers does not have to be certain or even probable - it is enough that a significant risk of serious harm is imposed on the unconsenting and uninvolved passengers. In the nuclear case it is clear that a significant risk will be imposed on the future. The circumstances in which nuclear waste disposal could be improper or ineffective are only too easy to envisage, and must be considered real risks with a real evidential basis, not merely idle speculation or science-fiction possibility. And uncertainty about the future is not so great as this line of argument likes to make out - there is uncertainty about many details of little moral consequence concerning the future, such as which girls' names will be used commonly in 100 years, but we do have good reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that future people will have basic needs and desires rather like our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life, and that their lives will not be improved by an increased incidence of disease and cancer from increased radiation. written off in this way: Moral conflict arguments. The legitimate interests of future people cannot be These uncertainty arguments are moral cop-outs. The alternative to disputing obligations to the future is to appeal to overriding obligations involving the present (which induce situations where obligations conflict). According to moral conflict arguments, nuclear development does have its morally undesirable aspects, but the only practical alternatives to nuclear development are morally even worse. ^Observe that such arguments are only satisfactory provided the options presented are �6. genuine and exhaustive, all practicable alternatives being considered and shown to be worse than the option under consideration: in the nuclear development case this necessary condition is not satisfied.14oral conflict arguments are commonly advanced in favour of nuclear development, some alleging competing and overriding duties to future people, and some analogous duties to present people. The main (and representative) argument of the last class, laying stress on duties to present people, is the Poverty Argument, according to which there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both of the third world and the industrialized countries who, according to the argument, will suffer or be denied the opportunity to reach affluence if nuclear development does not proceed. In neither case does the argument stand up to examination. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use. The argument that nuclear energy is needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy is both politically and economically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, and creates negligible employment. Politically it increases foreign dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for change in the oppressive political structures which are a large part of the problem something which may help explain why it is attractive to many of the military governing elites of these countries. The poverty argument then - like many modern economic arguments for development which appeal to the way in which development will, allegedly, assist the poor - is a fraud. Nuclear energy will not be used, except incidentally, to help the poor. Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy conserving alternatives and the practical option of developing other energy sources, alternatives which are morally acceptable and socially preferable to nuclear development, and which have far better prospects for helping the poor. The other, major, moral conflict argument appeals to a set of supposedly overriding and competing obligations to present and future people. We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutions which our culture has developed. The argument is essentially that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilization will go out, our valuable institutions and traditions will fall into decay or be swept away. Future people also will be the losers. �7. The assumptions upon which this Lights-going-out Argument is based are untenable. It appears to assume that existing high-energy consumption society is uniformly and uniquely valuable and that it cannot be directed towards energy conservation or alternative energy sources without utter collapse. But no enormous reduction in energy use, and perhaps little in real welfare, is needed to obviate the need for nuclear power in the shorter term, and alternative energy strategies to nuclear will have, in any case, to be adopted for the longer term anyway. High rates of energy use may be necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, but they are scarcely necessary to maintain what is really valuable in our society, much of which we inherited from a past with a vastly lower energy con­ sumption, and much of which might well be better fostered in lower (energy) con­ sumption society with less concentration of political and economic power. Not only are the extravagant levels of energy consumption upon which the ''need" for nuclear power is premissed unnecessary to maintain what is valuable, but there is some reason to believe they are positively inimical to doing so. Nuclear develop­ ment may help in passing on to future generations some of the worse aspects of our society, the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature and latent authori­ tarianism, while many valuable aspects, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for personal and collective autonomy which exist, would be lost or diminished. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have an obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Both moral conflict escape routes are closed then, because the arguments depend on false contrasts, ignore practicable alternatives which are not morally worse than nuclear power, and in painting their picture of inevitability, vastly understate the extent of available social choice. It is like the consigner of the parcel arguing that if he does not send his parcel his family and the village will starve, when in fact there appear to be viable, but perhaps less profitable, alternatives he has not troubled to consider or investigate seriously. Alternative energy options. The future energy option that is most frequently contrasted with nuclear, that based on coal, is not without ethical problems. Certainly there is no radioactive waste disposal problem, and other important grounds for moral and political concern over extensive reliance on nuclear energy are removed, namely problems arising from the real possibilities of proliferation of nuclear weapons, of deliberate release or threat of release of radioactive materials as a measure of terrorism or of extortion, and of catastrophic releases of radiation or of radioactive fuel or waste into the environment following an �8. accident such as reactor melt-down, and from security measures adopted to reduce such eventualities. But the coal-based option carries nonetheless serious costs and risks both to the environment and to health - because of the likelihood of severe pollution and associated damaging phenomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining, all of which will result from use of coal in meeting very high projected Such an option would also fail, it seems, to satisfy the consumption figures. transfer principle, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some contemporary users who do not pay the full costs of production and replacement. These are the conventional options and a third is often added which emphasizes soft or benign technologies, such as those of solar energy. However the fundamental choice, such options usually neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both the restructuring of production, and change of consumption, away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures.^ It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet unexamined goals but also a matter of examining the goals and underlying values. That is, we are not just faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. There are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants and of squandering energy, as well as nuclear ways. This is not to deny that softer options may be superior to the ethically unacceptable features of the others. But it is doubtful that any technology however benign in principle will be likely to leave a tolerable world for future people if it is expected to meet limitless and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology may well be used in ways which create costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being transmitted to them. Consider, to take one important example, the effect on the world's forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methonal or of electricity by woodchipping, as already planned by forest authorities in California and contemplated by many other energy organisations. Few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, but the un­ restricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands would have a very damaging effect on the world's already hard pressed natural forests.5 Some of us do not �9. want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - to the future a world largely devoid of natural forests and accordingly much impoverished in fauna and flora, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - without any more basic structural and social changes is inadequate. Social options. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism and an economic structure which encourages the use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This involves, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are fortunate enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and nongenuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The social change option is a hard option, but it seems the only way to avoid passing on serious costs and risks to the future; and there are not only ethical grounds, but ecological reasons for choosing it. Conventional technology-oriented discussions of energy options and of how to meet future energy "needs" obscures the social change option, in part because the option questions values underlying current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking y alleged demand (often restated as wants or needs) as unchallengeable,' and the issue to be one which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengable and unchangeable. The social changes that the option requires will be strongly resisted because they mean changes in current social organisation and power structure, and to the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds g by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. �FOOTNOTES 1. Some leading proponents of nuclear development admit the absence of satisfactory storage and disposal methods; others do not. Some of the newer strategies for waste disposal, e.g. that promoted by Cohen 77 fail, conspicuously, to meet conditions of adequacy on disposal (see Routley and Routley 78, footnote 1). Ringwood's new strategy, in 78, was immediately rejected by some of the pronuclear establishment both as too expensive (even allowing Ringwood's optimistic costguestimates) and as unnecessary, which does not augur well for its use. Yet Ringwood cast serious doubt on the adequacy of alternative disposal strategies, notably immobilisation of wastes in glass and in supercalcine. All Ringwood has shown conclusively is that he can create an artificial equivalent of a uranium one-bodv (Hallam 79) What Ringwood's 'strategy for radwaste disposal' amounts to is a further possible method of treating radwaste, with significant gaps in the argument, a considerable lack of experimental and practical support, no commercial feasibility studies, etc: see Martin 78 and Hallam 79. -1* It depends on several processes whose large-scale commercial viability has very definitely not been shown beyond reasonable doubt, including reprocessing (Fox Report, p.29). It appears to be far too expensive for the nuclear industry, and certainly for poorer nations that have embarked on nuclear power projects. There are moreover reasons for thinking that governments may not want or favour permanent irretrievable disposal methods; they may want to keep open their options for employing waste components either for military purposes or for use in breeder reactors or elsewhere. 4. On alternative technology and softer energy options, see especially Lovins 77; also Lovins 76. For criticism of Lovins' comparative neglect of social alternatives, see Martin 77 (and Lovins' reply thereto). 5. The already very serious situation of the world's forests, especially the wet tropical forests, is not sufficiently widely appreciated. Et is a commonplace reflection, however, among rainforest botanists and ecologists that nearly all tropical lowland rainforest and much highlevel rainforest will have been cut over by about the year 2000. Moreover such forests cannot at present be utilised on a sustained yield basis or as a renewable resource (see, e.g. p.219 of Prance and Elias 77). Worse, there are now few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. In many temperate regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded. The addition of a major further demand source - that for energy, whether advertised as part of a "soft" energy path or otherwise and especially one which shows every sign of being not readily limitable, on top of the present sources is a development which anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of forestry operations, who is also properly concerned about the longterm integrity of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with considerable alarm. �6. The transmission principle, that one should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it, is a corollary of the transfer principle - applied in the bus example and suggested as a necessary condition on energy options - that to be morally acceptable a course of action should not involve the transfer of significant cost and risks onto uninvolved parties who are not beneficiaries. For if we violated the transmission principle, there would be a significant transfer of costs, contradicting the transfer principle. The transmission principle can be independently argued for, e.g. on the basis of contract (and other) theories of obligation. 7. Thus it is argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... and that it would be authoritarian to stop them satisfying these wants. The argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests of commercial and political advantage. 8. This paper draws on material from Routley and Routley 78 and 79 where fuller discussion of many of the topics covered, especially the question of obligations to the future and uncertainty arguments, may be found. �w REFERENCES B.L. Cohen, 'The disposal of radioactive wastes from fission reactors', Sg-Zg^tf^a Amgr-faa^ 236 (June 1977) 22-31. Flowers Report: Fz^aZgar Pazjgr a?zJ ^Fg FwPra^g??^. Sixth Report of the British Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London, 1976. Fox Report.: Fa??pgr Pra??7'zw Pw-Zra?w?g7ztaZ F-frst Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 19/7. J.R. Hallam, 'Synroc or C#nroc?', F/za*Z?n Pgaat^azz 4 (2-3) (1979) 4-5. A. Lovins, 'Energy strategy: the road not taken:', Forgan Aj^a-frs 55 (1) (October 1976) 65-96. A. Lovins, Soft F%grgrp Pa^As, Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, 1977 B. Martin, 'Is alternative technology enough?', 6%a-f% Pgaat-Zaz? 3 (2) (1977) 17-21. B. Martin, 'Call for research into Synroc', 7%g Fan&grua Tvxgs, December 6, 1978, p.15. G.T. Prance and T.S. Elias (editors), Botanic Garden, 1977. -fs Fcrgpgr, New York A.E. Ringwood, Safa PZspasaZ a/ Pgz?gZ F^aZgar Fgaa^a?^ fVasZgs.* 4 Fgzj s^ratgpp, ANU Press, Canberra, 1978. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', 21 (1978) 133-179. R. and V. Routley, 'Some ethical aspects of energy options', in Fzzgrpz/ a?%f PggpZg; Saa-ZaZ JmpZtaat'Za^s <pf P-Z/ygrgn^ F?zgrpz/ FM^z^rgs, edited by M. Diesendorf, Society for Social Responsibility in Science (A.C.T.), Canberra, 1979. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <* Nuclear waste, obligations to the future, and social choice. The bus example. very long journey. Suppose we consider a bus which, hopefully, is to make a Early in the journey of the bus someone consigns on it, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explo­ sive gas. This is packaged in a thin container, which as the consigner well knows may well not contain the gas for the full distance for which it is con­ signed, and certainly will not do so if the bus should strike any trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the bus becomes very hot, if the bus should strike a very large bump or pothole of the sort commonly found on some of the bad roads it has to traverse, or if some passenger should interfere deliberately or inadvertently with the cargo or perhaps try to steal some of the freight. If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the bus, while others could be maimed or contract serious diseases. Most of us would condemn such an action. parcel say to try to justify it? What might the consigner of the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the bus or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however would normally be seen as ludicrous. Suppose he says that it is his own pressing needs which justify his action. The firm he owns, which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial straits, and couldn't afford to produce a better container (even if it knew how to make one). If the firm goes broke, he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the whole village, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. The poor of the village whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer especially. Few people would accept this story,even if correct, as justification. Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneself or some group for whom one is concerned^one is usually thought not to be entitled to simply transfer the burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise from one's own chosen life style and the transfer of costs creates a risk of serious harm to others (the transfer principle). Tbe nuclear comparison. One of the major problems arising from the use of nuclear power is the disposal of highly radioactive wastes which must be segregated from the biosphere for periods on the order of a million years (Ringwood 78, p.l). The wastes are highly toxic and will be spread around the world if large-scale nuclear development goes ahead as planned. Yet there is no method of packaging them whose safety has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt and which we can be confident will be generally used. Despite recent 'new strategies for safe disposal of nuclear waste', it remains true that there is at present no generally accepted means by which high level waste can be permanently isolated from the environment and remain safe for very long periods. (Fox Report, p.110). It was presumably largely for this sort of reason that the Fox Report endorsed the conclusion of the British (Flowers) Report 'with respect to nuclear waste' namely:- There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived radioactive waste for the indefinite future (Fox Report, p.189; our italics). - a reliable method, the Report should have added, whose commercial viability and use is assured. example. The need for these further conditions can be seen from the bus The consigner can hardly justify his action as regards the people on the bus, the people of the future, by saying that a better container is too expensive, or that he does have a strategy for producing or theory which will enable him to produce a superior container,if he has failed to use the method. It is thus a non sequitur to argue as Ringwood does on the basis of his proposed strategy for the safe disposal of radwastes (i.e. high-level nuclear wastes) that the radwaste problem is no reasonable ground upon which to curtail use of nuclear power: The principle conclusion of this book is that the problem of isolating high level nuclear wastes from the biosphere can be solved. Although there may be other objections to the use of nuclear power, the radwaste problem cannot reasonably be cited in justification of policies to abandon its use (78, Ringwood's italics). Even if the premiss that the problem can be solved had been established - it 2 hasn't at all - the no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion in no way fellows. There is a large gap between the theoretical possibility of a method of safe storage (hardly an important issue in the nuclear debate) and the availability of a commercial containment method whose reliability has been demonstrated beyond 3. reasonable doubt and whose general use can be reasonably assumed. It is the latter that is required for Ringwood's no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion; but of the latter Ringwood's strategy gives no assurance.^ There is in fact little reason to believe that nuclear pollution will be treated in a different fashion from other forms of pollution, where the availability of more satisfactory methods of control is by no means sufficient to guarantee their effective employ­ ment, especially if they are expensive. It is methodologically unsound to ignore social, ethical and political factors and to regard the radwaste problem as a purely technological one which can be classed as solved should a theoretical solution with practical application possibilities be reached. The practical likelihood, even given (what we lack) a disposal method proven safe beyond reasonable doubt, remains - that nuclear wastes will not be adequately contained, with the result that nuclear power will impose serious costs and risks on future people who do not benefit. Por nuclear fission generates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the breeder reactor it could be an energy source for perhaps only 150 years. Thus 30,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks,without any corresponding benefits, resulting from the provision ot the extravagant energy use of only 5 generations or so. Like the consigner in the bus example, contemporary industrial society proposes, in extricating itself ^rom a mess arising from its own life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy which is limited in physical supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding energy benefits. The solution may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner's action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties. For these reasons the nuclear energy option is, like the consigner's What makes matters worse is that present industrial action morally unacceptable. society has clear alternatives to its nuclear choice, which is made essentially to avoid changing wasteful patterns of consumption and to protect the interests of those who profit from them. Obligations to the future. One way of trying to escape the conclusion that present large-scale nuclear development involves serious injustice with respect to people of the distant future is to deny, as the occasional philosopher has, that there are moral obligations to remotely future people. But the view that there are no such obligations, that we are free to do as we like with respect to future people, is a very difficult one to sustain. Would scientists, for example, in the course of conducting an experiment, be entitled to do something, say release a disease-carrying organism with a very long incubation period, which 4. while not affecting the present, could cause death and disease for many future people, for example? Most people would say they certainly are not. Nevertheless 'The future can take case of itself; why should we worry about it, we have enough problems' is also a common attitude. But it is not as if in the nuclear case we are simply leaving the future alone to take care of itself. We are causally influencing it and in doing so acquire moral responsibilities with respect to future people, namely the obligation to take account of people affected and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability of our actions causing harm, and to see that we do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life - and a satisfactory environment. That there are obligations to the distant future^-which follows logically from examples, such as that of scientists who act wrongly in deliberately or carelessly damaging people displaced in timej-may be argued, more generally, on the basis of the spatial analogy (that the temporal dimension is like spatial dimensions and remoteness in space does not eliminate, or substantially diminish, obligation), or on the basis of ethical theories, and general principles common to such theories. ^The main modern theories of obligation^ e.g. utilitarian, contractual, intuitionisti when properly applied, converge to show that there are moral obligations to people in the distant future of the same sort that there are to present people. (Thus the rejection of nuclear development as morally unacceptable does not depend on a particular ethical theory, but uses only ground common to the main theories.) The convergence of theories may be accounted for in terms of conditions of adequacy an ethical theory should meet. The principles of obligation of such a theory should be universalisable or lawlike in that they do not make exceptions for particular times or places or peoples (such as those of contemporary industrial society): to make exceptions would be to accept unfairness, and so injustice. Thus the temporal position of a person cannot affect that person's entitlement to just and fair treatment; are the same sorts of general obligations to future people as to present. Engineering and economic comparisons and assessments of different energy options are usually inadequate because they neglect these general features of obligation. Just as the fact that the consigner and his immediate environment will benefit from sending the parcel does not show it is morally acceptable, so arguments for nuclear power based on alleged economic benefits for the present, or a favourable benefit-risk analysis, do not even begin to show that it is morally acceptable. Economics and engineering must (like law) operate within the framework of moral constraints, not determine those constraints. 5. Uncertainty arguments. Elements of uncertainty or indeterminacy in a situation (especially in our knowledge of the situation) provide no exemptions from general obligations, any more than they upset or modify the operation of general physical laws. It is commonly argued, however that we cannot really be expected to take account of the interests of future people, because the damage to the future from nuclear waste is by no means certain, we cannot be sure that future people will not develop a way of coping with the problem or will care about the risk anyway. Aren't we being asked to forego tangible benefits for the present for the sake of avoiding a merely speculative risk of harm to people we do not even know will exist? This sort of argument may seem initially plausible, but a little reflection on examples, such as the bus example, shows that it is mistaken. It is like the consigner saying that there is nothing wrong in his sending his parcel, since it is not certain the gas will escape, or that there will be anybody on the bus when it does, or that the people on the bus may think of a way of coping with the problem, or may not care anyway. Can he really be expected to forego tangible benefits for himself and his family just to avoid speculative harm to the possibly non-existent passengers? The answer of course is yes. The damage to the passengers does not have to be certain or even probable - it is enough that a significant risk of serious harm is imposed on the unconsenting and uninvolved passengers. In the nuclear case it is clear that a significant risk will be imposed on the future. The circumstances in which nuclear waste disposal could be improper or ineffective are only too easy to envisage, and must be considered real risks with a real evidential basis, not merely idle speculation or science-fiction possibility. And uncertainty about the future is not so great as this line of argument likes to make out - there is uncertainty about many details of little moral consequence concerning the future, such as which girls' names will be used commonly in 100 years, but we do have good reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that future people will have basic needs and desires rather like our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life, and that their lives will not be improved by an increased incidence of disease and cancer from increased radiation. written off in this way: Moral conflict arguments. The legitimate interests of future people cannot be These uncertainty arguments are moral cop-outs. The alternative to disputing obligations to the future is to appeal to overriding obligations involving the present (which induce situations where obligations conflict). According to moral conflict arguments, nuclear development does have its morally undesirable aspects, but the only practical alternatives to nuclear development are morally even worse. ^Observe that such arguments are only satisfactory provided the options presented are 6. genuine and exhaustive, all practicable alternatives being considered and shown to be worse than the option under consideration: in the nuclear development case this necessary condition is not satisfied.14oral conflict arguments are commonly advanced in favour of nuclear development, some alleging competing and overriding duties to future people, and some analogous duties to present people. The main (and representative) argument of the last class, laying stress on duties to present people, is the Poverty Argument, according to which there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both of the third world and the industrialized countries who, according to the argument, will suffer or be denied the opportunity to reach affluence if nuclear development does not proceed. In neither case does the argument stand up to examination. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use. The argument that nuclear energy is needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy is both politically and economically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, and creates negligible employment. Politically it increases foreign dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for change in the oppressive political structures which are a large part of the problem something which may help explain why it is attractive to many of the military governing elites of these countries. The poverty argument then - like many modern economic arguments for development which appeal to the way in which development will, allegedly, assist the poor - is a fraud. Nuclear energy will not be used, except incidentally, to help the poor. Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy conserving alternatives and the practical option of developing other energy sources, alternatives which are morally acceptable and socially preferable to nuclear development, and which have far better prospects for helping the poor. The other, major, moral conflict argument appeals to a set of supposedly overriding and competing obligations to present and future people. We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutions which our culture has developed. The argument is essentially that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilization will go out, our valuable institutions and traditions will fall into decay or be swept away. Future people also will be the losers. 7. The assumptions upon which this Lights-going-out Argument is based are untenable. It appears to assume that existing high-energy consumption society is uniformly and uniquely valuable and that it cannot be directed towards energy conservation or alternative energy sources without utter collapse. But no enormous reduction in energy use, and perhaps little in real welfare, is needed to obviate the need for nuclear power in the shorter term, and alternative energy strategies to nuclear will have, in any case, to be adopted for the longer term anyway. High rates of energy use may be necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, but they are scarcely necessary to maintain what is really valuable in our society, much of which we inherited from a past with a vastly lower energy con­ sumption, and much of which might well be better fostered in lower (energy) con­ sumption society with less concentration of political and economic power. Not only are the extravagant levels of energy consumption upon which the ''need" for nuclear power is premissed unnecessary to maintain what is valuable, but there is some reason to believe they are positively inimical to doing so. Nuclear develop­ ment may help in passing on to future generations some of the worse aspects of our society, the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature and latent authori­ tarianism, while many valuable aspects, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for personal and collective autonomy which exist, would be lost or diminished. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have an obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Both moral conflict escape routes are closed then, because the arguments depend on false contrasts, ignore practicable alternatives which are not morally worse than nuclear power, and in painting their picture of inevitability, vastly understate the extent of available social choice. It is like the consigner of the parcel arguing that if he does not send his parcel his family and the village will starve, when in fact there appear to be viable, but perhaps less profitable, alternatives he has not troubled to consider or investigate seriously. Alternative energy options. The future energy option that is most frequently contrasted with nuclear, that based on coal, is not without ethical problems. Certainly there is no radioactive waste disposal problem, and other important grounds for moral and political concern over extensive reliance on nuclear energy are removed, namely problems arising from the real possibilities of proliferation of nuclear weapons, of deliberate release or threat of release of radioactive materials as a measure of terrorism or of extortion, and of catastrophic releases of radiation or of radioactive fuel or waste into the environment following an 8. accident such as reactor melt-down, and from security measures adopted to reduce such eventualities. But the coal-based option carries nonetheless serious costs and risks both to the environment and to health - because of the likelihood of severe pollution and associated damaging phenomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining, all of which will result from use of coal in meeting very high projected Such an option would also fail, it seems, to satisfy the consumption figures. transfer principle, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some contemporary users who do not pay the full costs of production and replacement. These are the conventional options and a third is often added which emphasizes soft or benign technologies, such as those of solar energy. However the fundamental choice, such options usually neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both the restructuring of production, and change of consumption, away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures.^ It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet unexamined goals but also a matter of examining the goals and underlying values. That is, we are not just faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. There are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants and of squandering energy, as well as nuclear ways. This is not to deny that softer options may be superior to the ethically unacceptable features of the others. But it is doubtful that any technology however benign in principle will be likely to leave a tolerable world for future people if it is expected to meet limitless and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology may well be used in ways which create costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being transmitted to them. Consider, to take one important example, the effect on the world's forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methonal or of electricity by woodchipping, as already planned by forest authorities in California and contemplated by many other energy organisations. Few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, but the un­ restricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands would have a very damaging effect on the world's already hard pressed natural forests.5 Some of us do not 9. want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - to the future a world largely devoid of natural forests and accordingly much impoverished in fauna and flora, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - without any more basic structural and social changes is inadequate. Social options. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism and an economic structure which encourages the use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This involves, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are fortunate enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and nongenuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The social change option is a hard option, but it seems the only way to avoid passing on serious costs and risks to the future; and there are not only ethical grounds, but ecological reasons for choosing it. Conventional technology-oriented discussions of energy options and of how to meet future energy "needs" obscures the social change option, in part because the option questions values underlying current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking y alleged demand (often restated as wants or needs) as unchallengeable,' and the issue to be one which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengable and unchangeable. The social changes that the option requires will be strongly resisted because they mean changes in current social organisation and power structure, and to the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds g by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. FOOTNOTES 1. Some leading proponents of nuclear development admit the absence of satisfactory storage and disposal methods; others do not. Some of the newer strategies for waste disposal, e.g. that promoted by Cohen 77 fail, conspicuously, to meet conditions of adequacy on disposal (see Routley and Routley 78, footnote 1). Ringwood's new strategy, in 78, was immediately rejected by some of the pronuclear establishment both as too expensive (even allowing Ringwood's optimistic costguestimates) and as unnecessary, which does not augur well for its use. Yet Ringwood cast serious doubt on the adequacy of alternative disposal strategies, notably immobilisation of wastes in glass and in supercalcine. All Ringwood has shown conclusively is that he can create an artificial equivalent of a uranium one-bodv (Hallam 79) What Ringwood's 'strategy for radwaste disposal' amounts to is a further possible method of treating radwaste, with significant gaps in the argument, a considerable lack of experimental and practical support, no commercial feasibility studies, etc: see Martin 78 and Hallam 79. -1* It depends on several processes whose large-scale commercial viability has very definitely not been shown beyond reasonable doubt, including reprocessing (Fox Report, p.29). It appears to be far too expensive for the nuclear industry, and certainly for poorer nations that have embarked on nuclear power projects. There are moreover reasons for thinking that governments may not want or favour permanent irretrievable disposal methods; they may want to keep open their options for employing waste components either for military purposes or for use in breeder reactors or elsewhere. 4. On alternative technology and softer energy options, see especially Lovins 77; also Lovins 76. For criticism of Lovins' comparative neglect of social alternatives, see Martin 77 (and Lovins' reply thereto). 5. The already very serious situation of the world's forests, especially the wet tropical forests, is not sufficiently widely appreciated. Et is a commonplace reflection, however, among rainforest botanists and ecologists that nearly all tropical lowland rainforest and much highlevel rainforest will have been cut over by about the year 2000. Moreover such forests cannot at present be utilised on a sustained yield basis or as a renewable resource (see, e.g. p.219 of Prance and Elias 77). Worse, there are now few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. In many temperate regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded. The addition of a major further demand source - that for energy, whether advertised as part of a "soft" energy path or otherwise and especially one which shows every sign of being not readily limitable, on top of the present sources is a development which anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of forestry operations, who is also properly concerned about the longterm integrity of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with considerable alarm. 6. The transmission principle, that one should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it, is a corollary of the transfer principle - applied in the bus example and suggested as a necessary condition on energy options - that to be morally acceptable a course of action should not involve the transfer of significant cost and risks onto uninvolved parties who are not beneficiaries. For if we violated the transmission principle, there would be a significant transfer of costs, contradicting the transfer principle. The transmission principle can be independently argued for, e.g. on the basis of contract (and other) theories of obligation. 7. Thus it is argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... and that it would be authoritarian to stop them satisfying these wants. The argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests of commercial and political advantage. 8. This paper draws on material from Routley and Routley 78 and 79 where fuller discussion of many of the topics covered, especially the question of obligations to the future and uncertainty arguments, may be found. w REFERENCES B.L. Cohen, 'The disposal of radioactive wastes from fission reactors', Sg-Zg^tf^a Amgr-faa^ 236 (June 1977) 22-31. Flowers Report: Fz^aZgar Pazjgr a?zJ ^Fg FwPra^g??^. Sixth Report of the British Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London, 1976. Fox Report.: Fa??pgr Pra??7'zw Pw-Zra?w?g7ztaZ F-frst Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 19/7. J.R. Hallam, 'Synroc or C#nroc?', F/za*Z?n Pgaat^azz 4 (2-3) (1979) 4-5. A. Lovins, 'Energy strategy: the road not taken:', Forgan Aj^a-frs 55 (1) (October 1976) 65-96. A. Lovins, Soft F%grgrp Pa^As, Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, 1977 B. Martin, 'Is alternative technology enough?', 6%a-f% Pgaat-Zaz? 3 (2) (1977) 17-21. B. Martin, 'Call for research into Synroc', 7%g Fan&grua Tvxgs, December 6, 1978, p.15. G.T. Prance and T.S. Elias (editors), Botanic Garden, 1977. -fs Fcrgpgr, New York A.E. Ringwood, Safa PZspasaZ a/ Pgz?gZ F^aZgar Fgaa^a?^ fVasZgs.* 4 Fgzj s^ratgpp, ANU Press, Canberra, 1978. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', 21 (1978) 133-179. R. and V. Routley, 'Some ethical aspects of energy options', in Fzzgrpz/ a?%f PggpZg; Saa-ZaZ JmpZtaat'Za^s <pf P-Z/ygrgn^ F?zgrpz/ FM^z^rgs, edited by M. Diesendorf, Society for Social Responsibility in Science (A.C.T.), Canberra, 1979.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 142, Item 1931: Draft of Nuclear waste, obligations to the future, and social choice Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft, with handwritten emendations. Handwritten on first leaf: Penguin paper 1974 unpublished? Description An account of the resource Note, one paper digitised from item 1931. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 142, Item 1931 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [12] leaves. 31.86 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:287059e">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:287059e</a> Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Far Bookshelf > Second Bay > Fourth Shelf -> Pile 2 Box 142: File Cabinet 2 Draw 1 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/9fad10700c696fd3710e7ebe33ec9966.pdf 9845ac7fc4def38451cd2fcd089001b1 PDF Text Text R TREATISE ON POLITICAL THEORY OTHER HQJOR TOPICS (UNOROERED):- 1. PturatisM and pturatisMS: the otd (and Marxist) fallacy of one form. 2. Power, hierarchies, Constitutions, corporations, states and transnationats Authoritarian rotations; organisations. 3. Undertying Metaphysics. (not independent things). Stytes of denocracy, and inproving denocracy. 6. A Major source of power: property. Land rights. ��INTRODUCTION Present poLet Leet arrangements are hardig satisfactorg, angMhere. Theg not de Livering adequate shoutd at Least assist Ln environment, Meifare, of mang of* the things that such arrangements Levels^ productLon the are or education^ LiveLihood, of, attainment ... e.g. securLtg, . Thus if better Mags to do these things can be found, theg shouLd be sought, and tried. Perhaps surprisingLg, there has been remarkabLg Lit tie effort expended upon surveuing the range of poLLticaL atternatives (as compared, e.g., Mith the effort put into defending the status quo), or to Mork out, so far as can or need be done, areas, detaiLs Mhere of the more promising options. entrenched positions Indeed, as Mith so mang other dominate^ there been has cons iderabLe discouraoement of such important investigation. R s ign if ican t r ange of a L te ma t i ves, sea roe Lg g i ven a triaL in modern historg, are these arrangements Mhich reduce domination and the exercise of poMer and increase freedom. The present studg concentrates on these sorts arrangements, not in totaLitarian of or fascist or imperiaiist structures Mhich have more than sufficient exempiification in recent times, despite their Lack of justification and base in raM poMer and brute force. 10. POLITICS WITHOUT DONINRTION: Rnakgr ie means varietg of RNRKYRIE RND RNRRCHISM Mi thout domination. domination. For domination That incLudes comes in the Mhoie range mang forms: of citizens bg states, civiLians bg miLitarg, poor bg rich, bLacks bg Mhites, thirdMoriders -1- and bg �HMerLeans ) Russ Lans. MOMen bu nan. young by otder, anLMaLs by huMans, nature '. \ . RnaRyrLsM consLsts Ln socLaL arrangeMents desLgned to avoLd aLL e<.c*i v.*? , ^etA/'o , py<-. 'fiohcoAc^ forMs of doMLnatLon-^ [There Ls nothLng Ln the account so far g^v^n whLch bu Men? such orr ... <3/* LMpLLes that Lt Must taRe a gLven shape, that Lt Ls unLquety deterMLned.] RnarchLsM dLrectLy Ls MLth concerned onLy one part of Mhat anahyrLe Ls about: doMLnatLon by peopte by states (Mhether theLr OMn or that of others), and rewovaL of thLs doMLnatLon by aboLLtLon of the state. But there are forMs other not essenttaLLy bound up MLth thLs forM, and aboLLtcon of doMLnatLon of Many the state Ls but oney rather drasttcyMay of reMovtng state doMLnatLon. RnarchLsM has been extended, for Lnstance to eco-anarchLsM (as feMLnLsM has been broadened to eco-feMLnLsM), Ln an effort to overcoMe a conspLcuous part of c/ n/ttj 19th C anarchLsM tended to accept the saMe doMLnatLon of the probteM, that nature by Lndeed and huMans, the saMe sort of scLentLfLo reductLonLstLc MaterLaL',SM, as Lts doMLnant rLvats, capLtaLLsM and (MarxLst) socLaLLsM. But the broadenLng caLLs for atso further expLanatLon, to LncLude other types of doMLnatLony^id strLctLy,such a recr^antatLon as to LnvoLve a change Ln MeanLng, A Ln Mhat Mas Meant by anarchLsM . In these cLrcuMstances, Lt Ls More forMard and Less MLsLeadLng sLMpLy to Lntroduce neM terMLnoLogy. Rtw straLghtthere are , good reasons for seeRLng neM terMLnoLogy. In More than a century of use anarchy and Lts derLvatLves have becoMe thoroughLy oenve-p-tied- MLth undesLrabte and LnapproprLate assoc LatLons, to such an extent that soMe of these, such as chaos and dLsorder, are no&'saLd to gLve part / of the MeanLng of anarchy'. �3. �r / ���7. �Z7^ /^y- /' ^^^7T/Fv^) 4^7^7 - -—-V /FLy X' y y -^=y 1 ^/rc-^A^-g' ' t7 LA^ct^ <\_^ Ar^ / -tAjL ^tL_\ _ ^-e>^ /%y 4Z—f Z^4-^c—1<^^7- <K^- ' , /<7 ,/' 1 ^XTg^bTyZr* -(Zc6tA.________ __________ ^BLUy^Aya&LA^^ -------- ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ c^Lct^A^!L4/7A^^^ cAy*t^i^c^u^uLil_ Z ' 1^9-^^\Acc\_. c\ rr^, ^-y " ^7 �A ^3^ LA.A.itfA.'t t?L-'Se. ^Z (loA CAAA.. t4^Zt^- ^STc^r- . A <c t/coZwA g AA-^ tA'LCi^^A (^C 6t/Z^cAy (/^cA tAAAAAAA^LA^^ ( Q#-A- C>Lu^t4^ /A cA^_ y4 AZ^^ / <^r-V ^// ^cyc ^,V . v Aa^A —"------------<-A G^<Ar, //-^; tA L^Jb^y^GA^ZjA^c^ ^pA-4_/ tA lA^CCCCJ!— Qt&^> A. _____ u?^jtjt^- (A-S^ L^<%^ tAj^r 'iC^ZA sA^PAAL ^-A^. (JS- tUlL ^eACL& C^A jAMAAtAA- CC^s L&^ULC^ tX-AA*^ Ct <^A> (Av^ zA ^^AjL CA/^2^ tA, t<A, c/ ^X/>AL, (AA/^^xA^- CA^JAA^ ��BOCK NUMBER A Aw/ AUTHOR (BLOCK LETTERS) ------------------------------------------------------- DATE DUE <V HILE NAME & cheer? I?U(/ tLE;^ / KQ-Cc DEPT. (BLOCK LETTERS) PHONE NUMBER IF YOU WISH DETAILS OF THIS LOAN TO REMAIN CONFIDENTIAL. PLEASE INITIAL SPACE BELOW CP-228-81 GTO DATE TVB./gTT SIGNATURE Cl �1 �-y-"^5- J / . lx? /' ��138 139 genuine solution' since it combines both autonomy and authority; the difficulty i* 3 that it is empirically unrealistic? I shall return to WolfFs reasons for hesitating to 3 accept his own philosophical anarchist conclusions in a moment. Godwin, in his F/M/mry Concerning Po/Mcu/ Justice, was not so timid. Godwin's theory is extremely interesting for any discussion of political obligation because, like Hobbes' theory, it 3 shows the full implications of one form of adherence to radical, abstract individualism. B Godwin's theory is a mirror image of Hobbes'. He ends where Hobbes begins^ with a collection of individuals who each view the world through their own, subjective viewpoint. For Hobbes, the absolute freedom of individual private judgement leads to complete insecurity and arbitrariness; for Godwin, the unspeakably beautiful' practice of absolutely free exercise of individual private judgement is the only way to peace (p. 208).*" Hobbes creates an artificial social union held together by the Sword and reduces obligation' to enforced submission and obedience. Godwin relies on reified Reason that speaks identically to individual and he completely eliminates obligation' along with all other social relationships. Social institutions and social relationships, Godwin argues, merely stand in the way of individual judgement by preventing individuals seeing things as they really are." Unhindered by governments, and other social institutions such as promising, each individual will be able to decide for herself what ought to be done and individuals' judgements will coincide. Reason will speak to all in a single voice because, in the absence of social institutions, reality will stand revealed in all its transparency. Godwin's objections to the practice of promising are similar to his objections to political institutions. Promising is absolutely considered, an evil' (p. 218). It may occasionally be necessary to make a promise in order not to mislead other people about one's intentions, but a defence of necessity in specific cases does not detract from the essential evil of the practice itself. The evils of promising are twofold: first, promising binds future conduct and thus rules out further individual judgement as information and circumstances change. Secondly, promising encourages individuals to act from 'a precarious and temporary motive' (p. 219). It distracts attention front the consequences of particular actions, and hence obscures their intrinsic merits. If the individual judges that an action ought to be performed (and Godwin saw this judgement as a utilitarian calculation) then a promise adds nothing; it merely clouds the moral worth, or otherwise, of the judgement itself. Political institutions function in the same way to prevent individuals seeing things as they really are. For example; they give an appearance of permanence to opinions that prevail at their inception and thus cause the stagnation of judgement. Laws, like obligations, bind future conduct and, being general in form, can take no account of the fact that each case is unique and should be judged, according to Reason, on its own merits. Moreover, political assemblies impose a factitious unanimity' on their members. Decisions have to bn reached in which all the members must acquiesce, thus pretending that they am something more than a collection of individuals, each with their own opinions; Deliberation has to be cut short ly a vote and everyone, if their efforts are not to be for nothing, has to see themselves as obliged' to carry out the decision: 'Nothing can '3 ? 3: ? 3; ' y more directly contribute to the depravation of the human understanding and character' (p. 547). Properly, according to Godwin, there are no obligations, only actions that ought to be performed, or refrained from; nor is there any political authority, only a coincidence of individual judgements that certain things ought to be done. Godwin's individuals, unlike those who enter a social contract, are bound to nothing'. If an individual joins in a 'common deliberation', he is, 'when the deliberation is over,... as much disengaged as ever' (p. 234). This is not to say that he will never act with his fellows; they may independently have arrived at the same judgement as to the right course of action. Godwin also allows that individuals may sometimes defer to the judgements of an authority on a particular matter; this he calls authority' that depends upon the conhdence of him with whom it prevails' (p. 242). This deference should, however, be rarely given, or it may tip over into a misplaced 'conhdence' in alleged superiors who make judgements for others, and so inculcate those slavish feelings that shrink up the soul' (p. 232). This form of obedience is a greater source of degradation and depravity' than if the individual bows to political authority out of fear of the sanctions for disobedience. Here Godwin anticipates Wolffs denial' of the authority of the state. Wolff recognizes that there are many reasons for compliance, but these are irrelevant providing that the claims of the state are subjectively denied a binding moral force'." Similarly, Godwin argued almost two hundred years ago that the individual who obeys solely to avoid punishment, may reserve, in its most essential sense, his independence. He may be informed in judgement,... and suffer his understanding neither to be seduced nor confounded' (p. 141). Godwin was confident that the philosophical anarchist denial' of authority and obligation could be put into practice. Through discussion and education, and the example of sincerity and frankness, individuals will become enlightened and develop an appreciation of the evils of social institutions and social cooperation. Godwin ruled out a sudden revolutionary change as this would not be based on the necessary development of individual understanding. As a transitional measure he advocated a system of 'juries', within small political communities or parishes', the juries dating with individual offenders and disputes over property. He expected that disputes between parishes would be rare and that the obvious principles of convenience' would soon suggest a settlement (p. 546). A national assembly' might occasionally be necessary to adjudicate in such matters, but it would not be a permanent body. At first, all these institutions would exercise political 'authority' but, in time, Godwin expected that they would merely issue invitations' to ^individuals to cooperate in executing their verdicts, and, eventually, ail political institutions and cooperation would wither away. Abstract individualism rests on heroic assumptions. In Godwin 's case he assumes that individual moral judgement can be exercised in complete absence of intersubjective theoretical categories and communal relationships. The argument of the &!<7uiry implies that that which can be thought can be put into practice. Because it is Possible to imagine an individual abstracted from social life, yet endowed with Reason and a capacity for moral judgement, Godwin also assumes that, given a �140 sufficient period of education and social and political change, those individuals could actually exist, with their social past 'stored', as it were, within the consciousness of each one. They would exist largely in isolation and yet, on occasions, emerge, inspect reality and make an individual judgement that would coincide with judgements and Reason of others. Godwin's theory has some extremely charming aspects, but they cannot hide the philosophically and sociologically bizarre consequences of radical individualism taken to one of its extremes. Everything, except their own judgements, and actions that flow immediately and unhindered from them, is foreign to one of Godwin's individuals. Even the individual's own physical needs or freely created relationships appear as impediments. A solitary individual, Godwin writes, is prevented from executing his judgements 'in compliance with his necessities, or his frailties' (p. 758). The evils of social cooperation are much worse, but technological progress will enable individuals to do many things for themselves in the future that now require the help of others. Godwin expects that concerts and plays will cease to be performed; what enlightened individual would want to mouth the words or play the compositions of another ? Eventually, the individual will come to see society as 'not a necessary of life, but a luxury, innocent and enviable, in which he joyfully indulges' (p. 761). At this point, however, there is no 'society' for them to indulge in. Godwin relies on a reified Reason to link his individuals together but this cannot take the place of the social relationships he has wished away. Once again, the impossibility of distinguishing between institutions in various dimensions of social life from within an abstractly individualist perspective is demonstrated. Godwin treats promising as just as much a constraint and impediment, and just as mystifying, as the laws of the state. It is worth emphasizing that Godwin ends by depriving his individuals of the means of transcending their own subjectivity. They have no social means of acting on their judgements and thus must remain totally immersed in their own assessments of what 'ought' to be done. The creative moral and social capacities of individuals are meaningless treated in the abstract; they presuppose, and, in practice, can only be exercised and developed as a part of social relationships including relationships of obligation. A tacit realization of the peculiar conclusion of philosophical anarchism seems to underlie Wolfs equivocations about the 'just state'. In the last part of /n Defence of ,4norchism, Wolff offers some 'deeper philosophical reasons' why he is unwilling to accept the 'negative results' of his argument; the social world, unlike the natural world, is not 'irreducibly other'. Wolff is thus implicitly arguing against Godwin when he says that the state is 'no more than the totality of the beliefs, expectations, habits, and interacting roles of its members and subjects.... The state,... cannot be ineradicably other'." In other words, instead of arguing that all authority is illegitimate, Wolff is now moving to the opposite theoretical extreme and putting forward a version of the conceptual argument; the state is no more than the association of its members and so necessary to them, so there is no problem about its authority. Wolff also suggests that there might be a practical solution to the problem of authority; political institutions must be decentralized and based on 'voluntary compliance' (although he may be arguing that a system based on 'voluntary 141 compliance' does not involve authority at all). Curiously, Wolff does not appear to see anything odd in an 'anarchism' that proclaims the necessity of the state. The -central argument of anarchism is precisely that the state, including the liberal democratic state, is inherently 'other', and so its claim to authority can never be justified. Anarchists, philosophical or otherwise, it will be objected at this point, make a much larger claim than this. Like Wolff, they argue that all political authority, not just that of the state, is illegitimate. It is true that anarchist writings are full of statements to this effect. Kropotkin, for example, writes that 'anarchism... works to destroy authority in all its aspects'." Such statements are usually taken at face value. Flathman, for instance, criticizing Pitkin's comments on 'authority', argues that the state of nature in Hobbes' and Locke's theories provides an example of individuals living together without authority, and he asks what else have anarchists been putting forward as an ideal?'." But, as I have shown, any social relationships existing in Hobbes' radically individualist natural condition are likely to be based on force and power, not authority, and Locke's state of nature, with its father-rulers and capitalist economy, would certainly not And favour with anarchists. Nor is it self-evident that the anarchist ideal does involve an absence of authority; not, that is, if anarchism is seen as a political theory and not merely as a variety of philosophical scepticism. The political theory of anarchism is not a theory of the chaos with which 'anarchy' is popularly equated, but a theory of a specihc form of socio-political organization that is, as it must be, ordered and rule-governed. Anarchists have usually been political activists and popular pamphleteers and not concerned with precise conceptual distinctions. They have tended to treat authority' as a synonym for 'authoritarian', and so have identified authority' with hierarchical power structures, especially those of the state. Nevertheless, their practical proposals and some of their theoretical discussions present a different picture. Kropotkin calls anarchism the 'no-govemment system of socialism'," but on one occasion he also distinguishes 'government' and the 'state'. He writes that 'it seems to me that in State and government we have two concepts of a different order'." Unfortunately, Kropotkin does not pursue this distinction, but it suggests that one anarchist, at least, did not totally reject political authority. This conclusion is also suggested by the social and political changes advocated by Kropotkin. He argued that abolition of the political institutions of the state would allow 'mutual aid' to become the ordering principle of socio-political life. His discussion of this principle presents similar dif&culties to the recent philosophically sophisticated discussions of cooperation, reciprocity and obligation. In part, Kropotkin 's claim can be seen as a version of the conceptual argument: 'the practice of mutual aid... [has] created the very conditions of society ...'.** He also used mutual aid to refer to actual historical examples of cooperative institutions based on the voluntary agreement of the members, and it is the principle of free agreement that will govern an anarchist socio-political order. However, as I have argued, in political life self-assumed obligation and authority presuppose such 'free agreement'. Kropotkin's sketch of the internal organization of the communes that will replace the state is significant here. Kropotkin envisages ���ct^— C ^u^n. ^41 7 ? <*W ��THE SERRCH FOR RNRRCHISil - RND FOR RN RPPROPRIRTE NE!*f TITLE FOR IT. IB. term The anarchism has acquired such an encrustation of unfortunate and undesirabLe associations that it is time for a ciear neM term to rep Lace Lt. But that is not so easg, one reason being that it is not at aLL easg to sag Mhat the [neM] position the term is to ref Leet is Like, even in rough outLine, or hoM that position (that nonstate state) might come about. [RepLace B approach Mith R approach.] It easier is to be negative than positive, to sag (as LtseLf anarchism does) Mhat anarchism, or the repLacement $-ism (sag) is not, rather than Mhat it is. LJhat the position is not is, firstig^a state of chaos. R state not one of disorder; on contrarg^ ^-istic the arrangements definiteLg be sociai and poLiticaL arrangements - MiLL be coroLLarg - since (thermodgnamicaLLg) energg for its production extremeLg untikeLg and - $-g is there MiLL organLsed. R organised sgstem or state requires an maintenance highLg of - is that a t^-istic sgstem is to arise spontaneousig. Directed urganisationaL energg must be put into the attainment of a ^-istic endstate. Sought d)-istic sgstems MiLL ' ) simpig not emerge spontaneousLg, even Mhen energg LeveLs have been raised and states excited, as in vigorous demonstrations or in revoLutionarg activities. Furthermore, t^-ism does not inciude^ ang more than anarchism need invoLve vioLet=tee: Nur need a ^-istic sgstem emerge in a vioient Mag. Even if it arises in a revoiutionarg Mag, there is no need for the route to incLude substantiaL, or even perhaps ang vioience. The notion of a nonvioient contradictorg revoLution is not a one. Nor are rapid nonvioLentig induced changes begond the bounds of reaL posstbeietg Ln severaL parts of the Morid. -3- . �Rn additionat anarchLsM set froM derives EngeLs-LenLn anarchLsM, Mounted as negative of the assoc tat Lons pretty a pubLLeatLon the for reasons scurrLLous, against and Rnarcho- reveaLs. R Main reason for the Marxist reject Lon of synd Lea L Lsw term caMpaign RnarchLSM LenLn. EngeLs Marx the grafted on to Lt by Marxists. Marx- and reguLar, MLth dispensing anarch LSM Mas that Lt Mas assuMed to LnvoLve LMMed Late transact Lon to state Less socLety. Uhat aLL anarchist trends have Ln coMMon Ls a utop Lan vLsLon of settLng up a socLety ML thout state and expLotttng cLasses through a spontaneous rebeLLLon by the Masses and instant abotition of state poMer and aLL Lts LnstLtut Lons, instead of through potiticat struggLe bu the working cLass, socLaLLst revoLutLon, and estabtishMent of a proietarian dictatorship (p.9). ThLs Last LnvoLves a faLse dLchotoMy. SiMitarLy there Ls heavy crLtLcLsM of anarehLst dogwas about revoLutLon (p.I7). The transition aboiishing opposLng the as state" the idea Mas that of the fLrst as state step Ln affording the a period". But reaLLy there Ls no opposLtLon: both are coMpatLbLe with anarchLsM: there Ls /yio^d than one May of deaiing MLth a scoundreL. The qeneraL shape of poLLtLcaL transfurMation, both Ln cLassicat MarxisM and Ln anarchLsM, Ls a MuLti-stage transforMation MLth 1) transLtLon states, Mhere the state Ls retaLned, 2) an end state, Mhere the state Ls reMoved. But the suggestion, especiaLLy LenLn, Ln that even Ln the end state of Ls cuMHUH LSM, the s ta te M L L L surv eve: criticai Marx Lsts anarchist of proposeLs for the destruction of authority of every k end, and the introduction of totaL decentrat­ er L tic LsM ts decentraLisation^; but it difference (which ref Leet unfairLg never the Less deeper with Loaded, r*. MBf^S out differences Ln every kind and totaL Lts tMO areas MorLd of substantLaL vieM). For exaMpLe, Leadership need not be excLuded, Mhere roLe to direct is freeLy granted and does -4- �not devoive into 3 fixed or imposed power relationship? and influence mag be exercised from federai to Locai LeveL as we Li as from LocaL to federai. There are batch a sort of theorg to anarchism. Like of iesser associations aiso removed bg distancing the be outiined from its dominant rivaL, accepted too much Eniightenment doctrine, anarchism. For (e.g. the essentiai goodness of man, the unaiieged instance, benigness centurg 19th science, of and worthwhiLeness of dominant economic goats. Not ontg was it too much a product of thinking: Eniightenment it shared with Marxist unecoLogicaL assumptions about the eiimination of scarcitg, and with capitalism assumption an reduction (at Least in most of its individuai of being an exception). If we trg to reach behind the contrasts, of 19th centurg poLiticaL thought. both orthodox and at ternatives"'. do we reduct ion ism, . science individuai especiaLLg what find? and Not reduct ion ism, ontg worship, techno Logg and maximisation, but mang other doctrines from its mgre orthodox, powerfut and yei/cvc-Z successfui rivais, incLuding domination, ^forms of domination. It is the removai of a wide varietg of forms of domination, of a ims at (Martin's power getting rid of)^ the structures, that negative side of anakgrie. rTn-srchg, w t th the remove L of state, ts ontg part of that: tt aLsc remova L anakgrie concerns the of domination of nature (bg humans), countrgside (bg cities), women (bg men), b Lacks (bg whites), etc. Rs the removai of weeds makes wag for new growth, so the removaL of domination makes wag respects too reiations anakgrie forms for new relations. The primitive side of anakgrie is concerned, among other things with such retations, especiaiig seLf-reguLating of of reaches this far with stabie sort, and wags of achieving them. begond what anarch ism. 5- and In these was normaLLg encompassed bg j �was selected RnakgrLe tupographLc to resembLance resembLance, and e^c4mf"Cttics4T.3 get It - Ln tern the was It of* because Lts and phonetcc cLose enough to benefit bg the Ls hopefuLLg, to shed the bed /A <%<2 the fLrst term arrLved at, bg eng weans, get Lt not removed, means rough Lu the same as the fLrst. resuLt however anarkLe . enough farMas part SRNOOillNISfl, In the search terms new for f'crst the L.e. sandomLn (wtthout waster or authorLtg) But atthough domLnatLon cs one of the ma tn thcngs to be removed tn served for aLternatLve arrangements, especLaLLg) Ls onLg Ln domLnatLon part range pLcture. the of a of forms (envLronmentaL DLth domLnatLon Ls assumed to go subject Lon and expLoLtatLon of what Ls domLnated. LIL th domLnatLon a Lso tends go Yet expans ton. there are other thtngs. [Expand, when Look at domLnatLon Later.J Finother word Looked at that has some currencg state Less roughLg LLteraLLg Lt means to acephaLous Ls wLthout a head head Less . meaning It Ls not a part Lou LarLg good term for present purposes. state The operates wLth,ratLfLes, SLnce both AnakgrLe domLnatLon. the same road for a Long part of ensure, and reLg upon, and LegLtLmLzes forms of and anarchg aLm to eLLmLnate these, theg traveL thejourneg. Find forms of domLnatLon - Lf the rLde together; and state Ls as mang crLtLcs, anarchLsts, have argued - then anakgrLe LncLudes anarchg. of the LnLtLaL argument, theg mang some In ang case bound to not reaLLg for sssLmLLatLon^ Ln much the interests of brevLtgwLLL not be too mLsLeadLng. S great Ls proper - Ls advantage of anakgrLe, however - and one reason whg the LncLusLon thLsj- The rewovaL of domLnatLon gLves actLvLsts something LmmedLate to work for, and Ln an ef'fectLve wag — 3gaLn bg contrast wLth anarchg, whLch mau be a Long-term project, or aLmost a do-nothLng one Ln some advanced capLtaLLst states. -6- �FOOTNOTES The probiem is frequentiy not one of suppiy, but rather of 1. distribution stiii -3 matter of poiitico-economic arrangements. 2. Negativety remains a prob Lem. It is considered beioM. 3. foLLoM Preface iJhat are from the by N.Y. KeLpinsky, to thLs work. couLd be argued is that the idea of immediate modern states is rather naive. ) A <3' /ZuA <5^ /7^ c y*&"- -7- 7 �21/3/84 - I. ANARCHISM : %ea</oc/ s The multiple aims of Often theory. political an aim,^ is takq^ to (model) of the good society, or even more strongly (and less likely) of a or perfect, society. But, to put it in an old-fashioned way, there is no "X such thing as the good society, any more than there is such a thing as the good life. In at principle least, are there variety a of good and societies, even pluralistically there are different mixes (or pluralities) of good societies. ft -Ritter's Rosseau, (p.135) problem A with of ' Marx, equality, vs. with models material of the good de^dgnce^ vs society (e-g- Prato, with The^ can be combined in a pluralistic framework of intellectual virtues)^ vanishes, many good societies. competing Likewise the problem of conflicting values is much reduced, 4 and indeed given sufficient tolerance of other arrangements largely vanishes. Ritter, Equality. 'The real p.137: /?* diversity that matlcs anarchist society is supposed to be accompanied by equality of staffs'. But this is not required. even is equality of power, but rather removal of social power. Nor This leads Ritter on to the alleged conflict of community, which is 'repressive', and individuality. But some conflict Ae. ^following is alright^ as Ritter admits later (pp.138-9), where he gives conflict: pairs? generating diversity/equality, r?J censure/^o^^^ individuality/community. Consistency requirements. required to demonstrate Ritter^ at^mp^yes these everywhere; e.g. the of public censure. , from partial models, argues of a state-less issue f ____ of.consistency of freedom with use But see also(p.l, p.9^ Ritter harmoniousness) *i ^3- / condition, p.138. (also consistency anarchists are to consistency, and permissibility of some limited communities and arrangements of anarchistic (primarily those given by Krop^t^ut)^ �1. Criticisms^ 'Individualism gone wild' destructive 'socially (Hyndman), This confuses pluralistic/socialistic anarchism with right- selfishness (Rp.140). And as R's model one has 'communal individuality'. leaning^ 2. Social oppressiveness gang' 'adolescent picture^ Thus But, e.g. on suffocating contrary group peer considerable very permit^ pressures; individualism and choice. Insufficient 'provision for privacy, for external self-expression and for 3. meeting claims in problems of distributive some anarchist justice' communities, While (Rp.140). things these 'Godwin's conversational e.g. may be anarchy', they are not problems in pluralistic arrangements. Ritter argues however that in the anarchistic society the needs for privacy vanishes - both as refuge from considerable intrusions and as a place of seclusion A for inner growth or restoration. But these things depend on much^improved other people. 3.2 Of course nothing excludes solitude. 4 The issue of older character of such behaviour by reasoned ties up with the the expression of emotions anarchism, argument. the settling ig&aanarchisms of reject disputes rationalistic and reliance the controlling on reason, because reason has too often been used for evil ends, etc., and because emotional attributes are considered to be more central MiilLLiinally-oriented anarchism, to Ritter draws on the In rejecting more person. the reason/formation * dichotomy. * t i ' vp-v {y But emotion does not exclude or block out reason indefinitely. emotion does not interfere with freedom: So too it is false that 'the extensive freedom /! of classical anarchy is simply unattainable without the limits on emotional self­ expression that non-rational anarchists reject' (Rp.143). �3.3 special failure The of bestow to on benefits from a one-track view, This again comes talents. society anarchistic those with from pure communistic anarchism alone. Ritter argues [or understanding', people will not receive is better It 'desire , efficient production incentives' (p.143). He argues to develop ... native talents', 'satisfaction 'polytechnical education' that people not of to argue 'just de^ejfft'^ re&SM^@d] A usual varied work', voluntary, etc. these without 'mutual ... some in terms of what they put in, still ' v'tewetf occurs though that (of English from in character!), this sort will choose different life-styles, in different communities. The 4. political 'unanimous 'repudiation of (Rp.144). direct democracy'. individuality between This theory' citizenship is and which active citizenship' to has argued Rosseau (see citizenship correlative to a state, do with 'is a anarchistic there that recurrent theme Rp.145): was a criticism of contradiction itself. dubious in But . . . , , so^not too surprising that it is damaged. Anarchism gives much greater scope for the do-nothing or do—it-when-you-feel-like- it life. No filling-in blw form; at this cn. times, voting^ those Ejeg^ixicLal days, etc. demoded, time, registrations at those , That is, it offers a range of freedoms the citizen does not get. Presumably also then the Kantian idea of man as a self-governing citizen also gets ditched. public But the alleged accompanying virtues - such as being self-directred, spirited, controlling die t ing - are not lost, but enhanced. For communities replace the state as the place where they are manifested. 5. 1 Argument making. roblem from the strange character of anarchist arises because it (p.148), provided Wational procedural permits bad freedom and decision- decision-making, rules are met. so R claims This is very curious. But �4 cjoc4 the problem of appeals to rationality-justified freely-chosen exploitation ^arise^ here. constraints - which from a consistency viewpoint limits freedom. R The constraints are internalisation, positional authority, censorial rebuke. Anarchist arrangements are better superior to feasible alternatives, than where we are. Since they are also that is enough for movement in that direction. No requirement of best need be met. 5. dm rd al Anarchism is a dangerous ideal, because it helps undermine the established 4 social order. But it is pernicious because that ideal is unattainable. ) 6. no place Objection to anarchist methods. in them. example' (p.152). According to R But aversion and fraud are said to have the main methods are 'fr#ecof argument and But this ^gnves out a range of i-ndi-catrrves and strategies. ��s THE^ARCUhEETS HJR THE STATE. There are a variety of arguments^*which will be ass^^bled at first a jumbled order. Other arguments are: in from organisational demands, from law and order, from provision of public goods generally, from maximization (ana prisoners' dilemma, etc.) (e.g.A A. surprising Argument for the State is given by economists Atkinson and Lectures Stieglit^, in Economics). Public required to regulate market(s) and ensure that theorems of The state is welfare even ground that it apply, Is that .case? .the market is invariably recommended ------- /) is self-regulating, and can dispense with government. Argument for^ state appalling^from ideal). that overcoming CrSiK angle^ angle deficiencies really of ^market For it means that the market is assumed (as All.argument shows ^is that market isn't means of regulation^ that should adopts^ In a way it is a reductio of ^market. It may be claimed that it is analytically that true any society involves a state. This is false. Social arrangements without state powers A)ct 5M! L' / J -- CT are perfectly possible. ^&onstruct small social moael^,, The argument that no society &ommon4ry-1 s anthropologists iI^ defence of the claim that 71c internal by some primitive society is anarchic - depends on an A-conversion. ^rgument^^j QJ (a) every society has exhibits (some) used stateless order , fJ"— (otherwise it would not be a society) (b) the basic proper^function of order, i .e. (c) the fA/e is to ensure internal state^(ought to% impl^) order. there is internal order.there must be some sort of state. ��7 ^77777^77- /71 <?/= ^7757777; - /<F^ / �3? ARGUMENTS AGAINST STATES AND THEIR POKERS Nation-state arrangements, which based on assumptions of are fairly recent phenomena, are a cert^jn amount of independence and isolation. The rise of technology, including communication, have put these assumptions in doubt, as has.war. 1 'The presumption of the nation-state system, that sovereignty implied an ability to protect a nation's territory and population, is precisely the presumption denied by the nuclear, capacities 313). This was already put in doubt by of both other superpowers' things: (PL, now also by Consider again also Argument A. 1) Kars are the rights of states only.3 'x may [wagej war upon y only if x is a sovereign state; has legal means (Barnes, p.776). declaration of by which it may 3. not of authority, requires 'just authority' to do so, thus: authority of a prince, at whose command the war is to does otherwise x and must settle the claim against y' Thus Aquinas explains the condition war for be that 'first the waged; for it belong to a private person to start a war since he can prosecute Naturally one has to worry about private armies and so forth, as well. But undoubtedly the overwhelming problem in the case of 4cyp*=. LN wars with the superstate. his rights in the court of a superior' (Aquinas, quoted in Barnes, In tact however an alternative factual premiss will serve as well: (a) only (super)states are capable of waging LN wars. p.776). �PATHS TO ANARCHISTIC END-STATE Pasture of stages ( o ) and transitions (o ** o) finish start Golden future age Present Past Intermediate states '? Pluralist anarchism Communist anarchism Kingdom of God Corporate capitalism State socialism Democratic socialism Totalitarianism A useful model for the process is that of punctuated equilibrium, drawn from recently reformulated evolutionary theory. Another useful model is Kuhn's picture of the growth of science, which is also one of punctuated equilibrium, the equilibrium dominates, There is states or stages being those where a scientific paradigm the transitions between stages being rapid and even revolutionary. presumably a general model of this type within the framework of systems theory, which brings models of this type together [verify *1]. The classical anarchist assumption is that no intermediate stages need be involved, we can transit directly (in a single revolutionary upheaval) into an anarchistic end-state - a pretty unplanned and unprepared for end-state. the fast increasing size of the world's With human population and complexity of modern organisation - both further locking things into statist frames - that assumption looks increasingly untenable. reasons for supposing necessary. There are also, and always were, that intermediate preparation and planning stages are For what have to be altered, in particular, are human attitudes, �2 expectations, etc. - malleable parts of human "nature" that can be altered by reeducation, reflection and immersion in alternative conditions. What has to be changed? Much. The modern encouragement of greed - in such forms as maximum consumption, maximum production, etc. of gross inequality. economic bottom up, The is reversal to be achieved in affluent and by redirecting military and industrial What still has some appeal is reorganising. The entrenchment the idea, spending into social suggested by Marx's work, of initial transition into a state governed from the bottom (certainly no longer workers) instead of from the top: this pending of states' structure could but the intended good effects of be rather quickly lost (like the Aid­ effects of shallowly^/cultural revolutions). A critical question is what produces the direction and so on are desirable. decidedly undesirable, e.g. nuclear war. But one state to some causes of^ transition are There are other ways as the models natural cataclysm, economic instability The anarchistic which - from For if we can find out perhaps we can hasten the process - assuming another? reveal, transition route is a branch on the 1 accumulation o^f anomalies. 2 tree of future political options, blown over and assuming a single starting point (that of Australia say) - schematically looks like this? ^E.g. the present loans and deficit situation, especially in third world countries. 2 Including undermining of state economies by al ternative economies (examples from places like Peru). �3 Anarchistic branches It is crucial to avoid many of the alternative futures possible from where we are, e.g. transitions to the increasing state-corporate control of life. The Kingdom of God can^ be comjhpared with the marxist findj state? The Kingdom of God is pacifist (state). Peace is fully realised, and justice i^foundation of it (yet there are tensions between them sometimes?) J/ �/ _---- .-------------- seek 3 newer world. 'Its % <7^t/ 1 ?V^^/ 4^7 1 state has destroyed so Much of coMMunity arrangeMents that road anarchism wiii have to Make use of the state. 11 Ls L ike 3 weed such as lantana, It has suppressed growth of the new forest, But simply sorting it out will expose the ground to forces fertile to the new forest aiso (moisture stress, erosion, etc.), bo the state Must be pruned awasy, substituted for, and Jttirpated bit by bit. &. There is now so Much governMent - the governMent effectively in Many so areas of IsoMMunal structures - that simply/ social life, Ibreaking down and displacing dispensing with governMent, an immediate to coMMunal arrangeMents, could not be accomplished without Massive dislocation. Short of a Massive disaster, disabling governmental s^^ructure, return instant anarchisM is not feasible. Since such a disaster is not improbable, instant anarchism should not however be excluded, but, -^pnte.s states, allowed and planned for. Otherwise, the like route more evolutionary is by replacement, ching us or substituting for the displaced coMMunity structures broken down state ac t iv i ty. Removal of government - not from where controls are required ac^trarl rep lacements^e.g. transitional penetration, big business,(are developed^ - from exploitative areas, e.g. gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. 5et up instead nets to gatch people/victijhs of these things. �voluntarg arrangement freelg unLirtt/ted to, then contributions to state coffer^ should also be votuntarg, likewise involving free assent, not If ^the state compulsorg as theg are. But then free-rider problems, etc. No, onlg showing there wasn t consent, bg mang exodus from fragments. If there were onlg a few free-riders^ these people who didn't have a state constribution and would get state carried, such as police - as simple as RR You bug state protection, whatever, just Ibke state insurance. / . E Is ter Sour Gr apes p. 37_bqttow (a Iso surrounding section)) ....... ...... —' ------------- ------------------------ ueMucracg anc^- o the r po1i t ica1 :sustems advanted bu various authors for their side effects Z! o which obtainable better in other wags. Lare for anarchism here. Patemen good A ____ J* j �On Tr.3nsn.3t Lona Ls The sources of -3re power of one sort or another. SocLaL arrangements wLthout ^%?-W^-b^-h'A^^>wLLL be designed so far as possLbLe to LLmLt such power and prevent Lts accumutatLon. Prevent,^ gLobaL corp^arrangements/ LnternatLonaLLsm^ aLready over hLLL. Rnd good twenty years our of date. //GLobaL (^each p.368.. Rehun^ the prob Lem — passed by the gLobaL corporatLon ... ---------------------/) ms Ls excessLve power, and the seLf-Lmpatred LLmLtatLon on power cs not characterr Jsttc of human LnstLtutLons',^ rearranged?. Remedies. 1. at InformatLon and end to secrecy, as a way to socLaL responses.^ books as pubLLc documents etc., p.369. 2. TndLspensLbLe data for natLonaL program of natLonaL and Lnternat- LonaL reguLatLon, 370. Sc<%/<)<2 , Standsrd Last Lon of accountLng -r-------- and practLces. p.3*^/ Breakdown of pubLLc/prLvate dLstLnctLon and dLsappearance of free market? 'L--------- . GLobaL co rpo rat Lons buLLt on socLaL cap^taL consp ucuous L^* p.376 RLternatLon of t3X Laws to remove credLts and Tax bLas Ln favour of transnatLonaLs. counterrLdLng power / be^^re strateggt^ , pubLLc dLrectors , better uaadetermLnatLon , pre^Ldents runnLng for c?r companys at Least eLectLonjfor candLdates of reguLati)$y comm css conf GeneraLLyatter tax Laws, remove subsLdLes whLch 4ncouraaa the accumutatLon of . ,7 prLvate weaLth, and power, us Lng pubLLc/socLat and bLoLogLcaL capLtaL. ^7^ /j /y CCyTY ^g -y power. fAc State underpinning of multinationals. Multinationals would not have arisen to their present position of eminence without state assistance - and infrastructure, education, security, etc. N^d detailed evidence of this. Then can argue that problem of multinationals can be resolved, more or -3 p less automatically, with problem of state. �/^* /? -e^— �7 0 ,%?. rofit system^never satisfactory,^now extremely dama^gmg. Compare^ damag fetnoTie. , / i be profits - and look at the way these ^to worlds by destruction for profits are spent. Profit system compare with (ccyM?) sovereignty systems. �an anarchist.theory. LAW . jLaw is incompatible with anarchist utopianism. Anarchism can retain a framework of rules. are backed up, and enforced. where this involves violence. pre^$e, etc. consider, This is false. The key issue is how these rules What anarchism excludes is coercive backing Opposition usually involves sliding on coergion, So it looks as if there are several different theses to depending on how enforcement, rules, etc. are expanded. Kam argued that anarchism could not handle law on basis of A i. A level of detail of law. ii. amount of procedural detail. But there are no barrier at all. be refuted by a countermodel. Complexity is no bar. The claims can One such is the model Chom^siey appeals to, that of rules of language, which are complex and intricate enough, and nvj backed by force (Passmore wanted to suggest they were! But it is obvious that they need not be, whatever lapses occurred in the 16th century.) As a matter of history, several anarchist thinkers were not opposed to operation of law, but included it in their framework. Proudhon. Others? One example is �/^ <2 ��MY ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY Over the past decadeI have found myself increasingly concerned with social and political problems and more and more immersed in the theoretical issues raised thereby. In large part this has arisen from environmental involvement, especially on forestry and nuclear matters, and the realisation that the basic problems mostly lay with social and political arrangements. It thus became important to try to determine what those really were, and how they might be changed, what the alternatives weie. But in part also my legitimate intellectual movement from logic and meta­ physics^ to a wider perspective which includes social and political philosophy as major area of concern has come about as a result of reflection on the unsatisfactory and fragmented state of philosophy and its surrounds. It became increasingly hard (in particular for someone trained in analytic philosophy with a heavy Oxbridge orientation) to avoid noting, especially when confronted with wider philosophical and social issues, that one's philosophical education and ifn 1972 I presented and circulated a paper, 'Is there a need for a new, and environmental ethic?' which played an influential part in the rapid growth of environmental philosophy in New Zealand and Australia (on the latter see D. Mannison and M. McRobbie in Environmental Philosophy). Such an excursion into ethics was not without precedent. My research work in fact began in ethical theory, with a thesis on moral scepticism, and I thought about and wrote on deontic problems in the sixties. ^The point is explained in detail in work cited in the accompanying curriculum vitae (where all otherwise unreferenced work is listed). In the case of forestry see for example 'Destructive forestry in Australia and Melanesia' and 'World rainforest destruction - the social factors'; as to nuclear see 'Nuclear power - some ethical and social dimensions' and 'The ethics of nuclear war, and political fall-out'; and for the general argument see 'Social theories, self management and environmental problems'. ^This does not mean that I have entirely abandoned these areas. Logic is, I believe (with Anderson, and so with the mainstream of Australia's most significant philosophical movement), the central part of philosophy, and many conceptual problems in applied philosophy will continue to require return to logical ground in order to find satsifactory solutions. A sound training in logical theory is essential for deeper solutions for some of these problems. I should add that I never have been a very pure logician. I moved into logic in order to try to solve severe conceptual problems first in the philosophy of science and then in metaphysics. Now that these problems are largely solved (to my satisfaction at any rate) I can presumably move on to other things. �2. practice offered only a somewhat limited set of tools and techniques for tackling wider philosophical concerns and, worse, but few instruction as to how to apply these analytic techniques more widely. Nor had the inadequacy of such an education and the sort of philosophy to which it led gone unremarked. It was charged that philosophy had abdicated several of its proper respons­ ibilities - for example, to organise knowledge into some more coherent whole or world-view, to elaborate a social theory and influence social criticism, even to afford intellectual leadership - and had become excessively analytic and specialised, and therewith narrow and sterile (concerned, e.g., merely with linguistic niceties, conservative commonsense and/or scholastic logic-chopping). It was charged that academic philosophy not only had become excessively timid and accordingly lost intellectual excitement and appeal, but also had lost relevance to and touch with the important intellectual issues of the times and had failed in the business of addressing a larger audience with philosophical interests. These charges, which have a solid foundation, did not come from within academic philosophy but were most evocatively made by people outside philosophy (though with some knowledge of it) or by those in the margins of academic, professional­ ised^ philosophy. Thus Durrant, an outsider, has powerfully expressed a part of the charges: ... philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture of the good, found its task of inordination too stupendous for its usage, ran away from ... .'LtheJ battlefronts of truth, and hid itself in recondite and narrow lanes, timidly secure from the issues and responsibilities of life.* Philosophy began to change in the Seventies, some philosophers naturally changing with it. We aimed to address a wider range of socially relevant topics - and also sometimes a .wider audience - for example, to get beyond the ^W. Durrant, The Story of Philosophy, Second edition, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1926, p.v. Durrant though (or perhaps because) a leading populariser of philosophy in North America, is not usually at all well regarded by academic philosophers. �3. sterile examples of previous texts on moral philosophy to live issues, from minor cases of promising and truth-telling to abortion and euthanasia, genetic engineering and the treatment of animals, violence and nuclear war. But the analytical methods used for the most part did not change, the widening of horizons in applied philosophy proceeded from a narrow and inadequate logical (argumentive) and metaphysical base. stagnation: The applied expansion went with theoretical mainstream theoretical philosophy sat in the doldrums. Nor has the applied transformation gone far enough. Significant issues have been left to theologians and journalists.And there has been insufficient effort by philosophers (even those addressing relevant issues) to integrate their work with that of other (social) sciences that shed light on the issues, to overcome discipline fragmentation by synthesis. For it was not merely that philosophy itself was fragmented and often irrelevant, it had also become largley isolated from other disciplines and had ceased to be properly informed by them - or to inform them. This unsplendid isolation is particularly conspicuous in the case of political philosophy, which often proceeds in much the way it did in the 17th century, with little of the import it should be receiving from recent advances in social psychology and well-founded) sociobiology. ethology and (to the extent that it is More generally, the way in which areas have been isolated from one another, and ceased communicating, to the disadvantage to all, is a matter for serious concern. It is not merely that philosophy, for example, can be enriched by taking due account of the social sciences. The ^This description derives from Passmore. ^Philosophers and other academics should not be led in these areas, but do the leading. One of the roles of the academic community - a role in which philosophy in Australia (much, degenerated by too long an incestuous history) mostly fails - is to address a wider public than part of itself. Philosophers may justly complain that there is little competent public discussion of these issues where applied philosophy matters and no reputable intellectua ea er ship in Australia at present, but they have by and large done little to rectify the matter. �4. social sciences also can be improved, and much rubbish removed, by taking account of philosophical criticism.Each impacts on the others, in ways that should be taken into account. Moreover the interplay of different parts is fruitful.2 There is a richness to be generated if the interaction works well. And such interaction is required to pull much material into a more coherent whole. Such sentiments on integrating areas and rendering work more informed and holistic have been expressed before. another putting them into effect. It is one thing expressing them, and The tasks involved are difficult. And putting them into effect is not of course a task for just one person, but for several. A start can however be made with interdisciplinary people who willingly cross discipline boundaries, because they need to, and see the need to; by people who are able to adopt the often special methods and procedures of other disciplines and combine them with those of their own. But a start can not in general be satisfactorily initiated just by administrative fiat. A good deal of evidence has now accumulated to show that an administrator cannot simply pull together a successful interdisciplinary research group by hiring people skilled in the different disciplines concerned and putting them in a common setting. Such, groups can evolve however by individuals with wide-ranging concerns interesting other researchers or like-inclined people from other disciplines in overlapping or joint problems. And in setting up the conditions for such collaborative research to evolve, administrative inputs are important. It is, for example, an astute move to have a position linking several different departments 3 attached to none of them but to a section that sits so-to-speak above them; for in this way the researcher has access to all the departments concerned but is confined to none. *New philosophies of nature call for much more than this, indeed for major theor­ etical reorientation of some social sciences. The point is elaborated in the concluding part of 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics'. 2Nor will unified or coherent social sciences be arrived at without substantial philosophical imports. 3 As the present post does. influenced the move. No doubt other political considerations have also �5. I think I can justifiably account myself an interdisciplinary person. Firstly, I have considerable experience in collaborative work, an advantage that philosophers, in contrast to experimental scientists, seldom enjoy. claim is supported by my publication record. The While that indicates the extent of my joint activity in research, it does not fully record cooperative activity in organising conferences and workshops, both in logic and in environmental philosophy, in helping found or reestablish organisations (the Australasian Association of Logic is the main example, but the local AAP is another), in establishing publications (e.g. the Environmental Philosophy Discussion Papers serve both Philosophy Departments) and so on. More significantly, I can also fairly claim substantial experience in interdisciplinary work, as well as in other fields of philosophy. For example, I have worked not only in philosophy departments but in mathematics and in environmental studies programs.i Furthermore, my work in forestry, which is continuing, brought me into close touch with people from a broad spectrum of fields, not only forestry, but also economics, geography, demography, botany and zoology. The work, which is well-known locally and referred to in inter­ national textbooks, has for the most part been well received by people in those area, except forestry, and has been taken seriously .by those who disagree with the often controversial positions developed. My more recent work on environmental problems has led me to communicate and interchange material with sociologists and political Scientists in North American and England, and also with people in a variety of fields in Australian Colleges of Advanced Education. Naturally then, much of the resulting work reaches people in a range of fields. My work on environmental problems has also resulted in invitations to participate in conferences in a wide range of areas, on forestry (in several Australian ^1 declined invitations to work in interdisciplinary research groups in Washington and The Hague primarily because they would have kept me away from Australia too long and obliged me to endure northern winters. �6. states), on energy, on the environment (in New Guinea and USA). I have twice been invited to present papers at Australian Sociology conferences, but been unable to do so because of commitments abroad. The basic forestry book The Fight for the Forests, and subsequent forestry and environmental papers, already included much that bears upon and is informed by social and political theory. A new book, tentatively entitled Forestry in Australia, now in preparation by a team of people drawn from a wide range of disciplines - which is intended to replace The Fight for the Forests, long out of print - will be even more closely involved with social and political theory. It includes much fuller analysis of social classes and power structures (and models of these) as well as, like earlier work, examination of elites, and types of inequality. This should also begin to reveal how my work on apparently diverse areas is interrelated, and not a result of compartmentalisation. Most obviously, my work on forestry, which directly involves a range of environmental problems, in a very practical way, leads directly into areas of social and political theory. It is less obvious, but nonetheless a fact, that work on environmental problems, value theory and logic, is not disconnected, but joined by several connecting ways. For example, relevant deontic logic has shown how the key moral matter of moral dilemmas and conflicts of value can be treated. The logic of obligation is important in rejecting arguments that there is a significant separate "morality" for nation states or for public representatives of these which exonerates them from normal responsibility. Differently, logic provides the basis of decision theory, which is important in structuring environmental problems. And so on, to look at some of the more straightforward connections. There are larger connections. Social and political theory necessarily presupposes ^Explanations of these connections are much expanded in "The logical basis of the social sciences'. �7. a metaphysics, and this in turn a logical theory X Philosophers of very different persuasions, for instance Hegel and Mill, have agreed about this. Of course work in logic, such as that in probability theory and on statistical inference, sometimes speaks directly to other areas in the social sciences. My own work on universal semantics is of interest to linguists, and 'Universal semantics?' was abstracted in Sociological Abstracts, as have been several of my philosophical papers, on for example metaphysics, limits to Work on the recent history of logic and knowledge and animal intentionality. of philosophy of science in Australasia has led me into some sociological as well as historical investigations. political science and economics. Logical pursuits have also lead me into Because of my interest in applied logic I came to take over supervision of B. Embury's doctoral dissertation on voting theory, a thesis in the Department of Political Science. in work with a post-doctoral social choice theory. My interests also involved me fellow on preference and decision theory and Regretably no joint work issued from this enterprise, but I did publish some papers in the area, and emerged with further ideas for research jotted down: these ideas, mainly for further impossibility and limitative results in social theory, have yet to be followed through. My present research in social and political theory has (like a conic section) double foci. One focus (Fl) is a book tentatively entitled The Philosophic Reach of Environmental Problems and intended to supersede Environmental Philosophy in main respects, on the ethical, social and political dimensions of environmental problems.2 familiar list: The central problems yield a now rather for instance, those of human and animal populations, disappearing species, vanishing rainforests and other habitats and ecosystems, treatment (and rights) of indigenous peoples, of animals and of plants, cities and substantial start in explaining these deeper connections is made in 'Social theories, self management and environment problems' and in Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, chapter 9, ^12. ^Here environmental is used in the wide sense, of which the ecological is only a quite proper part. �8. neighbourhoods, landscape transformation or destruction, mining, pollution, nuclear and energy issues, and so on. The underlying problems have significant features in common and common social and political sources. Before the integrative task is tackled in detail however, an analytical approximative approach is being followed. Discussion papers on several of the topics listed are being researched or written, and discussion papers on others will follow, before the whole thing is pulled together. The other focus (F2) is a book on what might be called New Age Social Organisation, investigating alternatives to prevailing social, economical and political arrangements. Major alternatives considered in detail include left­ leaning and right-leaning anarchisms, which will involve a careful examination of the extent to which social arrangements and political organisations can be self-managed and self-regulating. While it is ambitiously hoped that the investigation will not only result (ideally) in a more philosophically-adequate left-leaning anarchist theory than has so far been produced, that is only part of its purpose. Another very important part of the enterprise is to give some better understanding of the range of alternatives to present (monopolistic capitalist and state socialist) arrangements that there are and that could be tried. A further part is, by considering alternatives, to shed light on the prevailing systems (their structures, institutions, etc.), in particular to bring out more clearly their underlying assumptions,the extent of their necessity, to give a better idea ^In several respects the term 'anarchism' is unsatisfactory and will have event­ ually to be replaced, perhaps by a neologism, since no available term delineates the types of socio-political arrangements envisaged. It should perhaps be remarked, in case it is thought that I have no academic background in political theory, that my university education did include courses and seminars in the area. Furthermore I have more recently acquired a good working knowledge of the anarchist literature, and am well advanced in the process of obtaining a grasp of organisation theory and the necessary parts of social psychology. Some of these assumptions are rejected or varied in an assessment of alternatives. Thus, as a much better idea of euclidean geometry was obtained with the elaboration of hyperbolic and Riemannian geometry, and similarly of arithmetic with the formulation of nonstandard arithmetics, so also a much better appreciation of mainstream social theory should be achieved by investigating nonstandard social theories and assumptions. This method of variation of assumptions is a fruitful one as regards many scientific,theories. �of the values they write in, of their desirability or undesirability, and so on. Although my enagement has two main foci, naturally there are also other and smaller endeavours under way: of these - but only some. the attached curriculum vitae gives some indication For example, the trilogy of papers on the meaning of life, nihilism, and the ultimate existence question is to be arranged into a book which will probably also address such related issues as the quality of life. Richard Routlev �zi___ A_ ��^L</^—*^/y /J &4n^-*- "" J^TL^ r/7v—, 7/ /<?\A<?/ Ay 3 ��ANAKYRIE. In Chapter 1 The multiple and inconsistent axioms of political theory : pluralism, morality, ... The differences in theory begin at the beginning, in what political arrangements are for, what they are about, whom they are for, how they apply. There are important differences in the extent to which peoples' and other creatures' activities and lives can be controlled and regulated. More authoritarian or paternalistic political arrangements impose much more in the way of regulations than more liberal arrangements which in theJlimit reduce regulation or setting for pursuit of satisfactory lives. to some minimum, to some So far as political relations are concerned, the world (Terr& is a closed system. Political influence is not exercised from outside that system, nor f!'o political influences of significance so far flow from Terra elsewhere. (All that may of course change, in which case the problem is reset in terms of some larger system, the Universe providing an upper limit - unless some extraspb tial gods are invoked.) With the advance of industrialisation, communications and spill-over technology, few communities smaller than the world system are any longer effectively closed. The general political problem is unsolvable. The argument for this theme is that the problem is only solvable for small relatively uniform But we no longer have such, given modern interference com-unities (Taylor). effects. The basic picture is of a network of goal-directed Defining the^problem: creatures and systems. The aim (political goal) is to ensure that these creatures are able to pursue goals so far as these are satisfactory. A major value judgment is inserted here : what of wiping out lives, of war, etc., those that interfere seriously with others? A liberal setting such as Redman sketched is operating in the background here. Present political arrangements anachronistic : they were introduced at a time when much less interference was technically possible. longer appropriate. The They are no of empires now affects everyone s lives, so on democratic grounds all should have say (or vote). But they don t : democracy stops at national borders (even in those borders where it kmd-of operates). �2 Present political arrangements, by increasing population, etc. for what sort of consumption high can be obtained by present people are making things much worse. For the benefit of present power-holders, their maintenance of power and privilege, short-term drr the inadequacies of %^ts - of present economics within political frameworks. On the End State: According to Kamenka a central deficiency of a M^up-ist account is its pre­ industrial character, also its romantic character, and its view of creative labour. These are a result in part of looking for utopia in the past, the sources of which according to Kumenka are: (i) a mistaken view of the happy (noble) savage; (ii) the abundance of industry; (iii) the rationality of industry (presumably its increasingly automatic and self-regularity character?). This is confused. Sources (ii) and (iii) are the basis of the past industrial character of the end state (where the machines are really whirring along). The main source of the search in the past is quite different, namely the search for historical models, however partial, of the good or better life. The reason is that (iv) there is something drastically wrong with present arrangements which not rectified by minor adjustments. The end state, so far as it is described, is certainly a curious mixture of A' pre- and past-industrial elements. The end state is not a static state, but a stable, climax state. analogy is again useful here. The ecological Capitalism is like a pioneering stage. Stable states may have been achieved in the past, to be disturbed in one way or another. That is one reason why it is important to look in the past - for fc^r^r of past stable states. Political theory (note A *) As a result of the way 'political system' is commonly defined, anarchy is not a political system. The reason is that 'most authors consider the modern political system to be that system which controls the use of power or force in society' (Kaplan, p.22). therewith that system. Anarchy aims to remove use of power and force, and The exclusion could of course be taken to be a (further) inadequacy in the definition, a mere technicality almost, got around by expanding 'controls' disjunctively to 'controls or removes'. �3 For whether or not anarchy is a political system, it is certainly an organisational system or structure. POLITICAL THEORY AND MORALITY 1. On the one hand, it is claimed that 'any acceptable form of social order...must rest on moral foundations, which are in principle ascertainable at any period, and permanently valid'.'*' (Donegan, p.xiv) On the other, and more common view, politics simply tramples over morality when it suits it. However that is a matter of one morality, e.g. of a Christian established form, being overwhelmed by another Mafia-style morality not the absence of a value position. theory. 2. Any political theory rests on a value That is the point. There is the problem of evil, powerful people, often unintentionally evil people such as Reagan, Thatcher, ... Hitler flourished most of his life; he led an active (etc.) life ... 3. Anarchism does not require especially good people. But political life would run much more easily without a certain range of people. (Of course, states think this, and totalitarian states try to realise theit aim). 4. On Political Obligation obligation. There is no good ground as basis of political All arguments designed to establish obligation to a state - of people living in it ('its territory') especially - are wanting. (Argument for this there). Scepticism about political obligation does not imply scepticism about obligation. So moral scepticism is not implied. And on the contrary, most requirements are of the first importance in outlining alternatives to the state. Hobbes problem was that of political obligation - 'reasonswhy we ought to change the state' (R p.61). Hobbes finds three causes of disorder (competition - reflecting self interest drives; distrust; argued for on ground that enjoyment of power ('glory') [Self-interest is motive is self-preservation.] To these he opposes inter - from desire for security. 1. This involves a very dubious objectivity. �4 On Marx-Engels way Although Marx and Engels say comparatively little about their projected end state, they say a great deal about the route through the new state - to that end, and about the means to be used along that route. By contrast with means, they are far too restrictive about routes, ruling out many plausible roads to change (including peasant revolutions, etc.) Engels' proposed route is through 'a new social order' where production and industry run on behalf of society, according to a social plan. The main features are addition of private property (vol.l, p.88) and of private means of communication (p.92). Note that it is unclear whether this social order is an immediate or end state, but those features are common to both. There is massive industrial and agricultural production (though not over­ production) by (rationalised) planned economy without ( ) private property (I,p.92). Hence, division into antagonistic clauses becomes superfluous. There are new all-round people (p.93), a disappearance of division of labour, for flexible labour. There is association instead of competition. Fusion of town and country (p.94). According to Marx-Engels (I,p.l83) the route is through the central state. 'The workers must not only strive [against democrats] for a single and indivisible...republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority. They must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc.' No communal property 'Concentrate productive to remain : etc... in means of of state'. This account is extremely top-down. As to means, it looks as if Marx and Engels are prepared to adopt any means, likely or not. For Marx, the main means are by violent revolution (last page Poverty of Philosophy). of classes. Revolution is the outcome of the contradiction By contrast, Engels prefers peaceful means (in 1847 i.e. vol 1, p.89); but he won't at all rule out revolution. But together Marx and Engels emphasise violent means, and encourage excuses on occasions ( p.180). �5 Under the pretext that the petty bourgeous democrats will betray the workers, the subversion (destabilization) of their government is planned (Vol 1. address of CC to League, pp.180-1) Unlike Bak Marx and Engels.advocate fostering massacres etc. stuff mean?), and a regime of terror. (for what else can this Bak thinks that in a revolutionary situation such things may occur but should be immunized (I can easily check the reference in Bak if necessary (p.180). For the most part, Engels was much more inclined to peaceful and established means to change, even to change by way of ballot box and universal suffrage; the Democratic route to state transformation (1, p.195, also 1, p.202). Note Engels' introduction to Class Struggles in France written in 1895 (p.195), e. i. later than the more bellicose texts Lenin is relying on - and as the fruit of a riper experience of politics. He says that by party action universal suffrage 'transforme de mayer de dupere qu'il a ete jusqui' en instrument d'emarcqation'and this as footnote shows is a quote from Marx. This suggests that it can be used to gain control of and subsequently transform state app In 1895 (pp.199-200) Engels suggests a revision of . Now show means, propaganda etc., to win over the mass of people [different from technological determination!] No doubt because of technological determination, there is no need to be too specific about means; for it is not as if activity is shaping the course of things, only speeding up the (in ) process. Reasons for the lack of detailed description of the end state in Marx-Engels: 1. This would be to try to set the future, which is reactionary (Why? Because of historical determination?), and unnecessary, because future people will be wiser than us. 2. Standard explanation, suggested by Marx: 'scientific socialism cannot describe in any detail the society that will replace capitalism. Utopians speculate about the socialist future : Marxists analyse the capitalist present' (Moore, p.76). Moore argues the standard explanation is implausible. �6 Principles of Individualism [ ?] 1. Government based on individually-given consent of citizens - 'its authority or legitimacy deriving from that consent' (Lubes, p.ll) Consent-answering back requirement 2. Political representation as representing individual interests, not classes, estates, etc. 3. That's all. interests. Government confined to enabling satisfaction of individual Hence towards laissez-faire, against paternalism, influencing or interpreting individual wants. (79). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document R TREATISE ON POLITICAL THEORY OTHER HQJOR TOPICS (UNOROERED):- 1. PturatisM and pturatisMS: the otd (and Marxist) fallacy of one form. 2. Power, hierarchies, Constitutions, corporations, states and transnationats Authoritarian rotations; organisations. 3. Undertying Metaphysics. (not independent things). Stytes of denocracy, and inproving denocracy. 6. A Major source of power: property. Land rights. INTRODUCTION Present poLet Leet arrangements are hardig satisfactorg, angMhere. Theg not de Livering adequate shoutd at Least assist Ln environment, Meifare, of mang of* the things that such arrangements Levels^ productLon the are or education^ LiveLihood, of, attainment ... e.g. securLtg, . Thus if better Mags to do these things can be found, theg shouLd be sought, and tried. Perhaps surprisingLg, there has been remarkabLg Lit tie effort expended upon surveuing the range of poLLticaL atternatives (as compared, e.g., Mith the effort put into defending the status quo), or to Mork out, so far as can or need be done, areas, detaiLs Mhere of the more promising options. entrenched positions Indeed, as Mith so mang other dominate^ there been has cons iderabLe discouraoement of such important investigation. R s ign if ican t r ange of a L te ma t i ves, sea roe Lg g i ven a triaL in modern historg, are these arrangements Mhich reduce domination and the exercise of poMer and increase freedom. The present studg concentrates on these sorts arrangements, not in totaLitarian of or fascist or imperiaiist structures Mhich have more than sufficient exempiification in recent times, despite their Lack of justification and base in raM poMer and brute force. 10. POLITICS WITHOUT DONINRTION: Rnakgr ie means varietg of RNRKYRIE RND RNRRCHISM Mi thout domination. domination. For domination That incLudes comes in the Mhoie range mang forms: of citizens bg states, civiLians bg miLitarg, poor bg rich, bLacks bg Mhites, thirdMoriders -1- and bg HMerLeans ) Russ Lans. MOMen bu nan. young by otder, anLMaLs by huMans, nature '. \ . RnaRyrLsM consLsts Ln socLaL arrangeMents desLgned to avoLd aLL e<.c*i v.*? , ^etA/'o , py<-. 'fiohcoAc^ forMs of doMLnatLon-^ [There Ls nothLng Ln the account so far g^v^n whLch bu Men? such orr ... <3/* LMpLLes that Lt Must taRe a gLven shape, that Lt Ls unLquety deterMLned.] RnarchLsM dLrectLy Ls MLth concerned onLy one part of Mhat anahyrLe Ls about: doMLnatLon by peopte by states (Mhether theLr OMn or that of others), and rewovaL of thLs doMLnatLon by aboLLtLon of the state. But there are forMs other not essenttaLLy bound up MLth thLs forM, and aboLLtcon of doMLnatLon of Many the state Ls but oney rather drasttcyMay of reMovtng state doMLnatLon. RnarchLsM has been extended, for Lnstance to eco-anarchLsM (as feMLnLsM has been broadened to eco-feMLnLsM), Ln an effort to overcoMe a conspLcuous part of c/ n/ttj 19th C anarchLsM tended to accept the saMe doMLnatLon of the probteM, that nature by Lndeed and huMans, the saMe sort of scLentLfLo reductLonLstLc MaterLaL',SM, as Lts doMLnant rLvats, capLtaLLsM and (MarxLst) socLaLLsM. But the broadenLng caLLs for atso further expLanatLon, to LncLude other types of doMLnatLony^id strLctLy,such a recr^antatLon as to LnvoLve a change Ln MeanLng, A Ln Mhat Mas Meant by anarchLsM . In these cLrcuMstances, Lt Ls More forMard and Less MLsLeadLng sLMpLy to Lntroduce neM terMLnoLogy. Rtw straLghtthere are , good reasons for seeRLng neM terMLnoLogy. 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(JS- tUlL ^eACL& C^A jAMAAtAA- CC^s L&^ULC^ tX-AA*^ Ct <^A> (Av^ zA ^^AjL CA/^2^ tA, t<A, c/ ^X/>AL, (AA/^^xA^- CA^JAA^ BOCK NUMBER A Aw/ AUTHOR (BLOCK LETTERS) ------------------------------------------------------- DATE DUE <V HILE NAME & cheer? I?U(/ tLE;^ / KQ-Cc DEPT. (BLOCK LETTERS) PHONE NUMBER IF YOU WISH DETAILS OF THIS LOAN TO REMAIN CONFIDENTIAL. PLEASE INITIAL SPACE BELOW CP-228-81 GTO DATE TVB./gTT SIGNATURE Cl 1 -y-"^5- J / . lx? /' 138 139 genuine solution' since it combines both autonomy and authority; the difficulty i* 3 that it is empirically unrealistic? I shall return to WolfFs reasons for hesitating to 3 accept his own philosophical anarchist conclusions in a moment. Godwin, in his F/M/mry Concerning Po/Mcu/ Justice, was not so timid. Godwin's theory is extremely interesting for any discussion of political obligation because, like Hobbes' theory, it 3 shows the full implications of one form of adherence to radical, abstract individualism. B Godwin's theory is a mirror image of Hobbes'. He ends where Hobbes begins^ with a collection of individuals who each view the world through their own, subjective viewpoint. For Hobbes, the absolute freedom of individual private judgement leads to complete insecurity and arbitrariness; for Godwin, the unspeakably beautiful' practice of absolutely free exercise of individual private judgement is the only way to peace (p. 208).*" Hobbes creates an artificial social union held together by the Sword and reduces obligation' to enforced submission and obedience. Godwin relies on reified Reason that speaks identically to individual and he completely eliminates obligation' along with all other social relationships. Social institutions and social relationships, Godwin argues, merely stand in the way of individual judgement by preventing individuals seeing things as they really are." Unhindered by governments, and other social institutions such as promising, each individual will be able to decide for herself what ought to be done and individuals' judgements will coincide. Reason will speak to all in a single voice because, in the absence of social institutions, reality will stand revealed in all its transparency. Godwin's objections to the practice of promising are similar to his objections to political institutions. Promising is absolutely considered, an evil' (p. 218). It may occasionally be necessary to make a promise in order not to mislead other people about one's intentions, but a defence of necessity in specific cases does not detract from the essential evil of the practice itself. The evils of promising are twofold: first, promising binds future conduct and thus rules out further individual judgement as information and circumstances change. Secondly, promising encourages individuals to act from 'a precarious and temporary motive' (p. 219). It distracts attention front the consequences of particular actions, and hence obscures their intrinsic merits. If the individual judges that an action ought to be performed (and Godwin saw this judgement as a utilitarian calculation) then a promise adds nothing; it merely clouds the moral worth, or otherwise, of the judgement itself. Political institutions function in the same way to prevent individuals seeing things as they really are. For example; they give an appearance of permanence to opinions that prevail at their inception and thus cause the stagnation of judgement. Laws, like obligations, bind future conduct and, being general in form, can take no account of the fact that each case is unique and should be judged, according to Reason, on its own merits. Moreover, political assemblies impose a factitious unanimity' on their members. Decisions have to bn reached in which all the members must acquiesce, thus pretending that they am something more than a collection of individuals, each with their own opinions; Deliberation has to be cut short ly a vote and everyone, if their efforts are not to be for nothing, has to see themselves as obliged' to carry out the decision: 'Nothing can '3 ? 3: ? 3; ' y more directly contribute to the depravation of the human understanding and character' (p. 547). Properly, according to Godwin, there are no obligations, only actions that ought to be performed, or refrained from; nor is there any political authority, only a coincidence of individual judgements that certain things ought to be done. Godwin's individuals, unlike those who enter a social contract, are bound to nothing'. If an individual joins in a 'common deliberation', he is, 'when the deliberation is over,... as much disengaged as ever' (p. 234). This is not to say that he will never act with his fellows; they may independently have arrived at the same judgement as to the right course of action. Godwin also allows that individuals may sometimes defer to the judgements of an authority on a particular matter; this he calls authority' that depends upon the conhdence of him with whom it prevails' (p. 242). This deference should, however, be rarely given, or it may tip over into a misplaced 'conhdence' in alleged superiors who make judgements for others, and so inculcate those slavish feelings that shrink up the soul' (p. 232). This form of obedience is a greater source of degradation and depravity' than if the individual bows to political authority out of fear of the sanctions for disobedience. Here Godwin anticipates Wolffs denial' of the authority of the state. Wolff recognizes that there are many reasons for compliance, but these are irrelevant providing that the claims of the state are subjectively denied a binding moral force'." Similarly, Godwin argued almost two hundred years ago that the individual who obeys solely to avoid punishment, may reserve, in its most essential sense, his independence. He may be informed in judgement,... and suffer his understanding neither to be seduced nor confounded' (p. 141). Godwin was confident that the philosophical anarchist denial' of authority and obligation could be put into practice. Through discussion and education, and the example of sincerity and frankness, individuals will become enlightened and develop an appreciation of the evils of social institutions and social cooperation. Godwin ruled out a sudden revolutionary change as this would not be based on the necessary development of individual understanding. As a transitional measure he advocated a system of 'juries', within small political communities or parishes', the juries dating with individual offenders and disputes over property. He expected that disputes between parishes would be rare and that the obvious principles of convenience' would soon suggest a settlement (p. 546). A national assembly' might occasionally be necessary to adjudicate in such matters, but it would not be a permanent body. At first, all these institutions would exercise political 'authority' but, in time, Godwin expected that they would merely issue invitations' to ^individuals to cooperate in executing their verdicts, and, eventually, ail political institutions and cooperation would wither away. Abstract individualism rests on heroic assumptions. In Godwin 's case he assumes that individual moral judgement can be exercised in complete absence of intersubjective theoretical categories and communal relationships. The argument of the &!<7uiry implies that that which can be thought can be put into practice. Because it is Possible to imagine an individual abstracted from social life, yet endowed with Reason and a capacity for moral judgement, Godwin also assumes that, given a 140 sufficient period of education and social and political change, those individuals could actually exist, with their social past 'stored', as it were, within the consciousness of each one. They would exist largely in isolation and yet, on occasions, emerge, inspect reality and make an individual judgement that would coincide with judgements and Reason of others. Godwin's theory has some extremely charming aspects, but they cannot hide the philosophically and sociologically bizarre consequences of radical individualism taken to one of its extremes. Everything, except their own judgements, and actions that flow immediately and unhindered from them, is foreign to one of Godwin's individuals. Even the individual's own physical needs or freely created relationships appear as impediments. A solitary individual, Godwin writes, is prevented from executing his judgements 'in compliance with his necessities, or his frailties' (p. 758). The evils of social cooperation are much worse, but technological progress will enable individuals to do many things for themselves in the future that now require the help of others. Godwin expects that concerts and plays will cease to be performed; what enlightened individual would want to mouth the words or play the compositions of another ? Eventually, the individual will come to see society as 'not a necessary of life, but a luxury, innocent and enviable, in which he joyfully indulges' (p. 761). At this point, however, there is no 'society' for them to indulge in. Godwin relies on a reified Reason to link his individuals together but this cannot take the place of the social relationships he has wished away. Once again, the impossibility of distinguishing between institutions in various dimensions of social life from within an abstractly individualist perspective is demonstrated. Godwin treats promising as just as much a constraint and impediment, and just as mystifying, as the laws of the state. It is worth emphasizing that Godwin ends by depriving his individuals of the means of transcending their own subjectivity. They have no social means of acting on their judgements and thus must remain totally immersed in their own assessments of what 'ought' to be done. The creative moral and social capacities of individuals are meaningless treated in the abstract; they presuppose, and, in practice, can only be exercised and developed as a part of social relationships including relationships of obligation. A tacit realization of the peculiar conclusion of philosophical anarchism seems to underlie Wolfs equivocations about the 'just state'. In the last part of /n Defence of ,4norchism, Wolff offers some 'deeper philosophical reasons' why he is unwilling to accept the 'negative results' of his argument; the social world, unlike the natural world, is not 'irreducibly other'. Wolff is thus implicitly arguing against Godwin when he says that the state is 'no more than the totality of the beliefs, expectations, habits, and interacting roles of its members and subjects.... The state,... cannot be ineradicably other'." In other words, instead of arguing that all authority is illegitimate, Wolff is now moving to the opposite theoretical extreme and putting forward a version of the conceptual argument; the state is no more than the association of its members and so necessary to them, so there is no problem about its authority. Wolff also suggests that there might be a practical solution to the problem of authority; political institutions must be decentralized and based on 'voluntary compliance' (although he may be arguing that a system based on 'voluntary 141 compliance' does not involve authority at all). Curiously, Wolff does not appear to see anything odd in an 'anarchism' that proclaims the necessity of the state. The -central argument of anarchism is precisely that the state, including the liberal democratic state, is inherently 'other', and so its claim to authority can never be justified. Anarchists, philosophical or otherwise, it will be objected at this point, make a much larger claim than this. Like Wolff, they argue that all political authority, not just that of the state, is illegitimate. It is true that anarchist writings are full of statements to this effect. Kropotkin, for example, writes that 'anarchism... works to destroy authority in all its aspects'." Such statements are usually taken at face value. Flathman, for instance, criticizing Pitkin's comments on 'authority', argues that the state of nature in Hobbes' and Locke's theories provides an example of individuals living together without authority, and he asks what else have anarchists been putting forward as an ideal?'." But, as I have shown, any social relationships existing in Hobbes' radically individualist natural condition are likely to be based on force and power, not authority, and Locke's state of nature, with its father-rulers and capitalist economy, would certainly not And favour with anarchists. Nor is it self-evident that the anarchist ideal does involve an absence of authority; not, that is, if anarchism is seen as a political theory and not merely as a variety of philosophical scepticism. The political theory of anarchism is not a theory of the chaos with which 'anarchy' is popularly equated, but a theory of a specihc form of socio-political organization that is, as it must be, ordered and rule-governed. Anarchists have usually been political activists and popular pamphleteers and not concerned with precise conceptual distinctions. They have tended to treat authority' as a synonym for 'authoritarian', and so have identified authority' with hierarchical power structures, especially those of the state. Nevertheless, their practical proposals and some of their theoretical discussions present a different picture. Kropotkin calls anarchism the 'no-govemment system of socialism'," but on one occasion he also distinguishes 'government' and the 'state'. He writes that 'it seems to me that in State and government we have two concepts of a different order'." Unfortunately, Kropotkin does not pursue this distinction, but it suggests that one anarchist, at least, did not totally reject political authority. This conclusion is also suggested by the social and political changes advocated by Kropotkin. He argued that abolition of the political institutions of the state would allow 'mutual aid' to become the ordering principle of socio-political life. His discussion of this principle presents similar dif&culties to the recent philosophically sophisticated discussions of cooperation, reciprocity and obligation. In part, Kropotkin 's claim can be seen as a version of the conceptual argument: 'the practice of mutual aid... [has] created the very conditions of society ...'.** He also used mutual aid to refer to actual historical examples of cooperative institutions based on the voluntary agreement of the members, and it is the principle of free agreement that will govern an anarchist socio-political order. However, as I have argued, in political life self-assumed obligation and authority presuppose such 'free agreement'. Kropotkin's sketch of the internal organization of the communes that will replace the state is significant here. Kropotkin envisages ct^— C ^u^n. ^41 7 ? <*W THE SERRCH FOR RNRRCHISil - RND FOR RN RPPROPRIRTE NE!*f TITLE FOR IT. IB. term The anarchism has acquired such an encrustation of unfortunate and undesirabLe associations that it is time for a ciear neM term to rep Lace Lt. But that is not so easg, one reason being that it is not at aLL easg to sag Mhat the [neM] position the term is to ref Leet is Like, even in rough outLine, or hoM that position (that nonstate state) might come about. [RepLace B approach Mith R approach.] It easier is to be negative than positive, to sag (as LtseLf anarchism does) Mhat anarchism, or the repLacement $-ism (sag) is not, rather than Mhat it is. LJhat the position is not is, firstig^a state of chaos. R state not one of disorder; on contrarg^ ^-istic the arrangements definiteLg be sociai and poLiticaL arrangements - MiLL be coroLLarg - since (thermodgnamicaLLg) energg for its production extremeLg untikeLg and - $-g is there MiLL organLsed. R organised sgstem or state requires an maintenance highLg of - is that a t^-istic sgstem is to arise spontaneousig. Directed urganisationaL energg must be put into the attainment of a ^-istic endstate. Sought d)-istic sgstems MiLL ' ) simpig not emerge spontaneousLg, even Mhen energg LeveLs have been raised and states excited, as in vigorous demonstrations or in revoLutionarg activities. Furthermore, t^-ism does not inciude^ ang more than anarchism need invoLve vioLet=tee: Nur need a ^-istic sgstem emerge in a vioient Mag. Even if it arises in a revoiutionarg Mag, there is no need for the route to incLude substantiaL, or even perhaps ang vioience. The notion of a nonvioient contradictorg revoLution is not a one. Nor are rapid nonvioLentig induced changes begond the bounds of reaL posstbeietg Ln severaL parts of the Morid. -3- . Rn additionat anarchLsM set froM derives EngeLs-LenLn anarchLsM, Mounted as negative of the assoc tat Lons pretty a pubLLeatLon the for reasons scurrLLous, against and Rnarcho- reveaLs. R Main reason for the Marxist reject Lon of synd Lea L Lsw term caMpaign RnarchLSM LenLn. EngeLs Marx the grafted on to Lt by Marxists. Marx- and reguLar, MLth dispensing anarch LSM Mas that Lt Mas assuMed to LnvoLve LMMed Late transact Lon to state Less socLety. Uhat aLL anarchist trends have Ln coMMon Ls a utop Lan vLsLon of settLng up a socLety ML thout state and expLotttng cLasses through a spontaneous rebeLLLon by the Masses and instant abotition of state poMer and aLL Lts LnstLtut Lons, instead of through potiticat struggLe bu the working cLass, socLaLLst revoLutLon, and estabtishMent of a proietarian dictatorship (p.9). ThLs Last LnvoLves a faLse dLchotoMy. SiMitarLy there Ls heavy crLtLcLsM of anarehLst dogwas about revoLutLon (p.I7). The transition aboiishing opposLng the as state" the idea Mas that of the fLrst as state step Ln affording the a period". But reaLLy there Ls no opposLtLon: both are coMpatLbLe with anarchLsM: there Ls /yio^d than one May of deaiing MLth a scoundreL. The qeneraL shape of poLLtLcaL transfurMation, both Ln cLassicat MarxisM and Ln anarchLsM, Ls a MuLti-stage transforMation MLth 1) transLtLon states, Mhere the state Ls retaLned, 2) an end state, Mhere the state Ls reMoved. But the suggestion, especiaLLy LenLn, Ln that even Ln the end state of Ls cuMHUH LSM, the s ta te M L L L surv eve: criticai Marx Lsts anarchist of proposeLs for the destruction of authority of every k end, and the introduction of totaL decentrat­ er L tic LsM ts decentraLisation^; but it difference (which ref Leet unfairLg never the Less deeper with Loaded, r*. MBf^S out differences Ln every kind and totaL Lts tMO areas MorLd of substantLaL vieM). For exaMpLe, Leadership need not be excLuded, Mhere roLe to direct is freeLy granted and does -4- not devoive into 3 fixed or imposed power relationship? and influence mag be exercised from federai to Locai LeveL as we Li as from LocaL to federai. There are batch a sort of theorg to anarchism. Like of iesser associations aiso removed bg distancing the be outiined from its dominant rivaL, accepted too much Eniightenment doctrine, anarchism. For (e.g. the essentiai goodness of man, the unaiieged instance, benigness centurg 19th science, of and worthwhiLeness of dominant economic goats. Not ontg was it too much a product of thinking: Eniightenment it shared with Marxist unecoLogicaL assumptions about the eiimination of scarcitg, and with capitalism assumption an reduction (at Least in most of its individuai of being an exception). If we trg to reach behind the contrasts, of 19th centurg poLiticaL thought. both orthodox and at ternatives"'. do we reduct ion ism, . science individuai especiaLLg what find? and Not reduct ion ism, ontg worship, techno Logg and maximisation, but mang other doctrines from its mgre orthodox, powerfut and yei/cvc-Z successfui rivais, incLuding domination, ^forms of domination. It is the removai of a wide varietg of forms of domination, of a ims at (Martin's power getting rid of)^ the structures, that negative side of anakgrie. rTn-srchg, w t th the remove L of state, ts ontg part of that: tt aLsc remova L anakgrie concerns the of domination of nature (bg humans), countrgside (bg cities), women (bg men), b Lacks (bg whites), etc. Rs the removai of weeds makes wag for new growth, so the removaL of domination makes wag respects too reiations anakgrie forms for new relations. The primitive side of anakgrie is concerned, among other things with such retations, especiaiig seLf-reguLating of of reaches this far with stabie sort, and wags of achieving them. begond what anarch ism. 5- and In these was normaLLg encompassed bg j was selected RnakgrLe tupographLc to resembLance resembLance, and e^c4mf"Cttics4T.3 get It - Ln tern the was It of* because Lts and phonetcc cLose enough to benefit bg the Ls hopefuLLg, to shed the bed /A <%<2 the fLrst term arrLved at, bg eng weans, get Lt not removed, means rough Lu the same as the fLrst. resuLt however anarkLe . enough farMas part SRNOOillNISfl, In the search terms new for f'crst the L.e. sandomLn (wtthout waster or authorLtg) But atthough domLnatLon cs one of the ma tn thcngs to be removed tn served for aLternatLve arrangements, especLaLLg) Ls onLg Ln domLnatLon part range pLcture. the of a of forms (envLronmentaL DLth domLnatLon Ls assumed to go subject Lon and expLoLtatLon of what Ls domLnated. LIL th domLnatLon a Lso tends go Yet expans ton. there are other thtngs. [Expand, when Look at domLnatLon Later.J Finother word Looked at that has some currencg state Less roughLg LLteraLLg Lt means to acephaLous Ls wLthout a head head Less . meaning It Ls not a part Lou LarLg good term for present purposes. state The operates wLth,ratLfLes, SLnce both AnakgrLe domLnatLon. the same road for a Long part of ensure, and reLg upon, and LegLtLmLzes forms of and anarchg aLm to eLLmLnate these, theg traveL thejourneg. Find forms of domLnatLon - Lf the rLde together; and state Ls as mang crLtLcs, anarchLsts, have argued - then anakgrLe LncLudes anarchg. of the LnLtLaL argument, theg mang some In ang case bound to not reaLLg for sssLmLLatLon^ Ln much the interests of brevLtgwLLL not be too mLsLeadLng. S great Ls proper - Ls advantage of anakgrLe, however - and one reason whg the LncLusLon thLsj- The rewovaL of domLnatLon gLves actLvLsts something LmmedLate to work for, and Ln an ef'fectLve wag — 3gaLn bg contrast wLth anarchg, whLch mau be a Long-term project, or aLmost a do-nothLng one Ln some advanced capLtaLLst states. -6- FOOTNOTES The probiem is frequentiy not one of suppiy, but rather of 1. distribution stiii -3 matter of poiitico-economic arrangements. 2. Negativety remains a prob Lem. It is considered beioM. 3. foLLoM Preface iJhat are from the by N.Y. KeLpinsky, to thLs work. couLd be argued is that the idea of immediate modern states is rather naive. ) A <3' /ZuA <5^ /7^ c y*&"- -7- 7 21/3/84 - I. ANARCHISM : %ea</oc/ s The multiple aims of Often theory. political an aim,^ is takq^ to (model) of the good society, or even more strongly (and less likely) of a or perfect, society. But, to put it in an old-fashioned way, there is no "X such thing as the good society, any more than there is such a thing as the good life. In at principle least, are there variety a of good and societies, even pluralistically there are different mixes (or pluralities) of good societies. ft -Ritter's Rosseau, (p.135) problem A with of ' Marx, equality, vs. with models material of the good de^dgnce^ vs society (e-g- Prato, with The^ can be combined in a pluralistic framework of intellectual virtues)^ vanishes, many good societies. competing Likewise the problem of conflicting values is much reduced, 4 and indeed given sufficient tolerance of other arrangements largely vanishes. Ritter, Equality. 'The real p.137: /?* diversity that matlcs anarchist society is supposed to be accompanied by equality of staffs'. But this is not required. even is equality of power, but rather removal of social power. Nor This leads Ritter on to the alleged conflict of community, which is 'repressive', and individuality. But some conflict Ae. ^following is alright^ as Ritter admits later (pp.138-9), where he gives conflict: pairs? generating diversity/equality, r?J censure/^o^^^ individuality/community. Consistency requirements. required to demonstrate Ritter^ at^mp^yes these everywhere; e.g. the of public censure. , from partial models, argues of a state-less issue f ____ of.consistency of freedom with use But see also(p.l, p.9^ Ritter harmoniousness) *i ^3- / condition, p.138. (also consistency anarchists are to consistency, and permissibility of some limited communities and arrangements of anarchistic (primarily those given by Krop^t^ut)^ 1. Criticisms^ 'Individualism gone wild' destructive 'socially (Hyndman), This confuses pluralistic/socialistic anarchism with right- selfishness (Rp.140). And as R's model one has 'communal individuality'. leaning^ 2. Social oppressiveness gang' 'adolescent picture^ Thus But, e.g. on suffocating contrary group peer considerable very permit^ pressures; individualism and choice. Insufficient 'provision for privacy, for external self-expression and for 3. meeting claims in problems of distributive some anarchist justice' communities, While (Rp.140). things these 'Godwin's conversational e.g. may be anarchy', they are not problems in pluralistic arrangements. Ritter argues however that in the anarchistic society the needs for privacy vanishes - both as refuge from considerable intrusions and as a place of seclusion A for inner growth or restoration. But these things depend on much^improved other people. 3.2 Of course nothing excludes solitude. 4 The issue of older character of such behaviour by reasoned ties up with the the expression of emotions anarchism, argument. the settling ig&aanarchisms of reject disputes rationalistic and reliance the controlling on reason, because reason has too often been used for evil ends, etc., and because emotional attributes are considered to be more central MiilLLiinally-oriented anarchism, to Ritter draws on the In rejecting more person. the reason/formation * dichotomy. * t i ' vp-v {y But emotion does not exclude or block out reason indefinitely. emotion does not interfere with freedom: So too it is false that 'the extensive freedom /! of classical anarchy is simply unattainable without the limits on emotional self­ expression that non-rational anarchists reject' (Rp.143). 3.3 special failure The of bestow to on benefits from a one-track view, This again comes talents. society anarchistic those with from pure communistic anarchism alone. Ritter argues [or understanding', people will not receive is better It 'desire , efficient production incentives' (p.143). He argues to develop ... native talents', 'satisfaction 'polytechnical education' that people not of to argue 'just de^ejfft'^ re&SM^@d] A usual varied work', voluntary, etc. these without 'mutual ... some in terms of what they put in, still ' v'tewetf occurs though that (of English from in character!), this sort will choose different life-styles, in different communities. The 4. political 'unanimous 'repudiation of (Rp.144). direct democracy'. individuality between This theory' citizenship is and which active citizenship' to has argued Rosseau (see citizenship correlative to a state, do with 'is a anarchistic there that recurrent theme Rp.145): was a criticism of contradiction itself. dubious in But . . . , , so^not too surprising that it is damaged. Anarchism gives much greater scope for the do-nothing or do—it-when-you-feel-like- it life. No filling-in blw form; at this cn. times, voting^ those Ejeg^ixicLal days, etc. demoded, time, registrations at those , That is, it offers a range of freedoms the citizen does not get. Presumably also then the Kantian idea of man as a self-governing citizen also gets ditched. public But the alleged accompanying virtues - such as being self-directred, spirited, controlling die t ing - are not lost, but enhanced. For communities replace the state as the place where they are manifested. 5. 1 Argument making. roblem from the strange character of anarchist arises because it (p.148), provided Wational procedural permits bad freedom and decision- decision-making, rules are met. so R claims This is very curious. But 4 cjoc4 the problem of appeals to rationality-justified freely-chosen exploitation ^arise^ here. constraints - which from a consistency viewpoint limits freedom. R The constraints are internalisation, positional authority, censorial rebuke. Anarchist arrangements are better superior to feasible alternatives, than where we are. Since they are also that is enough for movement in that direction. No requirement of best need be met. 5. dm rd al Anarchism is a dangerous ideal, because it helps undermine the established 4 social order. But it is pernicious because that ideal is unattainable. ) 6. no place Objection to anarchist methods. in them. example' (p.152). According to R But aversion and fraud are said to have the main methods are 'fr#ecof argument and But this ^gnves out a range of i-ndi-catrrves and strategies. s THE^ARCUhEETS HJR THE STATE. There are a variety of arguments^*which will be ass^^bled at first a jumbled order. Other arguments are: in from organisational demands, from law and order, from provision of public goods generally, from maximization (ana prisoners' dilemma, etc.) (e.g.A A. surprising Argument for the State is given by economists Atkinson and Lectures Stieglit^, in Economics). Public required to regulate market(s) and ensure that theorems of The state is welfare even ground that it apply, Is that .case? .the market is invariably recommended ------- /) is self-regulating, and can dispense with government. Argument for^ state appalling^from ideal). that overcoming CrSiK angle^ angle deficiencies really of ^market For it means that the market is assumed (as All.argument shows ^is that market isn't means of regulation^ that should adopts^ In a way it is a reductio of ^market. It may be claimed that it is analytically that true any society involves a state. This is false. Social arrangements without state powers A)ct 5M! L' / J -- CT are perfectly possible. ^&onstruct small social moael^,, The argument that no society &ommon4ry-1 s anthropologists iI^ defence of the claim that 71c internal by some primitive society is anarchic - depends on an A-conversion. ^rgument^^j QJ (a) every society has exhibits (some) used stateless order , fJ"— (otherwise it would not be a society) (b) the basic proper^function of order, i .e. (c) the fA/e is to ensure internal state^(ought to% impl^) order. there is internal order.there must be some sort of state. 7 ^77777^77- /71 <?/= ^7757777; - /<F^ / 3? ARGUMENTS AGAINST STATES AND THEIR POKERS Nation-state arrangements, which based on assumptions of are fairly recent phenomena, are a cert^jn amount of independence and isolation. The rise of technology, including communication, have put these assumptions in doubt, as has.war. 1 'The presumption of the nation-state system, that sovereignty implied an ability to protect a nation's territory and population, is precisely the presumption denied by the nuclear, capacities 313). This was already put in doubt by of both other superpowers' things: (PL, now also by Consider again also Argument A. 1) Kars are the rights of states only.3 'x may [wagej war upon y only if x is a sovereign state; has legal means (Barnes, p.776). declaration of by which it may 3. not of authority, requires 'just authority' to do so, thus: authority of a prince, at whose command the war is to does otherwise x and must settle the claim against y' Thus Aquinas explains the condition war for be that 'first the waged; for it belong to a private person to start a war since he can prosecute Naturally one has to worry about private armies and so forth, as well. But undoubtedly the overwhelming problem in the case of 4cyp*=. LN wars with the superstate. his rights in the court of a superior' (Aquinas, quoted in Barnes, In tact however an alternative factual premiss will serve as well: (a) only (super)states are capable of waging LN wars. p.776). PATHS TO ANARCHISTIC END-STATE Pasture of stages ( o ) and transitions (o ** o) finish start Golden future age Present Past Intermediate states '? Pluralist anarchism Communist anarchism Kingdom of God Corporate capitalism State socialism Democratic socialism Totalitarianism A useful model for the process is that of punctuated equilibrium, drawn from recently reformulated evolutionary theory. Another useful model is Kuhn's picture of the growth of science, which is also one of punctuated equilibrium, the equilibrium dominates, There is states or stages being those where a scientific paradigm the transitions between stages being rapid and even revolutionary. presumably a general model of this type within the framework of systems theory, which brings models of this type together [verify *1]. The classical anarchist assumption is that no intermediate stages need be involved, we can transit directly (in a single revolutionary upheaval) into an anarchistic end-state - a pretty unplanned and unprepared for end-state. the fast increasing size of the world's With human population and complexity of modern organisation - both further locking things into statist frames - that assumption looks increasingly untenable. reasons for supposing necessary. There are also, and always were, that intermediate preparation and planning stages are For what have to be altered, in particular, are human attitudes, 2 expectations, etc. - malleable parts of human "nature" that can be altered by reeducation, reflection and immersion in alternative conditions. What has to be changed? Much. The modern encouragement of greed - in such forms as maximum consumption, maximum production, etc. of gross inequality. economic bottom up, The is reversal to be achieved in affluent and by redirecting military and industrial What still has some appeal is reorganising. The entrenchment the idea, spending into social suggested by Marx's work, of initial transition into a state governed from the bottom (certainly no longer workers) instead of from the top: this pending of states' structure could but the intended good effects of be rather quickly lost (like the Aid­ effects of shallowly^/cultural revolutions). A critical question is what produces the direction and so on are desirable. decidedly undesirable, e.g. nuclear war. But one state to some causes of^ transition are There are other ways as the models natural cataclysm, economic instability The anarchistic which - from For if we can find out perhaps we can hasten the process - assuming another? reveal, transition route is a branch on the 1 accumulation o^f anomalies. 2 tree of future political options, blown over and assuming a single starting point (that of Australia say) - schematically looks like this? ^E.g. the present loans and deficit situation, especially in third world countries. 2 Including undermining of state economies by al ternative economies (examples from places like Peru). 3 Anarchistic branches It is crucial to avoid many of the alternative futures possible from where we are, e.g. transitions to the increasing state-corporate control of life. The Kingdom of God can^ be comjhpared with the marxist findj state? The Kingdom of God is pacifist (state). Peace is fully realised, and justice i^foundation of it (yet there are tensions between them sometimes?) J/ / _---- .-------------- seek 3 newer world. 'Its % <7^t/ 1 ?V^^/ 4^7 1 state has destroyed so Much of coMMunity arrangeMents that road anarchism wiii have to Make use of the state. 11 Ls L ike 3 weed such as lantana, It has suppressed growth of the new forest, But simply sorting it out will expose the ground to forces fertile to the new forest aiso (moisture stress, erosion, etc.), bo the state Must be pruned awasy, substituted for, and Jttirpated bit by bit. &. There is now so Much governMent - the governMent effectively in Many so areas of IsoMMunal structures - that simply/ social life, Ibreaking down and displacing dispensing with governMent, an immediate to coMMunal arrangeMents, could not be accomplished without Massive dislocation. Short of a Massive disaster, disabling governmental s^^ructure, return instant anarchisM is not feasible. Since such a disaster is not improbable, instant anarchism should not however be excluded, but, -^pnte.s states, allowed and planned for. Otherwise, the like route more evolutionary is by replacement, ching us or substituting for the displaced coMMunity structures broken down state ac t iv i ty. Removal of government - not from where controls are required ac^trarl rep lacements^e.g. transitional penetration, big business,(are developed^ - from exploitative areas, e.g. gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. 5et up instead nets to gatch people/victijhs of these things. voluntarg arrangement freelg unLirtt/ted to, then contributions to state coffer^ should also be votuntarg, likewise involving free assent, not If ^the state compulsorg as theg are. But then free-rider problems, etc. No, onlg showing there wasn t consent, bg mang exodus from fragments. If there were onlg a few free-riders^ these people who didn't have a state constribution and would get state carried, such as police - as simple as RR You bug state protection, whatever, just Ibke state insurance. / . E Is ter Sour Gr apes p. 37_bqttow (a Iso surrounding section)) ....... ...... —' ------------- ------------------------ ueMucracg anc^- o the r po1i t ica1 :sustems advanted bu various authors for their side effects Z! o which obtainable better in other wags. Lare for anarchism here. Patemen good A ____ J* j On Tr.3nsn.3t Lona Ls The sources of -3re power of one sort or another. SocLaL arrangements wLthout ^%?-W^-b^-h'A^^>wLLL be designed so far as possLbLe to LLmLt such power and prevent Lts accumutatLon. Prevent,^ gLobaL corp^arrangements/ LnternatLonaLLsm^ aLready over hLLL. Rnd good twenty years our of date. //GLobaL (^each p.368.. Rehun^ the prob Lem — passed by the gLobaL corporatLon ... ---------------------/) ms Ls excessLve power, and the seLf-Lmpatred LLmLtatLon on power cs not characterr Jsttc of human LnstLtutLons',^ rearranged?. Remedies. 1. at InformatLon and end to secrecy, as a way to socLaL responses.^ books as pubLLc documents etc., p.369. 2. TndLspensLbLe data for natLonaL program of natLonaL and Lnternat- LonaL reguLatLon, 370. Sc<%/<)<2 , Standsrd Last Lon of accountLng -r-------- and practLces. p.3*^/ Breakdown of pubLLc/prLvate dLstLnctLon and dLsappearance of free market? 'L--------- . GLobaL co rpo rat Lons buLLt on socLaL cap^taL consp ucuous L^* p.376 RLternatLon of t3X Laws to remove credLts and Tax bLas Ln favour of transnatLonaLs. counterrLdLng power / be^^re strateggt^ , pubLLc dLrectors , better uaadetermLnatLon , pre^Ldents runnLng for c?r companys at Least eLectLonjfor candLdates of reguLati)$y comm css conf GeneraLLyatter tax Laws, remove subsLdLes whLch 4ncouraaa the accumutatLon of . ,7 prLvate weaLth, and power, us Lng pubLLc/socLat and bLoLogLcaL capLtaL. ^7^ /j /y CCyTY ^g -y power. fAc State underpinning of multinationals. Multinationals would not have arisen to their present position of eminence without state assistance - and infrastructure, education, security, etc. N^d detailed evidence of this. Then can argue that problem of multinationals can be resolved, more or -3 p less automatically, with problem of state. /^* /? -e^— 7 0 ,%?. rofit system^never satisfactory,^now extremely dama^gmg. Compare^ damag fetnoTie. , / i be profits - and look at the way these ^to worlds by destruction for profits are spent. Profit system compare with (ccyM?) sovereignty systems. an anarchist.theory. LAW . jLaw is incompatible with anarchist utopianism. Anarchism can retain a framework of rules. are backed up, and enforced. where this involves violence. pre^$e, etc. consider, This is false. The key issue is how these rules What anarchism excludes is coercive backing Opposition usually involves sliding on coergion, So it looks as if there are several different theses to depending on how enforcement, rules, etc. are expanded. Kam argued that anarchism could not handle law on basis of A i. A level of detail of law. ii. amount of procedural detail. But there are no barrier at all. be refuted by a countermodel. Complexity is no bar. The claims can One such is the model Chom^siey appeals to, that of rules of language, which are complex and intricate enough, and nvj backed by force (Passmore wanted to suggest they were! But it is obvious that they need not be, whatever lapses occurred in the 16th century.) As a matter of history, several anarchist thinkers were not opposed to operation of law, but included it in their framework. Proudhon. Others? One example is /^ <2 MY ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY Over the past decadeI have found myself increasingly concerned with social and political problems and more and more immersed in the theoretical issues raised thereby. In large part this has arisen from environmental involvement, especially on forestry and nuclear matters, and the realisation that the basic problems mostly lay with social and political arrangements. It thus became important to try to determine what those really were, and how they might be changed, what the alternatives weie. But in part also my legitimate intellectual movement from logic and meta­ physics^ to a wider perspective which includes social and political philosophy as major area of concern has come about as a result of reflection on the unsatisfactory and fragmented state of philosophy and its surrounds. It became increasingly hard (in particular for someone trained in analytic philosophy with a heavy Oxbridge orientation) to avoid noting, especially when confronted with wider philosophical and social issues, that one's philosophical education and ifn 1972 I presented and circulated a paper, 'Is there a need for a new, and environmental ethic?' which played an influential part in the rapid growth of environmental philosophy in New Zealand and Australia (on the latter see D. Mannison and M. McRobbie in Environmental Philosophy). Such an excursion into ethics was not without precedent. My research work in fact began in ethical theory, with a thesis on moral scepticism, and I thought about and wrote on deontic problems in the sixties. ^The point is explained in detail in work cited in the accompanying curriculum vitae (where all otherwise unreferenced work is listed). In the case of forestry see for example 'Destructive forestry in Australia and Melanesia' and 'World rainforest destruction - the social factors'; as to nuclear see 'Nuclear power - some ethical and social dimensions' and 'The ethics of nuclear war, and political fall-out'; and for the general argument see 'Social theories, self management and environmental problems'. ^This does not mean that I have entirely abandoned these areas. Logic is, I believe (with Anderson, and so with the mainstream of Australia's most significant philosophical movement), the central part of philosophy, and many conceptual problems in applied philosophy will continue to require return to logical ground in order to find satsifactory solutions. A sound training in logical theory is essential for deeper solutions for some of these problems. I should add that I never have been a very pure logician. I moved into logic in order to try to solve severe conceptual problems first in the philosophy of science and then in metaphysics. Now that these problems are largely solved (to my satisfaction at any rate) I can presumably move on to other things. 2. practice offered only a somewhat limited set of tools and techniques for tackling wider philosophical concerns and, worse, but few instruction as to how to apply these analytic techniques more widely. Nor had the inadequacy of such an education and the sort of philosophy to which it led gone unremarked. It was charged that philosophy had abdicated several of its proper respons­ ibilities - for example, to organise knowledge into some more coherent whole or world-view, to elaborate a social theory and influence social criticism, even to afford intellectual leadership - and had become excessively analytic and specialised, and therewith narrow and sterile (concerned, e.g., merely with linguistic niceties, conservative commonsense and/or scholastic logic-chopping). It was charged that academic philosophy not only had become excessively timid and accordingly lost intellectual excitement and appeal, but also had lost relevance to and touch with the important intellectual issues of the times and had failed in the business of addressing a larger audience with philosophical interests. These charges, which have a solid foundation, did not come from within academic philosophy but were most evocatively made by people outside philosophy (though with some knowledge of it) or by those in the margins of academic, professional­ ised^ philosophy. Thus Durrant, an outsider, has powerfully expressed a part of the charges: ... philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture of the good, found its task of inordination too stupendous for its usage, ran away from ... .'LtheJ battlefronts of truth, and hid itself in recondite and narrow lanes, timidly secure from the issues and responsibilities of life.* Philosophy began to change in the Seventies, some philosophers naturally changing with it. We aimed to address a wider range of socially relevant topics - and also sometimes a .wider audience - for example, to get beyond the ^W. Durrant, The Story of Philosophy, Second edition, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1926, p.v. Durrant though (or perhaps because) a leading populariser of philosophy in North America, is not usually at all well regarded by academic philosophers. 3. sterile examples of previous texts on moral philosophy to live issues, from minor cases of promising and truth-telling to abortion and euthanasia, genetic engineering and the treatment of animals, violence and nuclear war. But the analytical methods used for the most part did not change, the widening of horizons in applied philosophy proceeded from a narrow and inadequate logical (argumentive) and metaphysical base. stagnation: The applied expansion went with theoretical mainstream theoretical philosophy sat in the doldrums. Nor has the applied transformation gone far enough. Significant issues have been left to theologians and journalists.And there has been insufficient effort by philosophers (even those addressing relevant issues) to integrate their work with that of other (social) sciences that shed light on the issues, to overcome discipline fragmentation by synthesis. For it was not merely that philosophy itself was fragmented and often irrelevant, it had also become largley isolated from other disciplines and had ceased to be properly informed by them - or to inform them. This unsplendid isolation is particularly conspicuous in the case of political philosophy, which often proceeds in much the way it did in the 17th century, with little of the import it should be receiving from recent advances in social psychology and well-founded) sociobiology. ethology and (to the extent that it is More generally, the way in which areas have been isolated from one another, and ceased communicating, to the disadvantage to all, is a matter for serious concern. It is not merely that philosophy, for example, can be enriched by taking due account of the social sciences. The ^This description derives from Passmore. ^Philosophers and other academics should not be led in these areas, but do the leading. One of the roles of the academic community - a role in which philosophy in Australia (much, degenerated by too long an incestuous history) mostly fails - is to address a wider public than part of itself. Philosophers may justly complain that there is little competent public discussion of these issues where applied philosophy matters and no reputable intellectua ea er ship in Australia at present, but they have by and large done little to rectify the matter. 4. social sciences also can be improved, and much rubbish removed, by taking account of philosophical criticism.Each impacts on the others, in ways that should be taken into account. Moreover the interplay of different parts is fruitful.2 There is a richness to be generated if the interaction works well. And such interaction is required to pull much material into a more coherent whole. Such sentiments on integrating areas and rendering work more informed and holistic have been expressed before. another putting them into effect. It is one thing expressing them, and The tasks involved are difficult. And putting them into effect is not of course a task for just one person, but for several. A start can however be made with interdisciplinary people who willingly cross discipline boundaries, because they need to, and see the need to; by people who are able to adopt the often special methods and procedures of other disciplines and combine them with those of their own. But a start can not in general be satisfactorily initiated just by administrative fiat. A good deal of evidence has now accumulated to show that an administrator cannot simply pull together a successful interdisciplinary research group by hiring people skilled in the different disciplines concerned and putting them in a common setting. Such, groups can evolve however by individuals with wide-ranging concerns interesting other researchers or like-inclined people from other disciplines in overlapping or joint problems. And in setting up the conditions for such collaborative research to evolve, administrative inputs are important. It is, for example, an astute move to have a position linking several different departments 3 attached to none of them but to a section that sits so-to-speak above them; for in this way the researcher has access to all the departments concerned but is confined to none. *New philosophies of nature call for much more than this, indeed for major theor­ etical reorientation of some social sciences. The point is elaborated in the concluding part of 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics'. 2Nor will unified or coherent social sciences be arrived at without substantial philosophical imports. 3 As the present post does. influenced the move. No doubt other political considerations have also 5. I think I can justifiably account myself an interdisciplinary person. Firstly, I have considerable experience in collaborative work, an advantage that philosophers, in contrast to experimental scientists, seldom enjoy. claim is supported by my publication record. The While that indicates the extent of my joint activity in research, it does not fully record cooperative activity in organising conferences and workshops, both in logic and in environmental philosophy, in helping found or reestablish organisations (the Australasian Association of Logic is the main example, but the local AAP is another), in establishing publications (e.g. the Environmental Philosophy Discussion Papers serve both Philosophy Departments) and so on. More significantly, I can also fairly claim substantial experience in interdisciplinary work, as well as in other fields of philosophy. For example, I have worked not only in philosophy departments but in mathematics and in environmental studies programs.i Furthermore, my work in forestry, which is continuing, brought me into close touch with people from a broad spectrum of fields, not only forestry, but also economics, geography, demography, botany and zoology. The work, which is well-known locally and referred to in inter­ national textbooks, has for the most part been well received by people in those area, except forestry, and has been taken seriously .by those who disagree with the often controversial positions developed. My more recent work on environmental problems has led me to communicate and interchange material with sociologists and political Scientists in North American and England, and also with people in a variety of fields in Australian Colleges of Advanced Education. Naturally then, much of the resulting work reaches people in a range of fields. My work on environmental problems has also resulted in invitations to participate in conferences in a wide range of areas, on forestry (in several Australian ^1 declined invitations to work in interdisciplinary research groups in Washington and The Hague primarily because they would have kept me away from Australia too long and obliged me to endure northern winters. 6. states), on energy, on the environment (in New Guinea and USA). I have twice been invited to present papers at Australian Sociology conferences, but been unable to do so because of commitments abroad. The basic forestry book The Fight for the Forests, and subsequent forestry and environmental papers, already included much that bears upon and is informed by social and political theory. A new book, tentatively entitled Forestry in Australia, now in preparation by a team of people drawn from a wide range of disciplines - which is intended to replace The Fight for the Forests, long out of print - will be even more closely involved with social and political theory. It includes much fuller analysis of social classes and power structures (and models of these) as well as, like earlier work, examination of elites, and types of inequality. This should also begin to reveal how my work on apparently diverse areas is interrelated, and not a result of compartmentalisation. Most obviously, my work on forestry, which directly involves a range of environmental problems, in a very practical way, leads directly into areas of social and political theory. It is less obvious, but nonetheless a fact, that work on environmental problems, value theory and logic, is not disconnected, but joined by several connecting ways. For example, relevant deontic logic has shown how the key moral matter of moral dilemmas and conflicts of value can be treated. The logic of obligation is important in rejecting arguments that there is a significant separate "morality" for nation states or for public representatives of these which exonerates them from normal responsibility. Differently, logic provides the basis of decision theory, which is important in structuring environmental problems. And so on, to look at some of the more straightforward connections. There are larger connections. Social and political theory necessarily presupposes ^Explanations of these connections are much expanded in "The logical basis of the social sciences'. 7. a metaphysics, and this in turn a logical theory X Philosophers of very different persuasions, for instance Hegel and Mill, have agreed about this. Of course work in logic, such as that in probability theory and on statistical inference, sometimes speaks directly to other areas in the social sciences. My own work on universal semantics is of interest to linguists, and 'Universal semantics?' was abstracted in Sociological Abstracts, as have been several of my philosophical papers, on for example metaphysics, limits to Work on the recent history of logic and knowledge and animal intentionality. of philosophy of science in Australasia has led me into some sociological as well as historical investigations. political science and economics. Logical pursuits have also lead me into Because of my interest in applied logic I came to take over supervision of B. Embury's doctoral dissertation on voting theory, a thesis in the Department of Political Science. in work with a post-doctoral social choice theory. My interests also involved me fellow on preference and decision theory and Regretably no joint work issued from this enterprise, but I did publish some papers in the area, and emerged with further ideas for research jotted down: these ideas, mainly for further impossibility and limitative results in social theory, have yet to be followed through. My present research in social and political theory has (like a conic section) double foci. One focus (Fl) is a book tentatively entitled The Philosophic Reach of Environmental Problems and intended to supersede Environmental Philosophy in main respects, on the ethical, social and political dimensions of environmental problems.2 familiar list: The central problems yield a now rather for instance, those of human and animal populations, disappearing species, vanishing rainforests and other habitats and ecosystems, treatment (and rights) of indigenous peoples, of animals and of plants, cities and substantial start in explaining these deeper connections is made in 'Social theories, self management and environment problems' and in Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, chapter 9, ^12. ^Here environmental is used in the wide sense, of which the ecological is only a quite proper part. 8. neighbourhoods, landscape transformation or destruction, mining, pollution, nuclear and energy issues, and so on. The underlying problems have significant features in common and common social and political sources. Before the integrative task is tackled in detail however, an analytical approximative approach is being followed. Discussion papers on several of the topics listed are being researched or written, and discussion papers on others will follow, before the whole thing is pulled together. The other focus (F2) is a book on what might be called New Age Social Organisation, investigating alternatives to prevailing social, economical and political arrangements. Major alternatives considered in detail include left­ leaning and right-leaning anarchisms, which will involve a careful examination of the extent to which social arrangements and political organisations can be self-managed and self-regulating. While it is ambitiously hoped that the investigation will not only result (ideally) in a more philosophically-adequate left-leaning anarchist theory than has so far been produced, that is only part of its purpose. Another very important part of the enterprise is to give some better understanding of the range of alternatives to present (monopolistic capitalist and state socialist) arrangements that there are and that could be tried. A further part is, by considering alternatives, to shed light on the prevailing systems (their structures, institutions, etc.), in particular to bring out more clearly their underlying assumptions,the extent of their necessity, to give a better idea ^In several respects the term 'anarchism' is unsatisfactory and will have event­ ually to be replaced, perhaps by a neologism, since no available term delineates the types of socio-political arrangements envisaged. It should perhaps be remarked, in case it is thought that I have no academic background in political theory, that my university education did include courses and seminars in the area. Furthermore I have more recently acquired a good working knowledge of the anarchist literature, and am well advanced in the process of obtaining a grasp of organisation theory and the necessary parts of social psychology. Some of these assumptions are rejected or varied in an assessment of alternatives. Thus, as a much better idea of euclidean geometry was obtained with the elaboration of hyperbolic and Riemannian geometry, and similarly of arithmetic with the formulation of nonstandard arithmetics, so also a much better appreciation of mainstream social theory should be achieved by investigating nonstandard social theories and assumptions. This method of variation of assumptions is a fruitful one as regards many scientific,theories. of the values they write in, of their desirability or undesirability, and so on. Although my enagement has two main foci, naturally there are also other and smaller endeavours under way: of these - but only some. the attached curriculum vitae gives some indication For example, the trilogy of papers on the meaning of life, nihilism, and the ultimate existence question is to be arranged into a book which will probably also address such related issues as the quality of life. Richard Routlev zi___ A_ ^L</^—*^/y /J &4n^-*- "" J^TL^ r/7v—, 7/ /<?\A<?/ Ay 3 ANAKYRIE. In Chapter 1 The multiple and inconsistent axioms of political theory : pluralism, morality, ... The differences in theory begin at the beginning, in what political arrangements are for, what they are about, whom they are for, how they apply. There are important differences in the extent to which peoples' and other creatures' activities and lives can be controlled and regulated. More authoritarian or paternalistic political arrangements impose much more in the way of regulations than more liberal arrangements which in theJlimit reduce regulation or setting for pursuit of satisfactory lives. to some minimum, to some So far as political relations are concerned, the world (Terr& is a closed system. Political influence is not exercised from outside that system, nor f!'o political influences of significance so far flow from Terra elsewhere. (All that may of course change, in which case the problem is reset in terms of some larger system, the Universe providing an upper limit - unless some extraspb tial gods are invoked.) With the advance of industrialisation, communications and spill-over technology, few communities smaller than the world system are any longer effectively closed. The general political problem is unsolvable. The argument for this theme is that the problem is only solvable for small relatively uniform But we no longer have such, given modern interference com-unities (Taylor). effects. The basic picture is of a network of goal-directed Defining the^problem: creatures and systems. The aim (political goal) is to ensure that these creatures are able to pursue goals so far as these are satisfactory. A major value judgment is inserted here : what of wiping out lives, of war, etc., those that interfere seriously with others? A liberal setting such as Redman sketched is operating in the background here. Present political arrangements anachronistic : they were introduced at a time when much less interference was technically possible. longer appropriate. The They are no of empires now affects everyone s lives, so on democratic grounds all should have say (or vote). But they don t : democracy stops at national borders (even in those borders where it kmd-of operates). 2 Present political arrangements, by increasing population, etc. for what sort of consumption high can be obtained by present people are making things much worse. For the benefit of present power-holders, their maintenance of power and privilege, short-term drr the inadequacies of %^ts - of present economics within political frameworks. On the End State: According to Kamenka a central deficiency of a M^up-ist account is its pre­ industrial character, also its romantic character, and its view of creative labour. These are a result in part of looking for utopia in the past, the sources of which according to Kumenka are: (i) a mistaken view of the happy (noble) savage; (ii) the abundance of industry; (iii) the rationality of industry (presumably its increasingly automatic and self-regularity character?). This is confused. Sources (ii) and (iii) are the basis of the past industrial character of the end state (where the machines are really whirring along). The main source of the search in the past is quite different, namely the search for historical models, however partial, of the good or better life. The reason is that (iv) there is something drastically wrong with present arrangements which not rectified by minor adjustments. The end state, so far as it is described, is certainly a curious mixture of A' pre- and past-industrial elements. The end state is not a static state, but a stable, climax state. analogy is again useful here. The ecological Capitalism is like a pioneering stage. Stable states may have been achieved in the past, to be disturbed in one way or another. That is one reason why it is important to look in the past - for fc^r^r of past stable states. Political theory (note A *) As a result of the way 'political system' is commonly defined, anarchy is not a political system. The reason is that 'most authors consider the modern political system to be that system which controls the use of power or force in society' (Kaplan, p.22). therewith that system. Anarchy aims to remove use of power and force, and The exclusion could of course be taken to be a (further) inadequacy in the definition, a mere technicality almost, got around by expanding 'controls' disjunctively to 'controls or removes'. 3 For whether or not anarchy is a political system, it is certainly an organisational system or structure. POLITICAL THEORY AND MORALITY 1. On the one hand, it is claimed that 'any acceptable form of social order...must rest on moral foundations, which are in principle ascertainable at any period, and permanently valid'.'*' (Donegan, p.xiv) On the other, and more common view, politics simply tramples over morality when it suits it. However that is a matter of one morality, e.g. of a Christian established form, being overwhelmed by another Mafia-style morality not the absence of a value position. theory. 2. Any political theory rests on a value That is the point. There is the problem of evil, powerful people, often unintentionally evil people such as Reagan, Thatcher, ... Hitler flourished most of his life; he led an active (etc.) life ... 3. Anarchism does not require especially good people. But political life would run much more easily without a certain range of people. (Of course, states think this, and totalitarian states try to realise theit aim). 4. On Political Obligation obligation. There is no good ground as basis of political All arguments designed to establish obligation to a state - of people living in it ('its territory') especially - are wanting. (Argument for this there). Scepticism about political obligation does not imply scepticism about obligation. So moral scepticism is not implied. And on the contrary, most requirements are of the first importance in outlining alternatives to the state. Hobbes problem was that of political obligation - 'reasonswhy we ought to change the state' (R p.61). Hobbes finds three causes of disorder (competition - reflecting self interest drives; distrust; argued for on ground that enjoyment of power ('glory') [Self-interest is motive is self-preservation.] To these he opposes inter - from desire for security. 1. This involves a very dubious objectivity. 4 On Marx-Engels way Although Marx and Engels say comparatively little about their projected end state, they say a great deal about the route through the new state - to that end, and about the means to be used along that route. By contrast with means, they are far too restrictive about routes, ruling out many plausible roads to change (including peasant revolutions, etc.) Engels' proposed route is through 'a new social order' where production and industry run on behalf of society, according to a social plan. The main features are addition of private property (vol.l, p.88) and of private means of communication (p.92). Note that it is unclear whether this social order is an immediate or end state, but those features are common to both. There is massive industrial and agricultural production (though not over­ production) by (rationalised) planned economy without ( ) private property (I,p.92). Hence, division into antagonistic clauses becomes superfluous. There are new all-round people (p.93), a disappearance of division of labour, for flexible labour. There is association instead of competition. Fusion of town and country (p.94). According to Marx-Engels (I,p.l83) the route is through the central state. 'The workers must not only strive [against democrats] for a single and indivisible...republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority. They must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc.' No communal property 'Concentrate productive to remain : etc... in means of of state'. This account is extremely top-down. As to means, it looks as if Marx and Engels are prepared to adopt any means, likely or not. For Marx, the main means are by violent revolution (last page Poverty of Philosophy). of classes. Revolution is the outcome of the contradiction By contrast, Engels prefers peaceful means (in 1847 i.e. vol 1, p.89); but he won't at all rule out revolution. But together Marx and Engels emphasise violent means, and encourage excuses on occasions ( p.180). 5 Under the pretext that the petty bourgeous democrats will betray the workers, the subversion (destabilization) of their government is planned (Vol 1. address of CC to League, pp.180-1) Unlike Bak Marx and Engels.advocate fostering massacres etc. stuff mean?), and a regime of terror. (for what else can this Bak thinks that in a revolutionary situation such things may occur but should be immunized (I can easily check the reference in Bak if necessary (p.180). For the most part, Engels was much more inclined to peaceful and established means to change, even to change by way of ballot box and universal suffrage; the Democratic route to state transformation (1, p.195, also 1, p.202). Note Engels' introduction to Class Struggles in France written in 1895 (p.195), e. i. later than the more bellicose texts Lenin is relying on - and as the fruit of a riper experience of politics. He says that by party action universal suffrage 'transforme de mayer de dupere qu'il a ete jusqui' en instrument d'emarcqation'and this as footnote shows is a quote from Marx. This suggests that it can be used to gain control of and subsequently transform state app In 1895 (pp.199-200) Engels suggests a revision of . Now show means, propaganda etc., to win over the mass of people [different from technological determination!] No doubt because of technological determination, there is no need to be too specific about means; for it is not as if activity is shaping the course of things, only speeding up the (in ) process. Reasons for the lack of detailed description of the end state in Marx-Engels: 1. This would be to try to set the future, which is reactionary (Why? Because of historical determination?), and unnecessary, because future people will be wiser than us. 2. Standard explanation, suggested by Marx: 'scientific socialism cannot describe in any detail the society that will replace capitalism. Utopians speculate about the socialist future : Marxists analyse the capitalist present' (Moore, p.76). Moore argues the standard explanation is implausible. 6 Principles of Individualism [ ?] 1. Government based on individually-given consent of citizens - 'its authority or legitimacy deriving from that consent' (Lubes, p.ll) Consent-answering back requirement 2. Political representation as representing individual interests, not classes, estates, etc. 3. That's all. interests. Government confined to enabling satisfaction of individual Hence towards laissez-faire, against paternalism, influencing or interpreting individual wants. (79).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 120, Item 102: Drafts and notes on anakyrie Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten and typescript drafts, with handwritten emendations. Description An account of the resource Note, one paper/notes digitised from item 102. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 120, Item 102 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [66] leaves. 150.42 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:ab005a4">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:ab005a4</a> Box 120: Philosophy Wisdom to Wowserism Como House Como House > Green Table > Pile 5 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/782aa830b37f3c3af3eaa08c7a828de3.pdf 4ab73b7547a7fffb814caf0c8790bdbd PDF Text Text 1 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 1  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 106, Item 2: OED definition of nuclear deterrence Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten note on scrap paper. Description An account of the resource Verso of leaf not digitised. Note housed in unnumbered folder marked Australia's Defence. Item number assigned by library staff. Note, one of three notes/papers digitised from item 2. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 106, Item 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [1] leaf. 340.18 KB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:8897af0">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:8897af0</a> https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/69280df7dda6039687227f260b95dbf5.pdf 7c1ef202ad9606d21abe3109d8a2ea81 PDF Text Text / 7 DEEPER NUCLEAR roots of the arms race lie in the character of science and technology: such R & D drives the arms race. science. But it is disguised by myth of neutral Deeper still the drives lie in maximisation drives for power, knowledge, ————— 4 the "newer" virtures, Enlightenment but Faustian virtues. But the attainment of these even approximately is impossible, because of limitations, because for instance ultimate power means loss of power (for power becomes go great it goes out of control). This is a variation on the paradox For these Enlightenment ends there is no maximization /// because of limits and associated paradoxes, only an illusion of attainment. A of omnipotence. Thus maximization is here irrational. and Gods; In earlier times the drive le^d to God, later defter the Enlightenment i’£ led to science - a new, much more effective God since it delivers so much cargo. In the same framework, recast Foley's paradoxes of unlimited power:- 1. Omnipotence leads to impotence 2. Omniscience leads to ignorance 3. Total rationality becomes total irrationality: [becomes?] and technicized our means, the more irrational our ends. / z the more rational sr �X>£. e & f c/~lu cr-t/^ J '7 I r/^e wl- _ -O'- rf �Jo-d , </« sT-rf ; 7^/?/°; # t <rf //^— / X 0. **x (inC/^rv^ /fo?( G^S (X */’/ferc^ IS / } /he>/ ( e^^/ /7- a JAw/kJ ^J.J. 4/r7/e>*’2S /^t/') /ru^. i^o-fr^a/ S(^,,-/<j ,/?& rSH-, G-'l J c / /Astr*^? '•*-*- /• z //c.sw'lfas- f J'^./^f /t/77 4 ��r � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document / 7 DEEPER NUCLEAR roots of the arms race lie in the character of science and technology: such R & D drives the arms race. science. But it is disguised by myth of neutral Deeper still the drives lie in maximisation drives for power, knowledge, ————— 4 the "newer" virtures, Enlightenment but Faustian virtues. But the attainment of these even approximately is impossible, because of limitations, because for instance ultimate power means loss of power (for power becomes go great it goes out of control). This is a variation on the paradox For these Enlightenment ends there is no maximization /// because of limits and associated paradoxes, only an illusion of attainment. A of omnipotence. Thus maximization is here irrational. and Gods; In earlier times the drive le^d to God, later defter the Enlightenment i’£ led to science - a new, much more effective God since it delivers so much cargo. In the same framework, recast Foley's paradoxes of unlimited power:- 1. Omnipotence leads to impotence 2. Omniscience leads to ignorance 3. Total rationality becomes total irrationality: [becomes?] and technicized our means, the more irrational our ends. / z the more rational sr X>£. e & f c/~lu cr-t/^ J '7 I r/^e wl- _ -O'- rf Jo-d , </« sT-rf ; 7^/?/°; # t <rf //^— / X 0. **x (inC/^rv^ /fo?( G^S (X */’/ferc^ IS / } /he>/ ( e^^/ /7- a JAw/kJ ^J.J. 4/r7/e>*’2S /^t/') /ru^. i^o-fr^a/ S(^,,-/<j ,/?& rSH-, G-'l J c / /Astr*^? '•*-*- /• z //c.sw'lfas- f J'^./^f /t/77 4 r  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 106, Item 1: Abstract on deeper nuclear and miscellaneous notes Subject The topic of the resource Typescript and miscellaneous handwritten notes on scrap paper. Description An account of the resource Verso of leaves not digitised. Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 106, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126"><a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers, UQFL291</a></span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [5] leaves. 2.51 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:85b7938">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:85b7938</a> Box 106: Culture, Politics, Environment, Economics [War and Peace] https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/1ef873397db9176610ec09df90503ccb.pdf 05d94d591b5ca14ea4549ac3c3755d09 PDF Text Text WORKING DRAFT ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND WAR-DETERRENCE AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT Because of their projected effects - which are said to differ from those of the even largest difference in kind - generated, encounters. exchanges either at all wars nuclear large-scale World (the wars conventional Wars) raise to as and not or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military Certainly exchanges such as nuclear wars involve, such constitute a questions ethical deterrence nuclear investigation is and threatened presupposes, are neither envisaged nor fully accommodated by traditional theories of just wars. reflection as even required, if Much new philosohical well-tested and rather old-fashioned moral principles will serve as ethical base. Nuclear wars - though a fine class of nonexistent object, is existence whose however best confined to other (already uncomfortably neighbouring) possible worlds - have several distinctive properties and come in several varieties. particular, limited nuclear wars which (of tactical or strategic subvarieties) contrast with large-scale nuclear wars, LN-type-wars, large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region; two main parameters: are need A large-scale nuclear war involves the explosion of however be unlimited not which In quantity it is a function of of explosive) and distribution. (megatonnage Such a war differs markedly from a limited (or tactical or strategic) nuclear war which is limited - by assumption, the chances of escalation are however very real 3 - to much smaller quantities of explosives characteristically circumscribed, installations in a given region. wars and their prevention, and where the targets are confined to military Though the focus in what follows is upon e.g. limited in nuclear principle LN wars are by no means a separate �Page 2 issue, since a nuclear arsenal is escalation of such are wars a and prerequisite, high probabilities of assumptions of reasonable usual (given the follow-up or second strike, etc.) §1. is What different old of appropriateness and models wars:____ the nuclear about theories resulting war. of limited model of war that A dominates much thinking, including [even] strategic thinking, is the two party 4 (or even two person) game or, a complication of that, the clan or tribe battle . A picture of war built up, especially as a result of medieval discussion of just war, which inapplicable. for such technological have advances The traditional theory, hardly surprisingly, phenomena Dresden and Tokyo. mass as bombing inappropriate rendered no made the and allowance large cities, such as occurred with of And nuclear bombing, with its many further crucial effects beyond mass bombing, adds further new dimensions. Yet it is Important, for the argument to anchors, historical linkages and to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and of when, and why, wars and military actions Firstly, retain were accounted unjust war is essentially a matter of states and their control: or wrong. to elaborate the OED account, war is ’hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on between nations, states, or rulers, or between parties in the same nation or state’ for control of the state : literal, but transferred, antagonists or players; other metaphoric, forces comprising senses of etc.? States armed the ’war’ noun not the protagonists, are soldiers are are the means of contention or combat, and combat or forceful (typically violent) exchange is the actual experience. function of remove states: Thus wars are external or internal (civil), states or their rule. but always, a An obvious way then to eliminate wars is to in short, wars are an outcome of political structure, and are �Page 3 altering the structure . by removed This is an initial reason why the radical argument against nuclear wars and deterrence devolves into an argument the (self-legitimised) war-declarers and war-makers, against states. the traditional theory, wars were restricted to external against In fact on which wars, were construed as the right of states or their rulers (princes) for certain political purposes, the argument being that private persons with grievences had access the while courts, did not states legitimate (wars were, so to speak, the international But this is itself a very analogue of the law courts). the 9 to statist conception of the semantics is not so restrictive and permits place of wars; internal wars, for example, to end wars. Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention a basic and most familiar case, external wars between two states or set (axes) of states, two-player external wars. games competitive could be won. It was assumed be well no winning strategy. waste of the Northern huge surrounding areas of countryside. hemisphere and not like a draw, or like the strange out for the simultaneously knock each other element, emphasis the inevitable is disputes, removed: be pointfully fought. Certainly, elements of gamesmenship had a role count.) in for, deterrence, earlier wars, (So where two boxers situation on pure deterrence; that are most elaborately prepared for (exercised never the settled with main protagonists substantially obliterated^, and all is is there Thus too the point of main players very substantially worse off than at the outset of the "play". it like An LN war could involve destruction of all war as traditionally seen, to settle serious interstate nothing wars, that With LN wars it no longer holds; main Western metropolitan agglomerations in laying firstly That assumption still held good for massive armed exchanges such as the World Wars. may to Hence another newer the phenomenon of wars etc.), but which can bluff, and the other it was not but pure �Page 4 deterrence. to principle important, Most military next, traditional and targets military gross ways to uninvolved parties sacrifice effects nuclear of large nuclear wars cannot (presented horrifying in be confined in be could This exchanges. feature is for, as we shall see, wars that spill over in fundamental as regards just wars; special wars any The morality. to pretension explosives, especially in mass, mean however that legitimately detail in confined. popular These effects special sources such as Schell) include radioactivity, ozone destruction, shockwaves, fireball or firestorm devastation, etc., etc . . .. The moral situation, and the tendency of moral §2. entirely in the context of war. submerged case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the expediency. What is to considerations become It is particularly important in the distinction between morality done in war, especially for local or national advantage, may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the latter ought not to be done codes and conventions of war, or otherwise in war is done, despite modern . military conventions and the like, for one (alleged) advantage or another. live in a rather barbarous age: go unremarked, if so numbing, codes the history gets written (accurately) that is. tends 13 to induce a and Militarily we will the horrors of the twentieth century military thinking and strategic planning is A , Much that 12 the using determined and not Furthermore certain moral that a range of morally excluded actions, such as wiping our rural populations, become real ("moral’') possibilities, to be reckoned, for example, into consequentialist calculations of maximising expediency. The reason is that strategic planning is characteristically based on expediency (and extent displaces morality). so to that For each side in a military encounter determines its "strategy" by considering only its own advantages and disadvantages, its own gains and losses as a result of alternative possible moves, not, as it ought, �Page 5 those of the other side(s) as well. Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted way, no-holds-barred-combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without a limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of etc., themselves). Such is the And Clausowicz tries to repeated. argue, through 14 an be broken by player each in from And the argument is inconclusive; c Thus too an It would follow for the players from the can choose 15 A state engaged in war - this will no doubt include nuclear nowadays war sees itself as entirely bound by constraints of morality: to be mere prudence on the part no-immoral-holds-barred of approach those they attacked to take - seldom it is taken account of the may well encounter, especially from the So each group potentially engaged in war forces other side. the question not as to what it ought to do in morally permissible situations, but also both what it ought really do and what it can do in the morally flawed finds enforced) escalate, and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types to of weapons, etc. only The that the idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in terms. But it is not. not escalation externally for advantage. turn extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed. argument incremental ), that there can be no limit. assumption is that any merely selected (as distinct will force, so-called "classic" view of Clausowicz, oft argument (but really "the bald man" fallacy limit this itself in. But last the question does not then situations it reduce to one of expediency. There is expediency, involves. no question of morality giving or having to give way to for instance under extreme circumstances such as prospect of LN war For it is not as if shaky considerations of morality are bound to to �Page 6 give not only firm ground of expediency when the chips are down: the to way does this in fact often enough not happen in crises situations, but the fact that is both morality and expediency fall within the same, equally shaky or solid, Expediency does not (meticulously) deliver us from domain of value theory. fact, but simply takes narrowly-construed local advantage or power as to value what is valuable, as what matters; family, that urges values local - of self, region or nation - are what really count and override or class, clan, it are to be maximized at the expense of remote or considerations. foreign By morality requires, as a matter of its proper characterisation, a much contrast, more universal distribution of value thereby the through imposes, requirements general of universalizable intersubstitutivity resultant equillbity fairness, of the same results not holding when x and y are interchanged, under Not evaluations 16. certain principles, justice. and and principles, The deep expediency derives from the failure of interreplacement, of unsatisfactoriness so and only can expediency be given a deontic presentation, as expediency through such slogans as "might is right", but theories or utility do not have to be positions of expediency utilitarianism proper — morality, which if can utility meet not is locally intersubstltutivity Thus confined. requirements of unlike the war game theory, does not assign different weights which, to (say) the individual utility of Americans as opposed to Russians — is not to be dismissed as considering only expediency. There are however significant moral differences, between and utilitarians 17 deontologists especially, which serve to further complicate the moral picture Thus utilitarian approaches have seemed to justify ugly strategies and practices render as morally regards deontological principles would not permit (even with the convenient law of double effects). But this is permissible enemy best already or civilians, bending to of to that the effect some �Page 8 Characteristically, national interest is taken to differently, to override morality impose Irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary ethical considerations (such as even the immorality of killing millions). as or, Schell puts it, Thus, ’What is being claimed is that one or two countries have the right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents in the name certain of beliefs’ (II, p.70). But morally national interest can do neither of those things. simply the The first is substitution of expediency for morality, which entirely lacks moral justification, while second, the the alleged moral dominance of national fails in important classes of cases, including, so the argument will Interests, go, the case of LN war. States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis, let it not pretended be expediency (’’group governments. Morality it is a moral basis as distinct from one of There is no that egoism’’). works in the special dispensation moral For example, what ought be to as regards x semantically, what would happen as regards x in all ideal worlds; no difference x is an individual or States such as Israel (in its recent organisation. behaving whether just as immorally as brigands individual invasion or mass killers: difference. Certainly there are grounds on which states or claimed been conceded special moral dispensations; or for same way for groups as for individuals: there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or obligation. but are no more than that and do not stand up to criticism. of analysis is, analysed and it makes system, group or of are Lebanon) there is no moral their agents have but the excuses offered A satisfactory moral theory cannot furnish two (Incompatible) moralities, a state or public one and a private or individual citizen one - state expediency and individual morality - �Page 7 partisanship - since utilitarians would the reject description practices of permitted under their principles as ’ugly’ - and an objective in what follows is to avoid metaethlcal partisanship, to achieve metaethical, though of course moral, neutrality. argument can begin. several And morally there is a large area of consensus Virtually all positions cities major in agree that the 18 not from which obliteration of a LN war would be wrong - indeed morally outrageous. Where there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to feel qualms no when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some Russian ones, simply increase the costs involved, up to loss of whole nations if necessary, then try to work down again. until moral repugnance is encountered; The fact remains however that things have got substantially out of perspective, Strategic thinking, in particular, has tended to abandon, or suppress morally. moral considerations (as indeed many theories of the state also pretend to do). Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does not mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be Consider the world empire. be realised. rising southern (hemisphere) no one’s While the superpowers of the north remain SS’s dream Thus his best strategy, exchange in the North. There advantage. strongman, SS, who has visions of will can be to a encourage point an all-out then in securing institutional arrangements so that potential SS’s do not accumulate much especially given the that is to anticipate: has its limitations, structural adjustments. hardly rid of southern waters of US having submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try nuclear to power, apparent instability of crucial world arrangements. the present point is that (the fact of) moral and is an inadequate But consensus constraint without accompanying �Page 9 19 because this would lead to violations of substitutivity , neutrality, etc. instance, a state operative x could use state cover morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g. y are permuted. derivative A group or organisation or in consideration can but role, bound be by moral principles. special these are derivative principles, good for any such institution, which fit within and answer general in y by state interests) when x and person its of virtue citizen damage to For back to So it is also with a state which is an institutional arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some least) its of citizens: its (at charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency. particular, In state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its a own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even its for own survival. §3. Arguments to the Immorality of LN wars. can which set be since aside, the concede that war per se is not a crime. but pacifist positions immorality of LN wars follows at once - Not all wars are immoral, though states. aristocratic Among young men admissible wars are the external tournaments or of or warriors who volunteer as soldiers where the action does not spill over onto noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars, few even wars may be pointless or inferior ways of settling political issues inoffensive between All no combatants even were killed in war. where Since the establishment of such induction practices as conscription and recruitment of the near-destitute, have largely ceased to take these inoffensive forms: far removed from the ideal ecotopian literature war-tournament (where type, that its position is dubious). immoral, but few to such an extent as LN wars. wars modern massive wars are features now only in Most sorts of wars are �Page 10 argument The first key to (1KA) the of (and wars LN of immorality sufficiently large-scale wars generally) takes the following form: Pi. The deliberate killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong. Pli. LN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants. (KA) What involves what is wrong is wrong. Piii . LN wars are wrong. J Supplementary remarks are called for:- Firstly, the (1KA) is one just representative of a Characteristically, in Western culture, it is arguments of that thought argument given of type. mass this taken But the focus can be off the killing: destruction of a first variation on (KA) replaces ’killing the is basis of may each be attacked of its premisses. wrong is as There slack by a has in effect been Let us consider these in that what involves are, in particular, such those generated by Good Samaritan arguments, which purport to show that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing. too noncombatants’ wrong, often expanded to a "distribution of obligation over entailment" principle, has been challenged. problems (and The principle, Piii, used in the argument, reverse order. what of Other variations will emerge in the discussion. but The argument is valid, on mass Thus concerning ’huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or not clause directly involved creatures’. attacked) in of lifestyle nonhumans and humans alike that an LN war will bring is sufficiently evil. suitable of killing about the worst thing that can happen (after the killing of police). is humans set particular a notion of involvement; linked to paradox-free entailment 20 But the problems derive from with a tighter Involvement connective, , the problems disappear, and Piii stands. �Page 11 As against Pii, it may be legitimately argued against directed nuclear that military targets. wars can encounters be But given the character of nuclear weapons, LN wars could in no way be confined to such targets. merely the likelihood that many missiles explode off target. not the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings, for example down-wind fallout There is There are all the radioactive military targets, which in the case of US and European from targets especially will effect large concentrations of people, Including therein perhaps uninvolved countries such as Canada. There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties by appeal to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side 21 effect) If missiles were characteristically was which intended only to destroy an reliably underground unmanned unfortunately went off course and destroyed a large city, it the that Such claims should be rejected: not wrongness lessened could make a difference; for firing the city. the and one missile silo could be claimed mass destruction is legitimised under the double effect (unintended) principle. target, on the action would be wrong, and by the given intention. the Nonetheless the circumstances for they may mitigate attitudes to those responsible missile, since it was not as if they had deliberately aimed at The double effect principle confuses [diminution of] the allocation of responsibility for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act. As against Pi, and as regards the middle term of Pi argued that there is an important equivocation. the bracketed term, killing ’deliberate’. While it will and Pii, it may be The equivocation is induced by be that admitted deliberate of genuine innocents is impermissble , it will be contended firstly that they noncombatants, insofar as innocent, directly many being are distinguishable, involved in are by no means all military effort, whether just as �Page 12 taxpayers or as suppliers of goods farmers or services used innocent. second The point Because Pii so amended in less defensible, and/or other reasons, discussed. leave to out the "modifier" ’deliberate’. of the perpetrators. it What is important for the present purposes is the moral status of what is done, not that motives e.g. military, a much narrower - and less defensible - version of premiss Pll already concerns best the and secondly LN wars do not involve the or bootmakers or entertainers; deliberate killing of those properly excluded as is by mixed with the So ’deliberate’ is out, equivocation is avoided, 22 Pii stands, and so does Pl. For not does Pi ’deliberate’, or ’intentional’ or the like. require the qualification Admittedly also ’noncombatant’ is a fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and there is no problem serious in marking out a class of clear noncombatants, people who are not directly involved in the command and action chains. practice, deriving from There is, moreover, Catholicism, of no need to the adopt stating an initial version of Pi in terms of innocents - at least as problematic a class as that of noncombatants to try to characterize - and then endeavouring to make the difficult transition to noncombatants. Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met, art arguments for the premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pi they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory. and will tend seriously understate the point) minimal respect owed to them as persons doing so 23 The argument from historical requirements on just wars from convergence. conclusion that fails to treat them with the §4. The to For example, one argument for Pi, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one, (to there that and the argument LN wars cannot be justly waged - and �Page 13 accordingly are unjustified - is not merely something dreamed up by contemporary opponents The same conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked etc). out America or of the capitalist State (and communistically inspired, of times mdeieval in just for variant on the key argument (1KA). was justly that not it be One of the requirements gives but a wars. For a necessary condition for fighting a war the that case noncombatants are bound to be killed (cf. numbers large [innocent] of Barnes, p.775). A just war requires just means, that the war should be fought morally by which implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate killing of noncombatants. The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle legitimate of means, (between combatants and others) which ’prohibits all actions discrimination directly Intended to take the lives of p.312) 24 civilians and of (PL, noncombatants’ LN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate . U. . 25 this requirement Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of proportion being that of net evil to net good): ’the damage to be inflicted and costs Incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected up arms’ (PL, p.312). disproportionate to moral goods proportionality requirement is criterion of by the which achieved in doctrine "improvement" through war : not are of that nationally way. confined, overall consequences of abstaining improvement "puts wrongs to rights": "ameliorative" conditions and war according to the first, justly the ’X wages war bad, from war’ (Barnes, p.72). ’A nation wages war are Entangled with the justly upon y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less the taking is not difficult to see that LN wars violate this It the damage and costs, requirement: (the proportionality only than Similarly if the for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent �Page 14 chance of being better after the fighting ends’ (Wakin, p.20). way LN war can in no satisfy these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such wars reveal. Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are infringed wars; LN It seems that there can for example, that of reasonable expectation of success. be no reasonable expectation of success in an LN by war, the whatever prospects of success with more limited nuclear exchanges. (limited) What is less clearcut is the question of whether LN wars conflict with the requirements of just cause or due fault and of right intention. For this depends on the sensitive issue of the weight assigned to what are seen as basic rights human and fundamental values, and the extent to which just wars can be ideologically justified. the mainstream justified position and wars definitively excluded however, in puzzling of medieval "humanitarian" by the over decisive against LN wars. theory wars (cf. traditional was opposed to While ideologically Barnes, p.778), these were not theory. There is merit, little dubiously effective requirements, when so many are Finally, these arguments from historical requirements do not violate prescriptive requirements: the argument is not a simple argument from historical authority, but also premisses uses requirements imposed (and used) were justified. the to effect that the As they are. In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the moral rightness or justness of wars 9A , the just war theory and a rival pacificist strand, prominent in early Christianity, but submerged from Augustine on until contemporary times. Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and This is the involve violence beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars: such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once expediency is 27 that duly �Page 15 The detailed argument They are morally wrong however you look at it. removed. is an exhaustive case by case one, from each type of moral theory. can details For deontological and contractual theories lead back be shortcut. to requirements for a just war, violate. Fortunately which it has already shown, been In fact conditions for just wars were sometimes arrived at or defended through principles of such moral theories, so that a good deal of the work argumentative already has brand utilitarian of finally accomplished; for such and is adopted, not is far to have effect in shown pleasure, reason The wars Involves such massive that this dominates genuine alternative to LN war is better or 28 outlined against overwhelming moral case against such wars. wars LN do not exhaust the For there are other moral principles (derivative in some of the theories just considered) which the waging of war would violate. in are accomplished in utilitarian fashion, so that any they The arguments given LN that utility maximisation is however seek: infliction of pain and colossal removal of however others requisite latter point holds also as LN wars are excluded on utilitarian grounds. convergence assessments The done. been regards utilitarianism, where Lackey whatever wars LN an LN Among such principles are conservative ones, that we have an obligation to maintain the earth in proper shape and not degrade its systems, that we have a responsibility to future generations, to whom we are accountable, to "pass the world on" not in substantially worse condition it". Such conservative principles than we "received - however they are finally satisfactorily formulated - are bound to be violated in the event of an LN war. §5. The shift to nuclear lobby nuclear arguments deterrence: to its immorality. The has a way of halting, and if not defeating, certainly deflating, arguments against the immorality of LN wars, namely there is no actual �Page 16 such any In engagement wars. different from engagement in war: LN being done is, it is claimed, quite is What is deterrence indeed important most precisely in preventing such wars from ever occurring, as well as in maintaining (other) fundamental [Western] values. obtaining desiderata. both is deterrence pronouncements, claims The reasons:- A first reason is that Indeed it is the only there are is much for more than deterrence can account neither for strategy military Western disarmament to expected be On deterrence. 29 the despite For if it and sometimes even a drive for superiority. this, actual nuclear of In fact there has been a were "sufficiency" to deter would be an adequate goal. quest that, evidence the - the only - military goal. not way dubious, for several decidedly too practical nor weapons for Pure orthodox Nor has deterrence set in motion the process of . to armaments reduce "its" under contrary, to levels impulse there sufficient has for been almost unlimited acceleration in building arms (PL, p.318, quotes inserted). Another of deterrence reason for the type serious that is doubt being concerns other reasons also, connected with pure deterrence The reasons include the for nuclear war and with to For original (its threatening posture deterrence for, the propaganda that must be promulgated to maintain credibility with a population whose interests are being etc. conditions the "cold war", the probability of a LN war has increased considerably in the last 30 years. calls factor: to that extent, at least, enhanced its prospects of occurring. and setting) probability practised, which involves full-scale preparation for nuclear war, has prepared the occur, the The "sacrificed" for objectives, situation has now been reached where many theorists think there is a high probability at least of an LN war this century, i.e. certainly military be before 2000. It can argued - though there seems no way to make any such a probability argument at all tight, and it may be demonstrable that it cannot be made tight - �Page 17 that there is a non-negligible probability of an LN war before 2000. If it is wrong that X should occur, then it is also wrong that Cl. be But highly probably that should it X occur, and it is wrong to increase the probability that X occur. This is the first several of connecting doxastic mapping principles moral considerations against LN war into arguments against deterrence of LN war by the perverse practice of preparing for it and thereby helping "to the sense of raising the probability). (in it bring about" But like most principles in ethics, Cl requires complication to avoid defeat by counterexamples. The second part of Cl encounters apparent trouble where clash of principles occurs. Thus it may be argued that it is permissible to increase the probability that X occurs to avoid a greater Consider for example the pilot who increases the probability evil. that the passenger plane he is flying crashes in order to aircraft troubled does not make hit city apartment buildings 30 . sure Such a defeating condition does not apply in the case of nuclear deterrence where is there (though of principles) wrongness of a practice is not offset or removed by clash a the that its role in avoiding greater evil. It can be argued that it is; argument from the previous such is part of success of the deterrence. point of the popular This inductive argument deserves little more credence than the racing driver’s argument, perhaps from similar that because he hasn’t had a fatal crash yet (despite some base, time a close calls), he won’t. There are, furthermore, reasons for concluding continue to work. of will not One is the deterrence depends upon judgements regarding the other side, which may be mistaken: perception deterrence that what strategy ’each is is at rational", the mercy what kind the of of other’s damage is �Page 18 one "unacceptable", how "convincing" Not p.313). threat side’s other’ the (PL. as rational, regards limited but there must be severe doubts as to whether rational principles war, As to the last consider, for example, the are operating effectively. idea to is there evidence that one side (the USA) has misjudged the only other side’s (the USSR’s) perception of what is nuclear is (already erroneous to, as held in high places of power) that LN war can be alluded survived in rudimentary shelters, and also won. Deterrence consists in preventing something (often some wrong) by threats including 31 OED) . (cf. fright For most people without not Immoral destruction of New York.) deterrence, that is his graphic descriptions But though deterrence per deterrence from suchmeans is of course not immoral. publishing in them LN expense, trouble and wastage of preparing to enormous And deterrence by engage in them. was the all or scenarios vivid portraying the horror or LN wars would serve adequately to deter wars, fear by complete se is the of (Schell nuclear permissible, war preparation of the object to be prevented, is not, where this object Itself is not permissible. The argument for this is through the principle C2. If X is wrong then complete preparation of X is wrong. Hence since LN wars are wrong and war-deterrence implies of LN wars is wrong. war—deterrence X is just as bad as doing X: Y. preparation, It is not being claimed that preparing for Y and Z may both be wrong and Z (much) worse than , 32 What is wrong is by no means uniformly evil Principle C2 principles: a part is way succeeds or down the line in a series of connecting principle of the same sort that it higher in the series is that connecting X with attempted X: X complete not 33 . But if X is wrong then attempted X is wrong, whether the series ends; it cuts off well before mere �Page 19 intentionality, contrary to the claims example, it does various of religious For positions. not follow that if X is wrong then the contemplation of X is wrong or that mere non-action-oriented consideration of carrying out X is wrong. The applies point nightmares. or war, equally sexual fantasies, power fantasies, and nuclear to In particular there is nothing reflecting upon it, as we are: wrong nuclear nuclear wars, even if their horrors don't bear thinking on, are not unthinkable, and in thinkable. contemplating with some senses are all too Indeed one of the reasons why the connecting principles hold is that each involves decidedly increased probability of the evil outcome it connects Accompanying the increased probability are certain sets of reprehensible with. these are not those attitudes tied to the action the evil outcome involves; mere passive contemplation of 34 this War-deterrence involves not only war preparation, but announcement of accompanied by threats and a threatening posture. For some party, the potential enemy, has to be frightened, if deterrence is to succeed. This aspect of (war-) deterrence yields a further connecting principle, If X is wrong then threatening X is also wrong. C3. is wrong to do ... then the declared Intent put to that Intending to do wrong is wrong, and so also is favourable circumstances for one’s alternatively be argued semantically: (e.g. into Intending position committing 35 . rape) The is practice is also wrong. to prevail. if a world with X 'What Ramsey: is wrong to threaten ...’ (quoted in Walzer p.272) reason is that if putting something into practice wrong Thus too is do wrong The never unless point ideal can then neither is a world in which X is only conditionally blocked, in which X may well occur. �Page 20 By detachment from the connecting principles - one sound one would but logically, defensible three ones is good measure - nuclear deterrence by preparation for and threat of LN war is This wrong. also reveals suffice Deterrence wrong. of this type the suggestion that the morality of the whole why deterrence thing depended on war itself never occurring was so bizarre: connections between war and war-deterrence. the out is it left War-deterrence should not be practised any more than nuclear war itself should be engaged in - unless directions can be drastically changed (e.g. its at least limited, per impossible in the case of nuclear, to purely military targets). There are other concomitant reasons for the Firstly, with dissatisfaction deterrence. it has provided (nuclear peace, as there is no shortage of peace small-scale conventional wars) is at least a tenuous peace, which is not stable, liable but upset at any stage by a range of factors, including error (both to It does not offer genuine peace, of the sort required for human and technical). a international life, but only a fragile "peace of a sort" (PL, p.316). stable Secondly, there is enormous cost, the because on expenditure it moral excludes Bishops put their point in a surprising opportunity urgent other by Marxist cost of deterrence, The US moral priorities. way: in terms of ’the between what is spent for destructive capacity and what is needed contradiction for constructive development’ (PL, p.316). §6. The and super-states; arguments to persuasive prudential practical, the the resulting arguments (that have war persuaded justifiability of nuclear war preparation in basic argument is simply an elaboration, build-up nuclear situation. moral-fix nuclear of immorality to argument Not preparation; many the or theorists) present of the only are there there to are the circumstances. also moral The state-uplift, of that for the �Page 21 escalation of weapons at the local level, for acquiring a gun or for stocking-up the armoury [and every bit as doubtful as that argument]. neighbourhood that nuclear preparation, first danger: of nuclear destruction. blackmail, ’so we have been told, against guards all atomic blackmail and foreign domination; The two together, go since if did we double the and second of not the fear we might adopt a policy of appeasement or surrender and so avoid the destruction’ (Walzer, p.273). In fact it is supposed to guard against more than there is a crucial third element, namely, loss of basic rights (freedom, these; equality, etc.) and fundamental values (preservation of etc.) and ways of life integrated with these. truth, dignity, human This further set of elements is linked to the danger of foreign domination - which is really a separate from It is risk blackmail. of element Though foreign domination need not imply the loss of most basic values it does imply the loss of at least of one, self-determination, freedom to choose various national objectives; conversely loss or infringement of basic values can occur without foreign domination, e.g. of by internal change government or governmental approach, by the increased security and control a nuclear state demands, etc. values, through Nuclear destruction can also involve loss of destruction but the converse does not hold. basic of the material base of the cherished life-style; It should be observed that not all the values concerned are equally fundamental: one of the main values of deterrence theory, the resistance to and of containment "communism", is questionable this in regard. The theme is, in short, NA. Because of multiple (connected) states) which have nuclear dangers from another state (or other weapons, a state - any state that is too large to rely upon other states - is obliged to invest in [matching] nuclear weapons. �Page 22 Hence, by detachment, a nation-state, such as USA, ought to order the of nuclear armoury that it something have in has, or, weakening the theme to meet objections concerning excess, "overkill", capacity, at least a solid core of the nuclear devices it has. out whether the obligation is a moral one, Sorting because for instance of the character of the values supposedly being merely or one protected, of prudential reason - it is presumably somewhat more than mere expediency - can be set aside for the present. On the same basis it can be argued that unilateral disarmament against a dangerous nuclear opponent would be prudentially irrational. It can be freely admitted that what is prudentially required is, like the common strategies of the prisoners’ dilemma situation and of certain competitive games, a suboptimal strategy; sufficient trust, that a superior strategy for adversaries, if etc., could be achieved, would be a cooperative arrangement. Joint agreement would be better not merely in removing the moral dilemma, but in a range of other respects: it would be much less risky, expensive, draining of resources and destructive of the environment, etc. However for the present and the foreseeable future the prospects of cooperation appear, so we are repeatedly told, unfortunately rather remote: or the only sure insurance is nuclear if one is a smaller nation, a larger ally who has an arsenal. force (Here a level of trust is called for which is far from foolproof, and which contrasts strongly with the lack of trust displayed elsewhere.) The nuclear theme for a middling or lesser power is a bit different from NA and ends rather as follows: MA. Because ..., a state that cannot rely on obliged ally. its own nuclear resources is to accommodate the nuclear installations and facilities of a protecting �Page 23 Principle MA is not very plausible, nor are the for substitutes obvious Not only MA but also NA, is now coming under question by disarmament it ° . who groups, more challenge the basic assumptions of the underlying general retaliatory model that Safely lies in weapons, and 1) More weapons imply more security ii) 37 Certainly, for more isolated states, such as New Zealand, lies attack submarines). more of a in excluding nuclear facilities from safety nuclear (including visits from nuclear Europeans are arguing in a similar way, that the present system is risk [liability] than a protection (p.251, Thompson); nuclear installations, Europe cannot be the envisaged and without for theatre a limited nuclear war it is now seen as by US (but not Soviet) strategists. Once i) and ii) are questioned, other assumptions of the retaliatory model and its variants come up for examination, namely iii) iv) Whether the proper response to danger is armament, in particular Whether the proper response is through nuclear armament, as opposed to other military responses (such as conventional arms), and generalising on part of Hi), v) Whether military approaches/procedures (through armaments, etc.) the proper is method, or should be the method, of conflict resolution at the international level. It is plausibly argued against military procedures that at no ordinary level do we set about meeting danger or settling disputes by acquiring lethal weapons and threatening to use them - except perhaps warranted, frontier ethics. But on an out-dated, and never really this takes us into the issue of alternative defence systems, an important matter beginning to obtain the contemporary 38 explanation it deserves, but one that already anticipates subsequent questioning �Page 24 While the state system is intact, of the framework of nation-states. not and exceptional inevitable: according military to is are to be expected and are likely permanent place in the procedures ’force has [a] ... force nation-state system’ Ramsey (p.xv) who uses this as part of his case for a nuclear war doctrine. far Assembling the arguments so to as the nuclear fix:- referred hereafter developed engage to sections) it is and immoral, in war-deterrence, for prudential reasons (as argued using NA This dilemma is no idle construction and MA). dilemma, deontic States both ought not to engage in war-deterrence, because (as argued in previous ought the yields (concocted to demonstrate of paraconsistent logic), but a serious real-life dilemma, the outlines virtues of which are repeatedly encountered in texts on nuclear war and its aspects The nuclear fix is in part simply a more intense dilemma beyond produced purely by itself^, war military typically transport, (since targets rely on or version of deontic the civilian ones). e.g. arrangements, military rail The main dilemma arises from a War is required for defence of the state and values it upholds (or pretends to uphold); also involves immoral acts and evil consequences. also seen be ’some The doctrine "just of justifications of war evil alm are consequences to morally war’ (Walls, p.260). dilemmas, e.g. most difficult war" the aegis War and preparedness for war also generate subsidiary a severe tension between freedom and problems justified. show that actions deemed normally forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed under of but war as attempting a reconciliation by trying to show that under certain circumstances these really Thus 39 at least war which spreads inevitably combination of the retaliatory model with the features of war. can the of war Involves authority: defending a ’one of the free society without �Page 25 destroying the values that give it meaning and validity’ (PL, p.324). The essential feature of a moral dilemma is that both A and the negation of A are well essential role of moral dilemmas is not widely or literature 41 The place and (or differently, obligatory), for some suitable A. wrong . positions Moreover understood utilitarianism like cannot ethical in at all easily accommodate moral dilemmas or the data which gives rise to them - but then such positions do not really offer reportive accounts of wrong and obligation anyway. Contrary to utilitarian perceptions a dilemma does not any have necessarily moral solution, though there may be better and worse ways out. Reactions and responses that are characteristic of the from nuclear moral dilemmas There is an unsteadiness, an uncertainty as to what to fix. do, which way to proceed, which principles in watered-down form to temporary Thus, crutch. for world’ best" 42 as a of way "morally never our exercising moral , that is in a morally-strapped world. ethical Bishops who the of ’strictly conditional’ moral fix. Deterrence has a strictly temporary role but can be responsibility a shift "morally in a fallen to a ’moral "second acceptability’ try to escape ’the paradox of deterrence’, i.e. while acceptability, good", A similar deterrence we as (as from good to acceptable) is made by the US Catholic functor speak grasp example, the Bishop of London contends that the possession of nuclear weapons ’while acceptable" emerge the object must and strictly be to move beyond deterrence, of from the conditional ’towards a world free of the threat of deterrence’ (PL, p.317), out of the nuclear fix. To make matters worse the nuclear fix is is, not furthermore, a fix of (more something they happened into, by affluent) states’ accident. The initial nuclear involvement was deliberately chosen, primarily by USA, and the own making. It escalation has by and large also been deliberately chosen, again �Page 26 In these respects the situation is like that often by the USA. who person deliberately lets perself to be involved in two incompatible relations, and that currency, of adoption nuclear is the that nuclear build-up. The recent (1980) programme is to be in addition to existing are (which Soviet USA Initiated nuclear armament, and has frequently led escalation, and apparently still does. resources some weaponry, and nuclear build-up, in North America occurred on a defensive basis in response to fact with It is a myth, though one builds up conflicting obligations thereby. The the of generally United strategic be already in excess of to agreed States’ Russia’s, and which always have been so) (Thompson, p.21). The present dilemma is then a direct outcome advanced of state policy, especially by capitalist nations, and not merely a response to the Soviets (or state socialism). There is a two-way connection between world political arrangements and nation-states the nuclear fix. On the one hand, situation increasingly is political arrangements / Q ; seen political these arrangements are an evident source of the dilemma with the result through that nuclear as indicating the inadequacy of present world on the other, the nuclear fix tends to lock political arrangements into the statist form (into statist arrangements of an increasingly centralist cast). peace The espoused purpose of nuclear weapons may be to keep the (!) and to defend national interests, but there are other reasons such as perpetuating the system of sovereign states and politically confrontation. The argument to the theme that advantageous the very nuclear situation arising from the statist arrangements and interrelationals (economic conflicting rivalries, ideologies, etc.) tends to, and is used to, lock the world into the present arrangements of sovereign states and zones of interest, is practical state one. Consider first, the matter from a piecemeal the Soviet side where the �Page 27 pattern of national control and military economic reorientation is clearer. The threat from the West, whether it exists or not (and in Soviet perception it certainly does), has become a necessary legitimation for the power of the ruling elites, an excuse for their many economic and social failures, and an argument to isolate and silence critics within their own borders. In the West we have controlled carefully ... and ... selective release of ’official information’ (Thompson, p.20). Secondly, there is evidence of entrenchment of the arrangements, by the SALT negotiations: of rules not regarded as threatening US in place by The Soviet invasion interests", and so the US is not "vital What was different, what particularly worried about Afghanistan and its people. it held penalty for breaking the rules is the threat of annihilation). (the Thirdly, there are cases, such as the Afghanistan example. is shown there are fixed superpowers and a (growing) nuclear club of nations all governed by a negotiated set deterrence as was worried about and made nuclear threats concerning, were adjacent Western these lay within the US zone of interest. oil supplies: 44 and complicates other dilemmas The nuclear fix enhances contemporary sovereign state, in particular the deep tensions between national security and the operation of liberal-democratic arrangements (e.g. liberty, popular control of institutions, etc). personal subsidiary dilemmas, as for example the obligations to a nuclear conflicting obligations the by induced as state, a or doctor It also spotlights other more extent role-induced or a individual nuclear of (political) one’s dilemmas armaments such as one’s processor or researcher (the question of political obligations is considered in Appendix 2). §7. Ways out of the moral dilemmas: [initial] political fall-out from the �Page 28 conclusions. ethical all the ways are ways of limitation, and they Virtually all Involve in one way or another limitations on nuclear arms or are limitations on the powers of states. and deployed the they way The limitations may be 45 reached by agreement and negotiation and more or less voluntarily agreed , to or they may be imposed, or worst of all, they may emerge from an initial war. As with other fixes produced by are there suggested structure there and relations power and extra—state approaches. "realistic", attempts All to cow, as unilateral disarmament. is it states the or alter the remove them altogether, allegedly familiar, the seriously do which and "practical" nuclear problem - e.g. disarmament by they do not tamper with that - are inter-state; But in fact there is nothing very sacred not even a very long-standing arrangement, nor, as a matter or empirical fact, is one. states, of and the same goes for less "realistic" proposals, such the state; nation-state; arrangements which ways are of resolve neutral arms limitations, etc. sacred structural out which do not interfere with these arrangements, ways inter-state approaches, the it form about the political of particularly a stable We are certainly free - in more liberal states, it should be everywhere - to theorise as to its demise and replacement by alternative arrangements. Extra-state approaches take one of two routes, the way up, to genuine 46 power, or the way down, through fractionation or deunionisation international of states. not to The ways up and down are by no means one and the same; necessarily world government Were law-courts. remedy, namely intra-state incompatible. the through to Some of the important machinery, for the way up operate, courts legal but they are is assigned action, already there sufficient that medieval the international authority and power, the in theorists saw to all disputes could be extended to interstate disputes, and the just war �Page 29 between states S and T superseded by the just case of S versus T. one statist, more legalistic of trying to get to grips with the nuclear way problem, and accordingly is often mentioned, though dismissed 47 in , orthodox The Way Up is mostly passing in strategic texts on thermonuclear war. It is however beginning to be much more sympathetically considered by those who take rather than strategic viewpoint. moral a There is a renewed emphasis on world order, in reaching ’towards a morally integrated international system’; element be to and ’the missing of world order today is the absence of a properly constituted political The Way Down - though, like The Way authority’ (PL, p.320). by Up, no means new, turning back to the anarchist positions of a century ago - is, by contrast, scarcely mentioned in the orthodox discussions, but is making an appearance (a which is comeback) in some more radical discussions. A main argument for The Way Up is to supposed underpin statist just arrangements a repetition in first the argument from (generous) variations upon the Prisoners’ that of place, namely the Dilemma, the as such Tragedy of the Commons, that authority and coercion - in the form of the state are requiried to ensure best solutions, ecological order. especially regards of part the sort of super-state. of the "tragedy" is destruction when to assume in fact assumptions 48 of a commons by nuclear war, the solution is now said to be some Of course, this begins to undermine an earlier application argument, since states will lose their sovereignty, and political obligation to states will be correspondingly weakened. is and order So with the "tragedy of nation-states", where the players are not herdsmen but nation-states, and one of the prospects good public But all this that these "tragedy" arguments are good ones in the first place, they are not but are only sound under quite restrictive �Page 30 There are many problems with the Way Up, both theoretical and practical.An theoretical hitch is that the Way Up merely repeats statist arrangments initial at a level up, by way contingency, of super-state It arrangements. only is through a of there being no rival Intelligent civilisations nearby, that the problems of interstate relations not are repeated level a The up. major practical hitch is that there is no prospect at all of getting such a "solution" to work in time to serve its intended interstate future the For purpose. ideological differences, including especially differences as to how political arrangements should be effected, exclude world operative hostilities. government of prospect any an or world legal system capable of resolving nuclear In some ways, perhaps, this is just World well. as government be extremely monolithic, would entrench bureaucracy with all its damaging would features, and could easily tend to totalitarianism. on nuclear foreseeable the It would impose certainly an exploitative economic system which would do immense damage to world many remaining natural systems. The Way Up thus presupposes an unlikely, undesirable, level ideological, indeed requisite unity of political paradigmatic, cannot be and and expected unity economic separation with some in of nuclear main crucial respects, Moreover, given the Northern cultures, deadlines. When not even nuclear weapons limitations can be worked out how much less likely much more sweeping sovereignty, could be agreements, negotiated? Involving genuine There an is is limitations almost endless that it of state series of blockages and deadlocks in the way of such state reconciliation. The nuclear fix emerging from nation-state arrangements - combined with the apparent impotence of interstate relations to alleviate the situation, indeed with the ability only to push the world further into the situation and nearer to �Page 31 nuclear now is - "brink" taken to indicate (from yet a further angle) the inadequacy of nation-state political arrangements, and has given new impetus resolutions. extra-state other of consideration to The thesis that the nuclear problem indicates the radical unsatisfactoriness of national sovereignty and the present system namely in Schell. ’full-scale nation states has even reached the best-seller book stands, of According to Schell the nuclear situation should they operate' ... which himself avoids these reality and in ’workfing] out the practical steps by which 'awesome (III, p.92). Schell However urgent tasks, which, imposed on us by history, constitute the political work of our age’^9, history consonant with the global can reorganise its political life’ mankind ... a of the foundations of political thought’ required to reexamination make ’the world’s political institutions ... in to lead So, not feeling the pressures of overimpressed by the realities of (unstable) nation-states, do most or political theorists. But, having rashly ventured this far, we can hardly avoid some of these tasks. The central argument arising from the nuclear fix, for questioning political arrangements and seriously current considering changing them (in theory at least), takes the following shape:- H1. Political arrangements should answer back to certain requirements and justified in terms of doing so. are These requirements include such things as enabling good and meaningful lives for those who operate under the arrangements, at least where (as certainly in the West) the basic material conditions for such lives are met. H2. these Because of the nuclear fix, nation-state arrangements have ceased to requirements. For guarantee the prospect of arrangements. nation-states, good and at meaningful meet least in the North can no longer lives to those under their A life's meaningfulness is certainly diminished if it ends before �Page 32 its prime in a nuclear disaster; yet there is a non-negligible probability that many such lives may terminate, less than fulfilled, in this way. Therefore, Nation-state arrangements have forfeited their justification, H3. should and be changed. There is enough evidence that power brokers who control states, both more powerful states and lesser states (sometimes with some claim to popular mandate, often without), have lost sight of - or worse don’t care about - the point of political arrangments, of what justifies or is supposed to justify their states. The situation has been reached where ’nuclear powers, or higher value This is already illustrated by states in nonnuclear military situations: have much forfeited of what claim Vietnam Israel, many and the principles of just warfare have been blatantly violated repeatedly, as have many states put statesmen, on national sovereignty than they do on human survival’ (Schell’s conclusion, p.76). other their they Such principles. other had to external respect or internal political obedience. It could just be, of course, that there are no alternatives, or no possibly better But alternatives. alternatives there are, as we have seen, though but little work has been expended on working out the range of alternatives or features (except perhaps for the option of world government). As to whether all such alternatives can be dismissed, for instance as lacking feasibility, difficult to be all sure without being dogmatic: operate, once adjusted, very far on organising is humans, for under substantially different arrangments. But, once again, nuclear deadlines do not appear proceed it alternatives have been given very little opportunity to work, and we know very little about how instance, their to give sufficient time to and trying out alternative arrangments, even those of the more accessible Way Down. Thus alternative political and social �Page 33 while theoretically feasible and certainly a longer-term goal, do arrangements, not presently offer a satisfactory practical response to the nuclear fix. There is no need to insist upon a dilemma to single-track the of out nuclear We can not only quite the contrary. exclusion of all others: the way afford to be fairly catholic about "second best" approaches pursued and whatever to be working or looks like helping, within reorganised ethical seems Indeed, (and other) constraints: situation, methods, should we as such urgency, the the of direness the and nondemocratlc very (and down certainly negotiations on arms limitations between main nuclear states. The direction of most hope is given be fairly catholic and not inflexibly commited to narrow bogged unrepresentative) direction embrace for especially new. not has progress however come into view; the The political means of the Way Out are what they have been on almost every larger liberal or that issue humanitarian has from outside state governmental apparatus by organised pressure from mattered; within or without upon it, characteristically Bottom-Up Such Top-Down. familiar and practically never considerations are but part of the more general, and very effective, case against reliance upon states for a range of things they are now supposed required, to more supply, effectively but can almost Invariably be obtained, where which and less expensively without (and them their monopolies). In the case of security it is states, with very few exceptions, that have imposed, or acquiesed in, military solutions involving nuclear installations and The nuclear weapons. frequently from across nations. installations opposition local and the to neighbourhood These groups have been and establishing, for escalating groups, successful the time nuclear fix has come some of them now federated in blocking being, some some nuclear nuclear-free �Page 34 The patchwork grass-roots movement against nuclear is strongest neighbourhoods. in which Europe, - as the movement realised, and what gave it impetus - a is leading theatre, on US American touching thinking, strategic American nuclear installations in Europe will make it a contrary it probable seems nuclear limited a war that Europe safer much become will place: safer on the if the anti-nuclear movements succeed in having these installations removed and rendered nuclear-free. not is extremely doubtful that increasing NATO and It shores. for Europe The chances of grossly immoral conduct will thereby also be considerably reduced. What the movements must press for is accordingly clear it is in broad outline: what they have been pushing for, nuclear reduction and disarmament. But the argument also makes it clearer how far this should go, namely all the way to nuclear unilateral disarmament if necessary, certainly to local disarmament across progressively larger parts of the planet’s surface. is its demoted, importance and the necessity of For once the state its maintenance properly downgraded and reliance on its decision-making diminished in favour of localised decision-making (say) - once all that happens or is allowed for, one major component in the nuclear fix is removed, namely the worry about sovereignty. the of that sovereignty has of been assigned a mistaken weakest links in the moral fix structure. In the weigh-up that should occur in charting a way out of moral dilemma, much more Important elements features state The state, and accompanying features such as misplaced nationalism, importance. are Maintenance loss than the state are those things the state is supposed to safeguard such of as individual and local welfare and autonomy, but they are better ensured by the removal of nuclear weapons. The nuclear circumstances threaten the loss of basic values, autonomy, for in particular, main reasons are familiar; such as welfare and many creatures and regions, and the potential loss is in general �Page 35 much greater than in a nuclear-free situation (even should party remain armed with nuclear weapons). for example, the production (because of nuclear another ideological There are also subsidiary reasons; weapons reduces local both welfare of the opportunity costs of weapons manufacture) and autonomy (because of the accompanying security measures). Thus the nuclear fix is resolved, theoretically at loss of the state. any rate, by risking But, although that is the best way out at least cost in the circumstances, it will be strongly resisted in practice, since those who hold power hold it, in one way or another, under the auspices of state. FOOTNOTES 1. The US Catholic Bishops make the point forcefully: ’Nuclear weapons ... and nuclear warfare ... are new moral issues ... There exists a capacity to do something no other age could imagine: we can threaten the created order ... We could destroy [God’s] work’ (PL, p.312). While the analysis offered in what follows has a great deal in common with the Bishop’s position, it differs significantly in removing the religious backdrop and associated features and, it is hoped, in bringing out the logical structure of the argument more clearly and sharply (the paper was Initially drafted independently of PL). To illustrate the differences that emerge with removal of the religious backdrop and its acoutrements, consider two examples from PL, p.323:- Firstly, peace is possible without religious enlightenment if it is possible with it: religious enlightenment is not an essential condition as there implied. Secondly, violence does not take all the forms the Bishops try to give it, e.g. sexual discrimination is hardly a form of violence, pornography can operate without it, etc. It is a serious mistake to try to heap so many diverse and independent issues together under the one head (forms of violence) as if they stood and fell together, e.g. abortion and nuclear war. 2. Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially the type of strike involved. Though the sequence is important for the moral assessment, for example of the main actors, it is in no way alters the immorality of LN wars, as will emerge. 3. ’The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no limits’, (PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars: that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war, and risk is far too large to take. The point in fact follows by straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LN war by its probability given a �Page 36 limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and present communication arrangements, the idea of a purely nuclear exchange between the superpowers, perhaps in the European "theatre", is really a myth. But limited wars are not the present focus. 4. There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of prowess) in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological wars. Nuclear wars are not just unsporting, in that no notice is given, etc. They are unjust in a much deeper way. 5. There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term ’war’, which was derived from a term meaning ’confusion’. In particular, ’it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had in living use any world properly meaning ’war’’. (OED) 6. But of course there can be something quite analogous to war between clans, multinational firms, even nature, etc. (To this extent, a strict definition of ’war’ is being insisted upon.) So the diffusion of power structures has to extend beyond just the break-down of states. 7. Thus the ubiquitous war against Nature of modern times, which features just as large in marxists as in capitalists. As could have been guessed, someone - it was James - suggested chanelling all war into "war" in the metaphorical sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive "opponent", Nature. James proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a war against Nature (see Wasserstrom, p.12). What it boiled down to, however, was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in that way to acquire manly virtues military activities "rightly" instil, especially discipline, but also service, devotion, physical fitness, constructive exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical substitute for wars proper is through war games and other games of competitive cast. Again specious arguments enter for bringing out the "best" in human males. 8. War can be seen as a structural problem of state arrangments, to be removed along with these (otherwise defective) arrangements. Wars arise from political organisation of states - a situational fix. 9. Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes, p.776, top). The argument presupposes rather a lot, Including a neat public/private distinction. Put Aquinas’s way, it looks as if it could be readily transferred into an argument for international government, or at least effective law-courts. Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be one state! 10. There is however the degenerate idea of war as annihilation or extinction, and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while not being entirely annihilated oneself: the side that somehow "survives" is said to "win". But this is an extremely tenuous sense of winning. Moreover any such war is radically unjust, because of violation of the traditional requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons developed in the text. Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective medical intervention ... (PL, p.313). �Page 37 Unfortunately as documented in Scheer, significant officials who are responsible for the nuclear destiny of the U.S.A. - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived and that a global nuclear war can actually be won! 11. In practice they often were not, they drained limited economies, they layed waste countryside (though to a minor extent by nuclear or chemical or modern mining standards), impoverishing Inhabitants, etc. 12. For as Nagel contents (early on), there are moral restrictions on the conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither arbitrary not merely conventional nor a matter of usefulness. These themes run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausowicz - a theory outlined in Walzer. 13. As Nagel remarks. 14. The progressive escalation argument is an incremental Sorites. This is part of the so-called "logic of war". 15. As Walzer argues, p.24. 16. The severe limitations of those also come from the failure person from inside the homeland which excessive applications of 17. Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and the other, in Cohen et al. 18. The pattern of moral argument has much in common with procedure in anarchist political discussion. 19. There are other arguments against two (or Routley and Plumwood. 20. For details see Routley and Plumwood. 21. According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are responsible only for the intended effects or consequences of our freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences, even if these are forseen and/or intimately tied to the intended consequences. The doctrine is pernicious allowing those who adjust their intention suitably to escape responsibility for evil they knowingly perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme command which intended only to take out US military targets would, under double effects, effects have no responsibility for the resultant effect on American and Canadian cities! 22. Despite Nagel’s suggestion (pp.158). 23. Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from military in the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants. One is a variation of the Bald Man: there is no clear line between combatants and noncombatants. However as Nagel argues (p.20) there are distinctions between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g. in carrying or using argument like the lesser virtues, nationalism and patriotimsm, of replacement - try for example swapping a by one from outside as regards treatment patriotism can engender. multiple) morality Hare lines: on see �Page 38 arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of their harmfulness, the threat they offer. See also PL, p.312, where a simple and effective paradigm case argument is applied. 24. The principle can be argued to in various ways. One (not entirely conclusive) way is Nagel’s way, from the requirements of directness and relevance in combat, the underlying principle being that, ’whatever one does to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject, with the intention that he receive it as a subject’. (p.15) 25. The situation with limited nuclear wars where the targets are essentially military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed "indirectly' is different. Such wars are not however excused by the pernicious doctrine of double effect. For such wars remain unjust on several counts, e.g. they inflict disproportionate damage, e.g. on life systems. As Zuckermann says, ’It is still inevitable that were military installations rather than cities to become the objectives of nuclear attack, millions, even tens of millions of civilians would be killed ...’ (quoted in Thompson and Smith, p.14 where the Italics are added). 26. Throughout the OED equations,reflecting common usage, of just with right or correct, and unjust with morally wrong, are adopted. 27. These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear. For the aim of just war theory is not ’to legitimize war but to prevent it. The presumption is against the use of force’ (PL, p.312). And most types of wars are ruled out by the theory. However not all wars or violent revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction between the alternatives. In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may be condemned - ’the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of lethal force to prevent aggression against innocent victims’ (PL, p.311). Under Twentieth Century international law defence, narrowly construed, is the only legitimate basis for war; Roman law was only slightly more generous, in allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780). 28. An argument of this sort is developed in more detail, though not in complete generality, in Goodin. 29. As to the first point, there is not only overkill capacity and the drive for superiority (often represented via "negotiating" strength) but the matter of counterforce weapons which are offensive weapons. As regards the second point, US policy has been decidedly expansionist with regular intervention in other nations; there have been repeated US threats to use nuclear weapons, especially to deal with revolutionary activities in the third world, but also in Europe in "limited" nuclear war; and in official military strategy no sharpline has been drawn between conventional and nuclear weapons: on these and other related points see further Lackey 82, p.l91ff., and also Thompson and Smith. 30. The example was supplied by D. 31. Deterrence also commonly includes elements of mendacity, deception, misinformation. There is a grain of truth in the claim that ’deterrence is primarily about what the other side thinks, not what we think’ (Pym quoted morally Johnson. �Page 39 in Thompson, p.19). simply 32. Nor are degrees of wrongness required: ordered as regards worseness. 33. Can this be done semantically in terms of closeness/worseness The attempted X world is close to the X world? 34. There is a need for further clarification here. Passive spectatorship of evil events where one is in a position to make a difference is quite another thing, from contemplation of other worlds where evil occurs. 35. It is this principle especially that forces Ramsey, a Protestant theologian who is a nuclear hawk, into the tight position he ends in, which as Walzer explains, really leaves no room to move. For in virtue of C3 it must be allowed that the threatened wars are permissible to carry out. Ramsey tries to limit these to military exchanges. But to be effective as a deterrent, the exchange permitted must both threaten and also, in view of C3, not threaten nonmilitary targets, collateral non-combatant populations. It appears that Ramsey’s position, if worked out, would be inconsistent. wrongs can be partially of worlds? Principle C3 is also invoked by the US Catholic Bishops: see PL, p.316. They put the point both in terms of threat and of declared intent to use nuclear weapons, which they pronounce morally wrong. 36. As is widely known, inadmissible considerations of expediency frequently enter into reasons why states allow foreign nuclear facilities upon their territories, e.g. economic considerations such as trade or local revenue and jobs. 37. Cf. 38. It was considered long ago in China by the alternative systems, see especially Sharp. 39. Thus Green, along with many others, ’find[s] nuclear deterrence ... the best of practical policies available to us now ... given the realities of world politics’ but ’still demurfs] because of moral qualms’ (p.xil). Green also represents both Morgenthau and Halle as having ’rather agonisingly presented a ... case for a deterrence strategy, even while asserting that the strategy is morally indefensible according to the traditional ethical codes’ (p.252). Walzer ends in a similar dilemma (he is committed to a stronger and less qualified form of it than he sets down): ’... though it [deterrence] is a bad way, there may well be no other that is practical in a world of sovereign and suspicious states’ (p.274) (an indictment of the state system that Walzer does not pursue). the last article in Thompson. Mohists. For contemporary Similarly the Catholic Bishops present the situation in terms of a moral dilemma: they speak of ’the political paradox of deterrence ... the dilemma of how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons ... (PL, p.313). 40. Situations in war are also a major source of moral dilemmas. See Routley and Plumwood where several examples are given. A general logical account of and theory of moral dilemmas is elaborated therein. �Page 40 41. There are exceptions of course, e.g. Sartre; and Nagel’s final example is very instructive. For a full theory of moral dilemmas see however Routley and Plumwood. 42. Reported in The Economist; reprinted in The 1983, Weekend Magazine p.2. 43. This is no longer a radical theme but is widely promulgated. The source of the nuclear problem comes from state arrangements: it is ’... a world of sovereign states ... which brought the world to the present dangerous situation’. (PL, p.313) 44. It is not alone responsible for these other dilemmas. Large-scale nuclear power and other types of warfare and security arrangements also contribute. 45. In principle it would be relatively easy for states to agree to settlement of their disputes by less damaging and expensive contests than military ones, e.g. by contests of selected representatives, and not just through fighting in some form but by contests of footballers, singers, dancers, lawyers, or etc. In practice, however, such more civilized alternatives are never considered. Animals, by contrast, are smart enough to settle disputes by means much more like these. 46. Americans, for example, tend to forget that their State (like USSR) is a union, of fairly recent origin; and that a State of the Union message could consider the dissolution of the union. 47. Thus for example, Kahn, where such a "solution" is quickly dismissed as, impractical, etc. Hardly necessary to say the Way Up has won most favour with the legal fraternity, and from more authoritarian organisations. 48. See further Routley and especially Griffin. 49. Schell does not make it clear whether he is thinking of the Way Up or the Way Down, but some of the names he drops suggest the Way Up. So can some of what he says, e.g. ’Thus the peril of extinction is the price that the world pays not for "safety" or "survival" but for its [sic!] insistence on continuing to divide Itself up into sovereign nations’ (p.76, III), as if the natural or original state were an undivided one? Routley and Australian, material referred February to 12- therein, 13 and �Page 41 APPENDIX 1; Remarks on J. Schell’s THE FATE OF THE EARTH. Schell’s book is an important and influential document, which is significant having a and urgently needed effect in shifting attitudes towards nuclear. It is especially valuable for aftermath example defects. is Some exhibits, also it just nothing else that we undertake together can make any sense ...’ the of both for rubbish, a world-wide program of action for preserving the [human] ’without ... species ... moral scenarios horrifying Unfortunately severe philosophically and factually, and vivid attack. nuclear of its (p.104, Humans rearranged). however like rabbits in are Australia, virtually beyond human power to extirpate. or practical The claim presupposes two of the major defective assumptions of the book: 51. That nuclear war will eliminate life, human life, at least, on earth total extermination assumption); (the and 52. That very many notions, not only those of morality and value, but those of time and space, make no sense in the absence of humans, or, to put it into a more sympathetic philosophical form, in the absence of an actual context human (the anthropocentric assumption). The frequent applications of S2, which philosophical depth and induce give the book some of its apparent suitable puzzlement through their paradoxical without total extermination aspects, depend essentially on SI; there will be humans, about to make past and future, good and evil, go on making sense! Now although the factual assumption SI is possibility, unlikely. example, it appears in Schell’s argument on an unjustified no means ruled out as a light of present (inadequate) knowledge most the to by SI is extremely extrapolation from Hemisphere, but for the most part it does that very flimsy. It depends, for the Northern to the Southern North American thing, of �Page 42 the contracting North to world (All that matters, all worthwhile America. civilization, is in USA, or at least, to be more charitable, and Europe, also be wiped out, i.e. will which eliminated in the nuclear holocaust). the example out of date. America North its human population will be Some of the data Schell relies upon, for of nuclear explosions on the ozone layer, is significantly Other effects than ozone destruction transfer even less well South. to North effect in from A factually superior study of nuclear disaster that Schell’s, Preddy and others, indicates that parts of the Southern Hemisphere, New Zealand and Southern Africa and America could escape relatively unscathed even from most massive northern exchanges. The penetration of human chauvinism as in S2 is not something Schell but product a is of truths necessary mathematics of and in Wittgenstein ’s philosophy, where even the are a product of human conventions and would In Schell human chauvinism is dished up in a particularly vanish with humans!). powerful obnoxious Kantian Thoughts form. tenses, values and morality, all depend in the and propositions, time and presence life-giving of human - past or future or merely potential humans are not enough, persons that beings are not humans are certainly not enough. ’... e.g.): Thus according to (II, Schell p.74, the thought "Humanity is not extinct" is an impossible one for a rational person, because as soon as it is, we are not. In imagining any other we look ahead to a moment that is still within the stream of human time, event, ...’. right to philosophy especially, which is still European unfortunately alive and well (e.g. peculiar The thought is however perfectly possible for humans; now. Though we (p.74)l. ’... outside can have it no doubt have it falsely a later rational creature may well be able to have it truly. "later" we the Schell erroneously denies human tenses of past, that: there is no present, and future ...’ Human extinction eliminates ’the creature that divides time into past, �Page 43 present future’: and so annihilation cannot ’come to pass’ (p.77). simply false that the tenses are human: the tenses depend on But it is time local a (perceptible to many creatures other than humans, but not depending at ordering all on perceptibility for its viability) relating other times to the present, to now (also a human-independent location, evident to other creatures, and borne witness to by such sequences as the passing seasons). too easily come And annihilation may also to pass, for many humans in the North at least, as it came to pass in recent geological times that humans began to exist upon that there was a time before there were any human beings. earth. Before Here as elsewhere the human chauvinism is mixed with other distorting metaphysical assumptions of Western our heritage, verlficationism and Implicit ontic assumptions (to the effect that there are severe difficulties in talking about what does not exist). Thus, for example, Schell takes over dubious metaphysics from Freud, according to whom "it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; do so, we (p.77/4?). In can perceive that we are in attempt and whenever we fact still present as spectators" The second clause goes a good distance towards refuting first. the fact there is no great problem in describing counterfactual situations which undermine both Freud’s claims. chauvinism into one of The same goes for Schell’s extensions human of its main traditional strongholds, value theory: the simple and basic fact [sic!] that before there can be good or evil, or to service harm, lamenting or rejoicing there must be life’, human life (p.103). are no facts, but entrenched philosophical assumptions which have been ’... These exposed 2 and criticised elsewhere . Another obnoxious theme, which Schell repeatedly infiltrates, is the Pogo theme, which S3. Distributes responsibility for the present really) onto everyone, every human in the world. nuclear situation (fiasco, An especially blatant example 3 �Page 44 the world’s political runs as follows: menace leaders ... though the earth with nuclear weapons, do so only with our permission, and even at our bidding. theme At least, this is true elsewhere elaborated is ’... for democracies’ pay 4 we are the authors of the destruction . while for the peoples of the non-nuclear-armed world it sense to an argument of all The moral cost of only true in the sensitivity nuclear of representative And again ’... we is it armaments that of us underwriters of the slaughter of hundreds of millions - ’. And again ’[as] perpetrators ... is not sacred but is worthless; be killed’ (p.88). vote the against of the populace they allegedly govern. many are potential mass—killers. makes is that they fail to try to do anything about the danger)’ (p.87). But this is more of government since extinction and support the governments that pose the threat of it, for negative The III). (p.106, (For the populations of the superpowers this is true in a positive sense, we now they we convey the steady messsage ... it ... that ... Little of this is true. that life is acceptable for everyone to Those who campaign against nuclear, against nuclear-committed parties so far as is possible, and the like, are certainly not the authors of potential destruction, and responsibility nuclear situation does not simply distribute onto them. - or the unlikely opinions as to worth Schell everyone - fall on those who have done less. for the Nor does responsibility illegitimately attributes to Responsibility for decisions taken in "liberal democracies" even by representatives (in the unlikely event of this happening in the case of anything as important as defence) cannot be traced back to those represented, since among many other things, a representative of a party is only which offers a complex and often ill-characterised package of policies, and a voter may vote for zero package. representative or more policies of this Only in the (unlikely) event of a clear single issue referendum, which is adopted, can responsibility, still of a qualified sort, be sheeted home, to �Page 45 those who voted for it, not every one in the community. When however the Pogo assumption is disentangled from the following theme what results is decidedly along the right lines: The controllers [not to be confused, in Schell’s fashion, with all of S4. have failed to change our pre-nuclear institutions. The sovereign system is out HI) (p.51, of step with nuclear age, the one-earth system, etc. earth us] (the whole Unfortunately Schell often loses sight of this important theme. theme). S4 forms part of Schell’s critique of the state which is, by an large, scattered and fragmentary. As we saw, in §7, Schell arrives at the conclusion that the nation-state has outlasted its usefulness, and that new institutions political more ’consonant the global reality’ are required as a matter of urgency. evades what he admits is the major task, making viable out But he alternatives. most he makes some passing suggestions, some of which point to the Way Up. he remains clear about are the serious defects of the state and the At What frequently immoral purposes for which the state is used. At one stage he contrasts what he calls Socratic-Christian ethics with that of state, where ’the end [state] justifies the means . .., the raison d’etre of government, is the basis on which themselves to commit crimes of governments, every in sort’. anything whatever in the name of [their] survival’. that all So times, licensed ’states may do virtually Schell then argues however, extinction nullifies end-means justification by destroying every end; that argument is far from sound, and depends again on extreme (S2) have combined with ontic assumptions. under system SI) ends could remain, e.g. human but chauvinism Even if all humans were extinguished (as for nonhumans (actual or not). �Page 46 As to the part of the state and (state) sovereignty in war, in us Schell leaves A sovereign state is virtually defined as one that enjoys the no doubt. right and power to go to war in defence or pursuit of its interests (III, p.51). War from how things are: arises jealous nation states (p.51). and sovereignty from the arrangement of political affairs via Indeed there is a two-way linkage between On the one side, sovereignty is, Schell capacity to wage war. contends, necessary for people to organise for war. is impossible to preserve sovereignty. it war transparently clear as they stand. having On the other side, without Neither of these contentions is Now that the state system in entrenched, it however easy for conservatives (in particular) to argue from the "realities" is of international life, which include self-interest, is It on basis this that peace arrangements aggression, readily are hatred. fear, dismissed as unrealistic, utopian, even (amusingly) as extremist. Schell’s further theme that nuclear "war" is not war threatens to undermine his case erroneous an sovereign characterisation nation to achieve an end’ (III, sufficient for p.52): war as ’a violent means employed by a of but neither considerations but not all wars or games are won). It they fail (even on one side being defeated on a But in nuclear "war" this doesn’t happen, ’no one’s strength But what these sorts contribute to showing is not that nuclear wars are not wars, but that they are not wars of certain sorts, e.g., not just wars because nor LN falls until both sides have been annihilated* (III, p.52). of necessary if is also claimed that war depends on weakness; by arms. is But nuclear attacks can certainly have ends cannot be won in the older sense: decision this It is then claimed that war requires an end which nuclear war. "war" does not have. wars state based, for example, on its nuclear war But the not-war theme needs much qualification, and starts out making capacity. from the against on such criteria as reasonable when LN wars prospect of success and �Page 47 improvement, not rational wars (in a good sense), and so on. wars nuclear weapons have also ruined "conventional" wars, and that demise the war of not just on his connected the mistaken has removed been proposition The (p.52). concerning the conventional war and the mistaken proposition that war of some sort the theme has left no means to finally settle disputes between nations, for the final court of appeal depends conventional nuclear times does damage to Schell’s argument that into persisted have That theme demise has to of be "court of appeal" between nations (for, as observed, there are other final types of contests that could serve, and there is also the cooperative behaviour, e.g. joint referenda); possibility of more it also imports the assumption of Clausowicz (criticised earlier) that war has to proceed to the technological limit - as if war and violence were thoroughly natural activities independent of recognised social settings (for winning, surrender, etc.) and ruleless. wars contrary, are parasitic on On the social organisations such as states and are They are a social governed by a range of understandings, conventions and rules. phenomenon, with a rule structure if not a logic. Much capital has been made from what is called "the and the "logic logic of deterrence" The message that is usually of nuclear (strategic) planning". supposed to come through is that the massive nuclear arraangements the world now entangled in are perfectly logical, sound, reasonable, rational. this represents little more than a cheap semantical the justifies reasonable. can be present arrangements, or trick. anything in strategic planning; values no in way in Jeffrey) which but is does not yield specific results without desirability measures being assigned to alternative without However like them, or renders them There is a logic of decision (as presented e.g. applied Logic is being pumped in, extralogically . outcomes, that is There are varaious ways these value assignments may be determined, to meet moral requirements or not; but in �Page 48 nuclear planning strategic (Selecting the usual expediency. automatically; is have invariably been settled on the basis of game theory setting based something cover strategy of’. term almost Thus too the presumption in Walzer, p.277, that the logic of on eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth assumptions.) ’logic of’ tends to be used very generously, as a word of general to this to sees for it is then assumed that each player plays to maximize his or her own advantage. deterrence they like In fact commendation, ’rational considerations entering into the policy or In these terms, Schell, who like others enjoys playing with the ’logic of’, should write of ’the illoglc of deterrence’, for he emphasizes (III, p.80) the disparity between the supposed rationality of threatening use of nuclear weapons and the irrationality (even from a national interest viewpoint) of actually using them should the threat fail: doctrine depends irrational use. deterrence (e.g. on credibility of the yet the threat of of success this deterrence unjustifiable and Indeed Schell wants to go further and locate a contradiction in HI, pp.67-8): but the argument depends on an interesting confusion of contradiction with cancellation, which deterrence is supposed to (etc.) is involve. FOOTNOTES 1. The appalling theme that humans create past, present and repeated, e.g. p.104 top. 2. See e.g. ’Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’ in Environmental Philosophy (editor Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1980. 3. Another example of spreading the responsibility runs as follows (Schell p.46, III): we plan to exterminate species in certain circumstance, though we don’t quite admit this to ourselves, as sane or sensible (or rational?). Further (p.55 III), ’the world ... chose the course of attempting to refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons’: the world? Connected with this is the argument from defence of fundamentals [ideology] - e.g. for liberty, the (USA) nation, and against socialism. In the course of this yet another fallacious assumption is rolled out: ’The means to the end are not limited, for the end itself sets the limits in each future �Page 49 case’ [?] 4. There is also, mixed in, a weaker more plausible claim that gives lie to the stronger one, namely that we have some responsibility (the Nazi situation is compared). 5. There is however a simple solution to Schell’s problem of the missing motive, namely an ideological one: remove the rival ideology from future dominance. �Page 50 APPENDIX 2: Strategies and the Matter of Collective and Individual Responsibility What one does depends, naturally, on where one lives and what sort of power it is. responsibility work to entirely to an In present circumstances states have and states, there ends: responsibilities these no individual, or (smaller scale) is collective responsibility to work out a policy or people on stance matters such as While such a non-responsibility nuclear and still less to act on such a stance. (or opt-out) theme no doubt suits many evident There are however some persuasive out their policies. arguments that this is where the responsibility accrue one means what as what strategy a state should adopt depends on where it is located much has, and — many for some, themselves, especially more authoritarian power-holders, for others - it does involve opting out of moral responsibilities, responsibilities acquired by virtue of being a person within the framework of certain social arrangments. Now there is no doubt that individuals and a group can out. They can neglect their moral responsibilities; in doing so. being this, do can opt but they are not justified Against this claim, which is based ultimately upon each person’s caught in a web of responsibility-inducing social relations, whether they like it or not, there are some neat arguments which appear to permit opting out. One goes as follows: 1. The (ordinary) individual, difference to what happens. 2. Such difference. 3. individuals, or or group, has no possibility of making a make a Therefore groups, have no obligation to try to Hence Such individuals, or groups, are not morally responsible, for instance when things go wrong. �Page 51 There are two main assumptions resisted; this in argument, both which of be firstly, a variant of the ought implies can theme , and secondly, the assumption that individuals can’t make a difference. cannot individuals competitive highly that true What an individuals do. full of hopeful free-riders, a person may communities, encouter a familiar impasse: is on their own, together they can. much accomplish it While individual can achieve depends on what sufficiently many other In should that he or she acts M-ly (e.g. against morally, nuclear arrangements, present destruction) at considerable personal cost with no Such an impasse no guarantee that others will also act M-ly. longer faces so many in the West at least as regards initial steps against nuclear arrangements. The individual can cooperate with others in ways that do make a difference. An individual is not exonerated from responsibility by the argument. While individuals can respond by joining organisations whose activities are at directed difference, many individuals also have the option of some making more individualistic action in such disobedience. important An forms as or deployment) Evidently, various or parts redirection however, work more effectively go slows, political form of individual resistance, already adopted in Canada and north-western USA is refusal to pay defence boycotts, thereof of such (e.g. taxes, income taxes nuclear for directed weapons Instance towards production to peace and funds. all these more individualistic forms of political activity if individuals integrate their activities since the impacts aggregate (and appear after a certain stage to exponentiate). There are arguments of some weight that individuals are under some sort moral obligation to take political action to disaffiliate themselves from what contributes to the prospects of nuclear depends on the of sort of state war. What type of action this is one resides in, e.g., whether it is a nuclear �Page 52 power, whether it provides nuclear issues complicating as or bases facilities, and such on kind of preventive action the state is likely to what One argument - it is one of a type take in return. etc., be can that varied from making nuclear weapons to, for example, providing facilities for them - proceeds from the wrongness of nuclear war to the position that it is making weapons the such for The war. argument here not applies principles (like that of §5), for instance that the manufacture of such weapoons increases the risk of such war. right and to connecting deployment But if it is not morally right to be making such weapons then those who live in a state that is doing so to disaffiliate themselves from such substantive without The argument is but the assumptions opt-outers and do-nothingers assumption, ought defence production, and disaffiliation 2 includes not paying for such production through defence taxes . not be morally appear reasonable and defensible. Such arguments not only insofar as they put to contribute national for those 3 take action, even limited action such as redirection of taxes . in some fashion to moral obligations; political obligations. And political limited, by moral constraints. are already answer for then moral obligations override obligations are already significantly The nuclear situation does not so much bring out new limits on political obligation, as emphasize the obligations who There is however no dilemma under any theory which takes political obligations to back spot the objectives, they also raise serious questions and perhaps dilemmas as regards political obligations would on limited, and respects in which those introduce further moral considerations against sponsorship of national defence arrangements. �Page 53 An obligation to try war does not commit one to more than this: for an to an obligation, for example, work to But alternative national defence policy which avoids nuclear elements. no doubt this would be a good thing to try to contribute to. one nuclear spending part of one’s working life contributing indirectly to it, not by to disaffiliate oneself from preparation for attempts depends commitments, and on forth. so where lives, one For not only the level are Once of again, one’s pacificist types different what policy of appropriate for different nations and regions, but there are more reorientation superficial and deeper reorientations that can be worked out and promoted, schemes that "conventional" leave e.g. warfare apparatus more or less Intact, and deeper (ecological) schemes that change that. The US Bishops, for example, present a shallower set of goals for such power as the USA, which includes such as preventing the objectives working development and deployment of destabilizing nuclear weapons systems and for better of already operational systems (see PL, p.317). control super a For those whose very limited political Influence is exerted in considerably lesser even the shallow goals may look quite different: there are no weapons (except perhaps those of another power planted on local territory) better control. The view from the very minor to in or redeploy to powers in the Antipodes is furthermore different from that of the medium powers in Europe. prospect powers is There some the Antipodes of avoiding the more immediate effects of an LN war, while there is little such prospect in Europe (cf. Preddy and others). There is accordingly some obligation - an obligation little considered and not grasped by the power holders - on those in the Antipodes to make some effort to preserve there elements of what is valuable in world civilization. Local and regional self-interest would also suggest steps towards self-preservation that been initiated. have not �Page 54 What is broadly required in the Andipodes is a work out once removal of American bases alliance, which is in any case of questionable merit; and withdrawal of American rightss for nuclear-carrying equipment to access ports, air bases and other facilities, so as to remove pursuit of more a evenhanded policy targets; nuclear is That much easy, in principle. difficult to ensure is that economic and cultural collapse does not follow an LN war in the North. independence Secondly then the building of Increased in the Antipodes is required. sustainable of life its exercise unless combined with and Preddey it others is own. ’the region must also other desirable objectives: unlikely - the structural readjustment aims of moving for example, in estimated that 25 per cent of GDP would have to be included Australia the costs would be less. desirable have For a small region that looks a very costly diverted to build up New Zealand’s economic independence. which socio-economic It is not enough to make the region a nuclear-free zone not worth targeting militarily: a local of nonalignment (something quite small powers elsewhere have managed to achieve). More to Firstly, withdrawal from the American goals are glimpsed. the matter straightforward the were For a larger region If, furthermore - what seems combined with the independently whole region towards a multicultural conserver society and diverting "defence" spending to connected self-management and civil be considerably lessened. They only appear great in the setting of an on-going consumer-defence socleity. In any case where life itself defence goals, would is concerned, the costs do not appear excessive. FOOTNOTES 1. Any satisfactory deontic theory which takes moral dilemmas with due seriousness is bound to reject this theme. There are also independent grounds for jettisoning this Kantian theme: see Routley and Plumwood. �Page 55 Seatie 2. An argument of this type was deployed by Bishop support of his refusal to pay defence taxes. 3. This dilemma and option is now removed for most wage earners by Pay As You Earn taxation schemes, schemes apparently introduced to give the state interest on gross earnings, but obviously very effective in removing taxation power from most workers, and so from individuals to the state. 4. Given the power of institutions and the state one may be able to do little more than try, without giving up one’s work and therby one’s ability to contribute to other deserving causes. For example, it may be virtually impossible for one to avoid contributing to a superannuation fund which is investing in projects which one opposes and/or ought to oppose. Hunthaassen of in �Page 56 REFERENCES Berg, Reinhabiting a Separate 1979. P. M. Cohen, Nagel, Scanlan Princeton, 1974. Country, (editors) Planet War and Drum, Moral San Francisco, Responsibility , R.E. Goodin, ’Disarming nuclear apologists’, typescript, 1982. R.E. Goodin, ’Disarmament as a moral certalnuity’, typescript, 1983. P(hilip) Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 1966. N. Griffin, ’Lifeboat USA', typescript, 1982. Ground Zero Organisation, Nuclear War: New York, 1982. R. Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision H. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War. What’s In It For You? Pocket Book (editor D.P. Lackey, ’Ethics and nuclear deterrence*, in Moral James Rachels), Harper and Row, New York, 1979. D.P. Lackey, 'Missiles and morals: a utilitarian look at nuclear deterrence’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 11 (1982) pp.189-213. J.C. Problems Murray, Morality and Modern War, T. Nagel, ’War and Massacre' in Cohen et al, pp.3-24. J. Narvesen, 'Violence and War’ in Regan, pp.109-146. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on War and Peace, ’The challenge of peace: God’s promise and our response’, Origins 12 (20) (1982) pp.306-328 [hereafter referred to as PL, for ’New Draft of Pastoral Letter’]. G.F. Preddey and others, Future Contingencies 4. Nuclear Disasters, A Report to the Commision for the Future, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, 1982. T. Regan (editor), Matters of Life and 1980. R. Routley and V. Routley, Alternatives, (1982). R. Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas and (edit. notions’ in Paraconsistent Logic, Philosophla Verlag, 1983. 'The Death, Random irrefutability of the G. House, New anarchism’, York, Social logic of deontic Priest and others) �Page 57 R. Scheer, With Enough Shovels: House, New York, 1982. J. Schell, ’Reflections (Nuclear Arms - Parts I-III)’, The New Yorker, February 1, 8, and 15, 1982, pp.47-113, 48-109, and 45-107, respectively. This series subtitled The Fate of the Earth, has now appeared as a book with that title (Kopf, New York, 1982). References in the text are to the original articles. All references by parts labels ’I’-’III’ are to these articles. T.C . Reagan, Bush and Nuclear Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971. T. Taylor, Nuremburg and Vietnam: R.W.. M.M.. M. R.A. S. Random Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, 1980. G. E.P.. War, Thompson and D. New York, 1981. An American Tragedy, Smith, Protest and Survive, Monthly Review Press, Tucker, The Just War, Wakin (editor), War, Morality and the Military Profession, Boulder, Colorado, 1979. Westview, Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Basic Books, New York, 1977. Wasserstrom (editor) California, 1970. War and Morality, Wadsworth, Zuckerman, Nuclear Illusion and Reality, Collins, London, 1982. Belmont, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. 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Text Any textual data included in the document WORKING DRAFT ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND WAR-DETERRENCE AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT Because of their projected effects - which are said to differ from those of the even largest difference in kind - generated, encounters. exchanges either at all wars nuclear large-scale World (the wars conventional Wars) raise to as and not or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military Certainly exchanges such as nuclear wars involve, such constitute a questions ethical deterrence nuclear investigation is and threatened presupposes, are neither envisaged nor fully accommodated by traditional theories of just wars. reflection as even required, if Much new philosohical well-tested and rather old-fashioned moral principles will serve as ethical base. Nuclear wars - though a fine class of nonexistent object, is existence whose however best confined to other (already uncomfortably neighbouring) possible worlds - have several distinctive properties and come in several varieties. particular, limited nuclear wars which (of tactical or strategic subvarieties) contrast with large-scale nuclear wars, LN-type-wars, large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region; two main parameters: are need A large-scale nuclear war involves the explosion of however be unlimited not which In quantity it is a function of of explosive) and distribution. (megatonnage Such a war differs markedly from a limited (or tactical or strategic) nuclear war which is limited - by assumption, the chances of escalation are however very real 3 - to much smaller quantities of explosives characteristically circumscribed, installations in a given region. wars and their prevention, and where the targets are confined to military Though the focus in what follows is upon e.g. limited in nuclear principle LN wars are by no means a separate Page 2 issue, since a nuclear arsenal is escalation of such are wars a and prerequisite, high probabilities of assumptions of reasonable usual (given the follow-up or second strike, etc.) §1. is What different old of appropriateness and models wars:____ the nuclear about theories resulting war. of limited model of war that A dominates much thinking, including [even] strategic thinking, is the two party 4 (or even two person) game or, a complication of that, the clan or tribe battle . A picture of war built up, especially as a result of medieval discussion of just war, which inapplicable. for such technological have advances The traditional theory, hardly surprisingly, phenomena Dresden and Tokyo. mass as bombing inappropriate rendered no made the and allowance large cities, such as occurred with of And nuclear bombing, with its many further crucial effects beyond mass bombing, adds further new dimensions. Yet it is Important, for the argument to anchors, historical linkages and to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and of when, and why, wars and military actions Firstly, retain were accounted unjust war is essentially a matter of states and their control: or wrong. to elaborate the OED account, war is ’hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on between nations, states, or rulers, or between parties in the same nation or state’ for control of the state : literal, but transferred, antagonists or players; other metaphoric, forces comprising senses of etc.? States armed the ’war’ noun not the protagonists, are soldiers are are the means of contention or combat, and combat or forceful (typically violent) exchange is the actual experience. function of remove states: Thus wars are external or internal (civil), states or their rule. but always, a An obvious way then to eliminate wars is to in short, wars are an outcome of political structure, and are Page 3 altering the structure . by removed This is an initial reason why the radical argument against nuclear wars and deterrence devolves into an argument the (self-legitimised) war-declarers and war-makers, against states. the traditional theory, wars were restricted to external against In fact on which wars, were construed as the right of states or their rulers (princes) for certain political purposes, the argument being that private persons with grievences had access the while courts, did not states legitimate (wars were, so to speak, the international But this is itself a very analogue of the law courts). the 9 to statist conception of the semantics is not so restrictive and permits place of wars; internal wars, for example, to end wars. Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention a basic and most familiar case, external wars between two states or set (axes) of states, two-player external wars. games competitive could be won. It was assumed be well no winning strategy. waste of the Northern huge surrounding areas of countryside. hemisphere and not like a draw, or like the strange out for the simultaneously knock each other element, emphasis the inevitable is disputes, removed: be pointfully fought. Certainly, elements of gamesmenship had a role count.) in for, deterrence, earlier wars, (So where two boxers situation on pure deterrence; that are most elaborately prepared for (exercised never the settled with main protagonists substantially obliterated^, and all is is there Thus too the point of main players very substantially worse off than at the outset of the "play". it like An LN war could involve destruction of all war as traditionally seen, to settle serious interstate nothing wars, that With LN wars it no longer holds; main Western metropolitan agglomerations in laying firstly That assumption still held good for massive armed exchanges such as the World Wars. may to Hence another newer the phenomenon of wars etc.), but which can bluff, and the other it was not but pure Page 4 deterrence. to principle important, Most military next, traditional and targets military gross ways to uninvolved parties sacrifice effects nuclear of large nuclear wars cannot (presented horrifying in be confined in be could This exchanges. feature is for, as we shall see, wars that spill over in fundamental as regards just wars; special wars any The morality. to pretension explosives, especially in mass, mean however that legitimately detail in confined. popular These effects special sources such as Schell) include radioactivity, ozone destruction, shockwaves, fireball or firestorm devastation, etc., etc . . .. The moral situation, and the tendency of moral §2. entirely in the context of war. submerged case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the expediency. What is to considerations become It is particularly important in the distinction between morality done in war, especially for local or national advantage, may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the latter ought not to be done codes and conventions of war, or otherwise in war is done, despite modern . military conventions and the like, for one (alleged) advantage or another. live in a rather barbarous age: go unremarked, if so numbing, codes the history gets written (accurately) that is. tends 13 to induce a and Militarily we will the horrors of the twentieth century military thinking and strategic planning is A , Much that 12 the using determined and not Furthermore certain moral that a range of morally excluded actions, such as wiping our rural populations, become real ("moral’') possibilities, to be reckoned, for example, into consequentialist calculations of maximising expediency. The reason is that strategic planning is characteristically based on expediency (and extent displaces morality). so to that For each side in a military encounter determines its "strategy" by considering only its own advantages and disadvantages, its own gains and losses as a result of alternative possible moves, not, as it ought, Page 5 those of the other side(s) as well. Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted way, no-holds-barred-combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without a limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of etc., themselves). Such is the And Clausowicz tries to repeated. argue, through 14 an be broken by player each in from And the argument is inconclusive; c Thus too an It would follow for the players from the can choose 15 A state engaged in war - this will no doubt include nuclear nowadays war sees itself as entirely bound by constraints of morality: to be mere prudence on the part no-immoral-holds-barred of approach those they attacked to take - seldom it is taken account of the may well encounter, especially from the So each group potentially engaged in war forces other side. the question not as to what it ought to do in morally permissible situations, but also both what it ought really do and what it can do in the morally flawed finds enforced) escalate, and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types to of weapons, etc. only The that the idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in terms. But it is not. not escalation externally for advantage. turn extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed. argument incremental ), that there can be no limit. assumption is that any merely selected (as distinct will force, so-called "classic" view of Clausowicz, oft argument (but really "the bald man" fallacy limit this itself in. But last the question does not then situations it reduce to one of expediency. There is expediency, involves. no question of morality giving or having to give way to for instance under extreme circumstances such as prospect of LN war For it is not as if shaky considerations of morality are bound to to Page 6 give not only firm ground of expediency when the chips are down: the to way does this in fact often enough not happen in crises situations, but the fact that is both morality and expediency fall within the same, equally shaky or solid, Expediency does not (meticulously) deliver us from domain of value theory. fact, but simply takes narrowly-construed local advantage or power as to value what is valuable, as what matters; family, that urges values local - of self, region or nation - are what really count and override or class, clan, it are to be maximized at the expense of remote or considerations. foreign By morality requires, as a matter of its proper characterisation, a much contrast, more universal distribution of value thereby the through imposes, requirements general of universalizable intersubstitutivity resultant equillbity fairness, of the same results not holding when x and y are interchanged, under Not evaluations 16. certain principles, justice. and and principles, The deep expediency derives from the failure of interreplacement, of unsatisfactoriness so and only can expediency be given a deontic presentation, as expediency through such slogans as "might is right", but theories or utility do not have to be positions of expediency utilitarianism proper — morality, which if can utility meet not is locally intersubstltutivity Thus confined. requirements of unlike the war game theory, does not assign different weights which, to (say) the individual utility of Americans as opposed to Russians — is not to be dismissed as considering only expediency. There are however significant moral differences, between and utilitarians 17 deontologists especially, which serve to further complicate the moral picture Thus utilitarian approaches have seemed to justify ugly strategies and practices render as morally regards deontological principles would not permit (even with the convenient law of double effects). But this is permissible enemy best already or civilians, bending to of to that the effect some Page 8 Characteristically, national interest is taken to differently, to override morality impose Irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary ethical considerations (such as even the immorality of killing millions). as or, Schell puts it, Thus, ’What is being claimed is that one or two countries have the right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents in the name certain of beliefs’ (II, p.70). But morally national interest can do neither of those things. simply the The first is substitution of expediency for morality, which entirely lacks moral justification, while second, the the alleged moral dominance of national fails in important classes of cases, including, so the argument will Interests, go, the case of LN war. States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis, let it not pretended be expediency (’’group governments. Morality it is a moral basis as distinct from one of There is no that egoism’’). works in the special dispensation moral For example, what ought be to as regards x semantically, what would happen as regards x in all ideal worlds; no difference x is an individual or States such as Israel (in its recent organisation. behaving whether just as immorally as brigands individual invasion or mass killers: difference. Certainly there are grounds on which states or claimed been conceded special moral dispensations; or for same way for groups as for individuals: there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or obligation. but are no more than that and do not stand up to criticism. of analysis is, analysed and it makes system, group or of are Lebanon) there is no moral their agents have but the excuses offered A satisfactory moral theory cannot furnish two (Incompatible) moralities, a state or public one and a private or individual citizen one - state expediency and individual morality - Page 7 partisanship - since utilitarians would the reject description practices of permitted under their principles as ’ugly’ - and an objective in what follows is to avoid metaethlcal partisanship, to achieve metaethical, though of course moral, neutrality. argument can begin. several And morally there is a large area of consensus Virtually all positions cities major in agree that the 18 not from which obliteration of a LN war would be wrong - indeed morally outrageous. Where there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to feel qualms no when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some Russian ones, simply increase the costs involved, up to loss of whole nations if necessary, then try to work down again. until moral repugnance is encountered; The fact remains however that things have got substantially out of perspective, Strategic thinking, in particular, has tended to abandon, or suppress morally. moral considerations (as indeed many theories of the state also pretend to do). Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does not mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be Consider the world empire. be realised. rising southern (hemisphere) no one’s While the superpowers of the north remain SS’s dream Thus his best strategy, exchange in the North. There advantage. strongman, SS, who has visions of will can be to a encourage point an all-out then in securing institutional arrangements so that potential SS’s do not accumulate much especially given the that is to anticipate: has its limitations, structural adjustments. hardly rid of southern waters of US having submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try nuclear to power, apparent instability of crucial world arrangements. the present point is that (the fact of) moral and is an inadequate But consensus constraint without accompanying Page 9 19 because this would lead to violations of substitutivity , neutrality, etc. instance, a state operative x could use state cover morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g. y are permuted. derivative A group or organisation or in consideration can but role, bound be by moral principles. special these are derivative principles, good for any such institution, which fit within and answer general in y by state interests) when x and person its of virtue citizen damage to For back to So it is also with a state which is an institutional arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some least) its of citizens: its (at charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency. particular, In state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its a own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even its for own survival. §3. Arguments to the Immorality of LN wars. can which set be since aside, the concede that war per se is not a crime. but pacifist positions immorality of LN wars follows at once - Not all wars are immoral, though states. aristocratic Among young men admissible wars are the external tournaments or of or warriors who volunteer as soldiers where the action does not spill over onto noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars, few even wars may be pointless or inferior ways of settling political issues inoffensive between All no combatants even were killed in war. where Since the establishment of such induction practices as conscription and recruitment of the near-destitute, have largely ceased to take these inoffensive forms: far removed from the ideal ecotopian literature war-tournament (where type, that its position is dubious). immoral, but few to such an extent as LN wars. wars modern massive wars are features now only in Most sorts of wars are Page 10 argument The first key to (1KA) the of (and wars LN of immorality sufficiently large-scale wars generally) takes the following form: Pi. The deliberate killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong. Pli. LN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants. (KA) What involves what is wrong is wrong. Piii . LN wars are wrong. J Supplementary remarks are called for:- Firstly, the (1KA) is one just representative of a Characteristically, in Western culture, it is arguments of that thought argument given of type. mass this taken But the focus can be off the killing: destruction of a first variation on (KA) replaces ’killing the is basis of may each be attacked of its premisses. wrong is as There slack by a has in effect been Let us consider these in that what involves are, in particular, such those generated by Good Samaritan arguments, which purport to show that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing. too noncombatants’ wrong, often expanded to a "distribution of obligation over entailment" principle, has been challenged. problems (and The principle, Piii, used in the argument, reverse order. what of Other variations will emerge in the discussion. but The argument is valid, on mass Thus concerning ’huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or not clause directly involved creatures’. attacked) in of lifestyle nonhumans and humans alike that an LN war will bring is sufficiently evil. suitable of killing about the worst thing that can happen (after the killing of police). is humans set particular a notion of involvement; linked to paradox-free entailment 20 But the problems derive from with a tighter Involvement connective, , the problems disappear, and Piii stands. Page 11 As against Pii, it may be legitimately argued against directed nuclear that military targets. wars can encounters be But given the character of nuclear weapons, LN wars could in no way be confined to such targets. merely the likelihood that many missiles explode off target. not the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings, for example down-wind fallout There is There are all the radioactive military targets, which in the case of US and European from targets especially will effect large concentrations of people, Including therein perhaps uninvolved countries such as Canada. There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties by appeal to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side 21 effect) If missiles were characteristically was which intended only to destroy an reliably underground unmanned unfortunately went off course and destroyed a large city, it the that Such claims should be rejected: not wrongness lessened could make a difference; for firing the city. the and one missile silo could be claimed mass destruction is legitimised under the double effect (unintended) principle. target, on the action would be wrong, and by the given intention. the Nonetheless the circumstances for they may mitigate attitudes to those responsible missile, since it was not as if they had deliberately aimed at The double effect principle confuses [diminution of] the allocation of responsibility for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act. As against Pi, and as regards the middle term of Pi argued that there is an important equivocation. the bracketed term, killing ’deliberate’. While it will and Pii, it may be The equivocation is induced by be that admitted deliberate of genuine innocents is impermissble , it will be contended firstly that they noncombatants, insofar as innocent, directly many being are distinguishable, involved in are by no means all military effort, whether just as Page 12 taxpayers or as suppliers of goods farmers or services used innocent. second The point Because Pii so amended in less defensible, and/or other reasons, discussed. leave to out the "modifier" ’deliberate’. of the perpetrators. it What is important for the present purposes is the moral status of what is done, not that motives e.g. military, a much narrower - and less defensible - version of premiss Pll already concerns best the and secondly LN wars do not involve the or bootmakers or entertainers; deliberate killing of those properly excluded as is by mixed with the So ’deliberate’ is out, equivocation is avoided, 22 Pii stands, and so does Pl. For not does Pi ’deliberate’, or ’intentional’ or the like. require the qualification Admittedly also ’noncombatant’ is a fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and there is no problem serious in marking out a class of clear noncombatants, people who are not directly involved in the command and action chains. practice, deriving from There is, moreover, Catholicism, of no need to the adopt stating an initial version of Pi in terms of innocents - at least as problematic a class as that of noncombatants to try to characterize - and then endeavouring to make the difficult transition to noncombatants. Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met, art arguments for the premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pi they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory. and will tend seriously understate the point) minimal respect owed to them as persons doing so 23 The argument from historical requirements on just wars from convergence. conclusion that fails to treat them with the §4. The to For example, one argument for Pi, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one, (to there that and the argument LN wars cannot be justly waged - and Page 13 accordingly are unjustified - is not merely something dreamed up by contemporary opponents The same conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked etc). out America or of the capitalist State (and communistically inspired, of times mdeieval in just for variant on the key argument (1KA). was justly that not it be One of the requirements gives but a wars. For a necessary condition for fighting a war the that case noncombatants are bound to be killed (cf. numbers large [innocent] of Barnes, p.775). A just war requires just means, that the war should be fought morally by which implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate killing of noncombatants. The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle legitimate of means, (between combatants and others) which ’prohibits all actions discrimination directly Intended to take the lives of p.312) 24 civilians and of (PL, noncombatants’ LN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate . U. . 25 this requirement Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of proportion being that of net evil to net good): ’the damage to be inflicted and costs Incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected up arms’ (PL, p.312). disproportionate to moral goods proportionality requirement is criterion of by the which achieved in doctrine "improvement" through war : not are of that nationally way. confined, overall consequences of abstaining improvement "puts wrongs to rights": "ameliorative" conditions and war according to the first, justly the ’X wages war bad, from war’ (Barnes, p.72). ’A nation wages war are Entangled with the justly upon y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less the taking is not difficult to see that LN wars violate this It the damage and costs, requirement: (the proportionality only than Similarly if the for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent Page 14 chance of being better after the fighting ends’ (Wakin, p.20). way LN war can in no satisfy these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such wars reveal. Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are infringed wars; LN It seems that there can for example, that of reasonable expectation of success. be no reasonable expectation of success in an LN by war, the whatever prospects of success with more limited nuclear exchanges. (limited) What is less clearcut is the question of whether LN wars conflict with the requirements of just cause or due fault and of right intention. For this depends on the sensitive issue of the weight assigned to what are seen as basic rights human and fundamental values, and the extent to which just wars can be ideologically justified. the mainstream justified position and wars definitively excluded however, in puzzling of medieval "humanitarian" by the over decisive against LN wars. theory wars (cf. traditional was opposed to While ideologically Barnes, p.778), these were not theory. There is merit, little dubiously effective requirements, when so many are Finally, these arguments from historical requirements do not violate prescriptive requirements: the argument is not a simple argument from historical authority, but also premisses uses requirements imposed (and used) were justified. the to effect that the As they are. In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the moral rightness or justness of wars 9A , the just war theory and a rival pacificist strand, prominent in early Christianity, but submerged from Augustine on until contemporary times. Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and This is the involve violence beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars: such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once expediency is 27 that duly Page 15 The detailed argument They are morally wrong however you look at it. removed. is an exhaustive case by case one, from each type of moral theory. can details For deontological and contractual theories lead back be shortcut. to requirements for a just war, violate. Fortunately which it has already shown, been In fact conditions for just wars were sometimes arrived at or defended through principles of such moral theories, so that a good deal of the work argumentative already has brand utilitarian of finally accomplished; for such and is adopted, not is far to have effect in shown pleasure, reason The wars Involves such massive that this dominates genuine alternative to LN war is better or 28 outlined against overwhelming moral case against such wars. wars LN do not exhaust the For there are other moral principles (derivative in some of the theories just considered) which the waging of war would violate. in are accomplished in utilitarian fashion, so that any they The arguments given LN that utility maximisation is however seek: infliction of pain and colossal removal of however others requisite latter point holds also as LN wars are excluded on utilitarian grounds. convergence assessments The done. been regards utilitarianism, where Lackey whatever wars LN an LN Among such principles are conservative ones, that we have an obligation to maintain the earth in proper shape and not degrade its systems, that we have a responsibility to future generations, to whom we are accountable, to "pass the world on" not in substantially worse condition it". Such conservative principles than we "received - however they are finally satisfactorily formulated - are bound to be violated in the event of an LN war. §5. The shift to nuclear lobby nuclear arguments deterrence: to its immorality. The has a way of halting, and if not defeating, certainly deflating, arguments against the immorality of LN wars, namely there is no actual Page 16 such any In engagement wars. different from engagement in war: LN being done is, it is claimed, quite is What is deterrence indeed important most precisely in preventing such wars from ever occurring, as well as in maintaining (other) fundamental [Western] values. obtaining desiderata. both is deterrence pronouncements, claims The reasons:- A first reason is that Indeed it is the only there are is much for more than deterrence can account neither for strategy military Western disarmament to expected be On deterrence. 29 the despite For if it and sometimes even a drive for superiority. this, actual nuclear of In fact there has been a were "sufficiency" to deter would be an adequate goal. quest that, evidence the - the only - military goal. not way dubious, for several decidedly too practical nor weapons for Pure orthodox Nor has deterrence set in motion the process of . to armaments reduce "its" under contrary, to levels impulse there sufficient has for been almost unlimited acceleration in building arms (PL, p.318, quotes inserted). Another of deterrence reason for the type serious that is doubt being concerns other reasons also, connected with pure deterrence The reasons include the for nuclear war and with to For original (its threatening posture deterrence for, the propaganda that must be promulgated to maintain credibility with a population whose interests are being etc. conditions the "cold war", the probability of a LN war has increased considerably in the last 30 years. calls factor: to that extent, at least, enhanced its prospects of occurring. and setting) probability practised, which involves full-scale preparation for nuclear war, has prepared the occur, the The "sacrificed" for objectives, situation has now been reached where many theorists think there is a high probability at least of an LN war this century, i.e. certainly military be before 2000. It can argued - though there seems no way to make any such a probability argument at all tight, and it may be demonstrable that it cannot be made tight - Page 17 that there is a non-negligible probability of an LN war before 2000. If it is wrong that X should occur, then it is also wrong that Cl. be But highly probably that should it X occur, and it is wrong to increase the probability that X occur. This is the first several of connecting doxastic mapping principles moral considerations against LN war into arguments against deterrence of LN war by the perverse practice of preparing for it and thereby helping "to the sense of raising the probability). (in it bring about" But like most principles in ethics, Cl requires complication to avoid defeat by counterexamples. The second part of Cl encounters apparent trouble where clash of principles occurs. Thus it may be argued that it is permissible to increase the probability that X occurs to avoid a greater Consider for example the pilot who increases the probability evil. that the passenger plane he is flying crashes in order to aircraft troubled does not make hit city apartment buildings 30 . sure Such a defeating condition does not apply in the case of nuclear deterrence where is there (though of principles) wrongness of a practice is not offset or removed by clash a the that its role in avoiding greater evil. It can be argued that it is; argument from the previous such is part of success of the deterrence. point of the popular This inductive argument deserves little more credence than the racing driver’s argument, perhaps from similar that because he hasn’t had a fatal crash yet (despite some base, time a close calls), he won’t. There are, furthermore, reasons for concluding continue to work. of will not One is the deterrence depends upon judgements regarding the other side, which may be mistaken: perception deterrence that what strategy ’each is is at rational", the mercy what kind the of of other’s damage is Page 18 one "unacceptable", how "convincing" Not p.313). threat side’s other’ the (PL. as rational, regards limited but there must be severe doubts as to whether rational principles war, As to the last consider, for example, the are operating effectively. idea to is there evidence that one side (the USA) has misjudged the only other side’s (the USSR’s) perception of what is nuclear is (already erroneous to, as held in high places of power) that LN war can be alluded survived in rudimentary shelters, and also won. Deterrence consists in preventing something (often some wrong) by threats including 31 OED) . (cf. fright For most people without not Immoral destruction of New York.) deterrence, that is his graphic descriptions But though deterrence per deterrence from suchmeans is of course not immoral. publishing in them LN expense, trouble and wastage of preparing to enormous And deterrence by engage in them. was the all or scenarios vivid portraying the horror or LN wars would serve adequately to deter wars, fear by complete se is the of (Schell nuclear permissible, war preparation of the object to be prevented, is not, where this object Itself is not permissible. The argument for this is through the principle C2. If X is wrong then complete preparation of X is wrong. Hence since LN wars are wrong and war-deterrence implies of LN wars is wrong. war—deterrence X is just as bad as doing X: Y. preparation, It is not being claimed that preparing for Y and Z may both be wrong and Z (much) worse than , 32 What is wrong is by no means uniformly evil Principle C2 principles: a part is way succeeds or down the line in a series of connecting principle of the same sort that it higher in the series is that connecting X with attempted X: X complete not 33 . But if X is wrong then attempted X is wrong, whether the series ends; it cuts off well before mere Page 19 intentionality, contrary to the claims example, it does various of religious For positions. not follow that if X is wrong then the contemplation of X is wrong or that mere non-action-oriented consideration of carrying out X is wrong. The applies point nightmares. or war, equally sexual fantasies, power fantasies, and nuclear to In particular there is nothing reflecting upon it, as we are: wrong nuclear nuclear wars, even if their horrors don't bear thinking on, are not unthinkable, and in thinkable. contemplating with some senses are all too Indeed one of the reasons why the connecting principles hold is that each involves decidedly increased probability of the evil outcome it connects Accompanying the increased probability are certain sets of reprehensible with. these are not those attitudes tied to the action the evil outcome involves; mere passive contemplation of 34 this War-deterrence involves not only war preparation, but announcement of accompanied by threats and a threatening posture. For some party, the potential enemy, has to be frightened, if deterrence is to succeed. This aspect of (war-) deterrence yields a further connecting principle, If X is wrong then threatening X is also wrong. C3. is wrong to do ... then the declared Intent put to that Intending to do wrong is wrong, and so also is favourable circumstances for one’s alternatively be argued semantically: (e.g. into Intending position committing 35 . rape) The is practice is also wrong. to prevail. if a world with X 'What Ramsey: is wrong to threaten ...’ (quoted in Walzer p.272) reason is that if putting something into practice wrong Thus too is do wrong The never unless point ideal can then neither is a world in which X is only conditionally blocked, in which X may well occur. Page 20 By detachment from the connecting principles - one sound one would but logically, defensible three ones is good measure - nuclear deterrence by preparation for and threat of LN war is This wrong. also reveals suffice Deterrence wrong. of this type the suggestion that the morality of the whole why deterrence thing depended on war itself never occurring was so bizarre: connections between war and war-deterrence. the out is it left War-deterrence should not be practised any more than nuclear war itself should be engaged in - unless directions can be drastically changed (e.g. its at least limited, per impossible in the case of nuclear, to purely military targets). There are other concomitant reasons for the Firstly, with dissatisfaction deterrence. it has provided (nuclear peace, as there is no shortage of peace small-scale conventional wars) is at least a tenuous peace, which is not stable, liable but upset at any stage by a range of factors, including error (both to It does not offer genuine peace, of the sort required for human and technical). a international life, but only a fragile "peace of a sort" (PL, p.316). stable Secondly, there is enormous cost, the because on expenditure it moral excludes Bishops put their point in a surprising opportunity urgent other by Marxist cost of deterrence, The US moral priorities. way: in terms of ’the between what is spent for destructive capacity and what is needed contradiction for constructive development’ (PL, p.316). §6. The and super-states; arguments to persuasive prudential practical, the the resulting arguments (that have war persuaded justifiability of nuclear war preparation in basic argument is simply an elaboration, build-up nuclear situation. moral-fix nuclear of immorality to argument Not preparation; many the or theorists) present of the only are there there to are the circumstances. also moral The state-uplift, of that for the Page 21 escalation of weapons at the local level, for acquiring a gun or for stocking-up the armoury [and every bit as doubtful as that argument]. neighbourhood that nuclear preparation, first danger: of nuclear destruction. blackmail, ’so we have been told, against guards all atomic blackmail and foreign domination; The two together, go since if did we double the and second of not the fear we might adopt a policy of appeasement or surrender and so avoid the destruction’ (Walzer, p.273). In fact it is supposed to guard against more than there is a crucial third element, namely, loss of basic rights (freedom, these; equality, etc.) and fundamental values (preservation of etc.) and ways of life integrated with these. truth, dignity, human This further set of elements is linked to the danger of foreign domination - which is really a separate from It is risk blackmail. of element Though foreign domination need not imply the loss of most basic values it does imply the loss of at least of one, self-determination, freedom to choose various national objectives; conversely loss or infringement of basic values can occur without foreign domination, e.g. of by internal change government or governmental approach, by the increased security and control a nuclear state demands, etc. values, through Nuclear destruction can also involve loss of destruction but the converse does not hold. basic of the material base of the cherished life-style; It should be observed that not all the values concerned are equally fundamental: one of the main values of deterrence theory, the resistance to and of containment "communism", is questionable this in regard. The theme is, in short, NA. Because of multiple (connected) states) which have nuclear dangers from another state (or other weapons, a state - any state that is too large to rely upon other states - is obliged to invest in [matching] nuclear weapons. Page 22 Hence, by detachment, a nation-state, such as USA, ought to order the of nuclear armoury that it something have in has, or, weakening the theme to meet objections concerning excess, "overkill", capacity, at least a solid core of the nuclear devices it has. out whether the obligation is a moral one, Sorting because for instance of the character of the values supposedly being merely or one protected, of prudential reason - it is presumably somewhat more than mere expediency - can be set aside for the present. On the same basis it can be argued that unilateral disarmament against a dangerous nuclear opponent would be prudentially irrational. It can be freely admitted that what is prudentially required is, like the common strategies of the prisoners’ dilemma situation and of certain competitive games, a suboptimal strategy; sufficient trust, that a superior strategy for adversaries, if etc., could be achieved, would be a cooperative arrangement. Joint agreement would be better not merely in removing the moral dilemma, but in a range of other respects: it would be much less risky, expensive, draining of resources and destructive of the environment, etc. However for the present and the foreseeable future the prospects of cooperation appear, so we are repeatedly told, unfortunately rather remote: or the only sure insurance is nuclear if one is a smaller nation, a larger ally who has an arsenal. force (Here a level of trust is called for which is far from foolproof, and which contrasts strongly with the lack of trust displayed elsewhere.) The nuclear theme for a middling or lesser power is a bit different from NA and ends rather as follows: MA. Because ..., a state that cannot rely on obliged ally. its own nuclear resources is to accommodate the nuclear installations and facilities of a protecting Page 23 Principle MA is not very plausible, nor are the for substitutes obvious Not only MA but also NA, is now coming under question by disarmament it ° . who groups, more challenge the basic assumptions of the underlying general retaliatory model that Safely lies in weapons, and 1) More weapons imply more security ii) 37 Certainly, for more isolated states, such as New Zealand, lies attack submarines). more of a in excluding nuclear facilities from safety nuclear (including visits from nuclear Europeans are arguing in a similar way, that the present system is risk [liability] than a protection (p.251, Thompson); nuclear installations, Europe cannot be the envisaged and without for theatre a limited nuclear war it is now seen as by US (but not Soviet) strategists. Once i) and ii) are questioned, other assumptions of the retaliatory model and its variants come up for examination, namely iii) iv) Whether the proper response to danger is armament, in particular Whether the proper response is through nuclear armament, as opposed to other military responses (such as conventional arms), and generalising on part of Hi), v) Whether military approaches/procedures (through armaments, etc.) the proper is method, or should be the method, of conflict resolution at the international level. It is plausibly argued against military procedures that at no ordinary level do we set about meeting danger or settling disputes by acquiring lethal weapons and threatening to use them - except perhaps warranted, frontier ethics. But on an out-dated, and never really this takes us into the issue of alternative defence systems, an important matter beginning to obtain the contemporary 38 explanation it deserves, but one that already anticipates subsequent questioning Page 24 While the state system is intact, of the framework of nation-states. not and exceptional inevitable: according military to is are to be expected and are likely permanent place in the procedures ’force has [a] ... force nation-state system’ Ramsey (p.xv) who uses this as part of his case for a nuclear war doctrine. far Assembling the arguments so to as the nuclear fix:- referred hereafter developed engage to sections) it is and immoral, in war-deterrence, for prudential reasons (as argued using NA This dilemma is no idle construction and MA). dilemma, deontic States both ought not to engage in war-deterrence, because (as argued in previous ought the yields (concocted to demonstrate of paraconsistent logic), but a serious real-life dilemma, the outlines virtues of which are repeatedly encountered in texts on nuclear war and its aspects The nuclear fix is in part simply a more intense dilemma beyond produced purely by itself^, war military typically transport, (since targets rely on or version of deontic the civilian ones). e.g. arrangements, military rail The main dilemma arises from a War is required for defence of the state and values it upholds (or pretends to uphold); also involves immoral acts and evil consequences. also seen be ’some The doctrine "just of justifications of war evil alm are consequences to morally war’ (Walls, p.260). dilemmas, e.g. most difficult war" the aegis War and preparedness for war also generate subsidiary a severe tension between freedom and problems justified. show that actions deemed normally forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed under of but war as attempting a reconciliation by trying to show that under certain circumstances these really Thus 39 at least war which spreads inevitably combination of the retaliatory model with the features of war. can the of war Involves authority: defending a ’one of the free society without Page 25 destroying the values that give it meaning and validity’ (PL, p.324). The essential feature of a moral dilemma is that both A and the negation of A are well essential role of moral dilemmas is not widely or literature 41 The place and (or differently, obligatory), for some suitable A. wrong . positions Moreover understood utilitarianism like cannot ethical in at all easily accommodate moral dilemmas or the data which gives rise to them - but then such positions do not really offer reportive accounts of wrong and obligation anyway. Contrary to utilitarian perceptions a dilemma does not any have necessarily moral solution, though there may be better and worse ways out. Reactions and responses that are characteristic of the from nuclear moral dilemmas There is an unsteadiness, an uncertainty as to what to fix. do, which way to proceed, which principles in watered-down form to temporary Thus, crutch. for world’ best" 42 as a of way "morally never our exercising moral , that is in a morally-strapped world. ethical Bishops who the of ’strictly conditional’ moral fix. Deterrence has a strictly temporary role but can be responsibility a shift "morally in a fallen to a ’moral "second acceptability’ try to escape ’the paradox of deterrence’, i.e. while acceptability, good", A similar deterrence we as (as from good to acceptable) is made by the US Catholic functor speak grasp example, the Bishop of London contends that the possession of nuclear weapons ’while acceptable" emerge the object must and strictly be to move beyond deterrence, of from the conditional ’towards a world free of the threat of deterrence’ (PL, p.317), out of the nuclear fix. To make matters worse the nuclear fix is is, not furthermore, a fix of (more something they happened into, by affluent) states’ accident. The initial nuclear involvement was deliberately chosen, primarily by USA, and the own making. It escalation has by and large also been deliberately chosen, again Page 26 In these respects the situation is like that often by the USA. who person deliberately lets perself to be involved in two incompatible relations, and that currency, of adoption nuclear is the that nuclear build-up. The recent (1980) programme is to be in addition to existing are (which Soviet USA Initiated nuclear armament, and has frequently led escalation, and apparently still does. resources some weaponry, and nuclear build-up, in North America occurred on a defensive basis in response to fact with It is a myth, though one builds up conflicting obligations thereby. The the of generally United strategic be already in excess of to agreed States’ Russia’s, and which always have been so) (Thompson, p.21). The present dilemma is then a direct outcome advanced of state policy, especially by capitalist nations, and not merely a response to the Soviets (or state socialism). There is a two-way connection between world political arrangements and nation-states the nuclear fix. On the one hand, situation increasingly is political arrangements / Q ; seen political these arrangements are an evident source of the dilemma with the result through that nuclear as indicating the inadequacy of present world on the other, the nuclear fix tends to lock political arrangements into the statist form (into statist arrangements of an increasingly centralist cast). peace The espoused purpose of nuclear weapons may be to keep the (!) and to defend national interests, but there are other reasons such as perpetuating the system of sovereign states and politically confrontation. The argument to the theme that advantageous the very nuclear situation arising from the statist arrangements and interrelationals (economic conflicting rivalries, ideologies, etc.) tends to, and is used to, lock the world into the present arrangements of sovereign states and zones of interest, is practical state one. Consider first, the matter from a piecemeal the Soviet side where the Page 27 pattern of national control and military economic reorientation is clearer. The threat from the West, whether it exists or not (and in Soviet perception it certainly does), has become a necessary legitimation for the power of the ruling elites, an excuse for their many economic and social failures, and an argument to isolate and silence critics within their own borders. In the West we have controlled carefully ... and ... selective release of ’official information’ (Thompson, p.20). Secondly, there is evidence of entrenchment of the arrangements, by the SALT negotiations: of rules not regarded as threatening US in place by The Soviet invasion interests", and so the US is not "vital What was different, what particularly worried about Afghanistan and its people. it held penalty for breaking the rules is the threat of annihilation). (the Thirdly, there are cases, such as the Afghanistan example. is shown there are fixed superpowers and a (growing) nuclear club of nations all governed by a negotiated set deterrence as was worried about and made nuclear threats concerning, were adjacent Western these lay within the US zone of interest. oil supplies: 44 and complicates other dilemmas The nuclear fix enhances contemporary sovereign state, in particular the deep tensions between national security and the operation of liberal-democratic arrangements (e.g. liberty, popular control of institutions, etc). personal subsidiary dilemmas, as for example the obligations to a nuclear conflicting obligations the by induced as state, a or doctor It also spotlights other more extent role-induced or a individual nuclear of (political) one’s dilemmas armaments such as one’s processor or researcher (the question of political obligations is considered in Appendix 2). §7. Ways out of the moral dilemmas: [initial] political fall-out from the Page 28 conclusions. ethical all the ways are ways of limitation, and they Virtually all Involve in one way or another limitations on nuclear arms or are limitations on the powers of states. and deployed the they way The limitations may be 45 reached by agreement and negotiation and more or less voluntarily agreed , to or they may be imposed, or worst of all, they may emerge from an initial war. As with other fixes produced by are there suggested structure there and relations power and extra—state approaches. "realistic", attempts All to cow, as unilateral disarmament. is it states the or alter the remove them altogether, allegedly familiar, the seriously do which and "practical" nuclear problem - e.g. disarmament by they do not tamper with that - are inter-state; But in fact there is nothing very sacred not even a very long-standing arrangement, nor, as a matter or empirical fact, is one. states, of and the same goes for less "realistic" proposals, such the state; nation-state; arrangements which ways are of resolve neutral arms limitations, etc. sacred structural out which do not interfere with these arrangements, ways inter-state approaches, the it form about the political of particularly a stable We are certainly free - in more liberal states, it should be everywhere - to theorise as to its demise and replacement by alternative arrangements. Extra-state approaches take one of two routes, the way up, to genuine 46 power, or the way down, through fractionation or deunionisation international of states. not to The ways up and down are by no means one and the same; necessarily world government Were law-courts. remedy, namely intra-state incompatible. the through to Some of the important machinery, for the way up operate, courts legal but they are is assigned action, already there sufficient that medieval the international authority and power, the in theorists saw to all disputes could be extended to interstate disputes, and the just war Page 29 between states S and T superseded by the just case of S versus T. one statist, more legalistic of trying to get to grips with the nuclear way problem, and accordingly is often mentioned, though dismissed 47 in , orthodox The Way Up is mostly passing in strategic texts on thermonuclear war. It is however beginning to be much more sympathetically considered by those who take rather than strategic viewpoint. moral a There is a renewed emphasis on world order, in reaching ’towards a morally integrated international system’; element be to and ’the missing of world order today is the absence of a properly constituted political The Way Down - though, like The Way authority’ (PL, p.320). by Up, no means new, turning back to the anarchist positions of a century ago - is, by contrast, scarcely mentioned in the orthodox discussions, but is making an appearance (a which is comeback) in some more radical discussions. A main argument for The Way Up is to supposed underpin statist just arrangements a repetition in first the argument from (generous) variations upon the Prisoners’ that of place, namely the Dilemma, the as such Tragedy of the Commons, that authority and coercion - in the form of the state are requiried to ensure best solutions, ecological order. especially regards of part the sort of super-state. of the "tragedy" is destruction when to assume in fact assumptions 48 of a commons by nuclear war, the solution is now said to be some Of course, this begins to undermine an earlier application argument, since states will lose their sovereignty, and political obligation to states will be correspondingly weakened. is and order So with the "tragedy of nation-states", where the players are not herdsmen but nation-states, and one of the prospects good public But all this that these "tragedy" arguments are good ones in the first place, they are not but are only sound under quite restrictive Page 30 There are many problems with the Way Up, both theoretical and practical.An theoretical hitch is that the Way Up merely repeats statist arrangments initial at a level up, by way contingency, of super-state It arrangements. only is through a of there being no rival Intelligent civilisations nearby, that the problems of interstate relations not are repeated level a The up. major practical hitch is that there is no prospect at all of getting such a "solution" to work in time to serve its intended interstate future the For purpose. ideological differences, including especially differences as to how political arrangements should be effected, exclude world operative hostilities. government of prospect any an or world legal system capable of resolving nuclear In some ways, perhaps, this is just World well. as government be extremely monolithic, would entrench bureaucracy with all its damaging would features, and could easily tend to totalitarianism. on nuclear foreseeable the It would impose certainly an exploitative economic system which would do immense damage to world many remaining natural systems. The Way Up thus presupposes an unlikely, undesirable, level ideological, indeed requisite unity of political paradigmatic, cannot be and and expected unity economic separation with some in of nuclear main crucial respects, Moreover, given the Northern cultures, deadlines. When not even nuclear weapons limitations can be worked out how much less likely much more sweeping sovereignty, could be agreements, negotiated? Involving genuine There an is is limitations almost endless that it of state series of blockages and deadlocks in the way of such state reconciliation. The nuclear fix emerging from nation-state arrangements - combined with the apparent impotence of interstate relations to alleviate the situation, indeed with the ability only to push the world further into the situation and nearer to Page 31 nuclear now is - "brink" taken to indicate (from yet a further angle) the inadequacy of nation-state political arrangements, and has given new impetus resolutions. extra-state other of consideration to The thesis that the nuclear problem indicates the radical unsatisfactoriness of national sovereignty and the present system namely in Schell. ’full-scale nation states has even reached the best-seller book stands, of According to Schell the nuclear situation should they operate' ... which himself avoids these reality and in ’workfing] out the practical steps by which 'awesome (III, p.92). Schell However urgent tasks, which, imposed on us by history, constitute the political work of our age’^9, history consonant with the global can reorganise its political life’ mankind ... a of the foundations of political thought’ required to reexamination make ’the world’s political institutions ... in to lead So, not feeling the pressures of overimpressed by the realities of (unstable) nation-states, do most or political theorists. But, having rashly ventured this far, we can hardly avoid some of these tasks. The central argument arising from the nuclear fix, for questioning political arrangements and seriously current considering changing them (in theory at least), takes the following shape:- H1. Political arrangements should answer back to certain requirements and justified in terms of doing so. are These requirements include such things as enabling good and meaningful lives for those who operate under the arrangements, at least where (as certainly in the West) the basic material conditions for such lives are met. H2. these Because of the nuclear fix, nation-state arrangements have ceased to requirements. For guarantee the prospect of arrangements. nation-states, good and at meaningful meet least in the North can no longer lives to those under their A life's meaningfulness is certainly diminished if it ends before Page 32 its prime in a nuclear disaster; yet there is a non-negligible probability that many such lives may terminate, less than fulfilled, in this way. Therefore, Nation-state arrangements have forfeited their justification, H3. should and be changed. There is enough evidence that power brokers who control states, both more powerful states and lesser states (sometimes with some claim to popular mandate, often without), have lost sight of - or worse don’t care about - the point of political arrangments, of what justifies or is supposed to justify their states. The situation has been reached where ’nuclear powers, or higher value This is already illustrated by states in nonnuclear military situations: have much forfeited of what claim Vietnam Israel, many and the principles of just warfare have been blatantly violated repeatedly, as have many states put statesmen, on national sovereignty than they do on human survival’ (Schell’s conclusion, p.76). other their they Such principles. other had to external respect or internal political obedience. It could just be, of course, that there are no alternatives, or no possibly better But alternatives. alternatives there are, as we have seen, though but little work has been expended on working out the range of alternatives or features (except perhaps for the option of world government). As to whether all such alternatives can be dismissed, for instance as lacking feasibility, difficult to be all sure without being dogmatic: operate, once adjusted, very far on organising is humans, for under substantially different arrangments. But, once again, nuclear deadlines do not appear proceed it alternatives have been given very little opportunity to work, and we know very little about how instance, their to give sufficient time to and trying out alternative arrangments, even those of the more accessible Way Down. Thus alternative political and social Page 33 while theoretically feasible and certainly a longer-term goal, do arrangements, not presently offer a satisfactory practical response to the nuclear fix. There is no need to insist upon a dilemma to single-track the of out nuclear We can not only quite the contrary. exclusion of all others: the way afford to be fairly catholic about "second best" approaches pursued and whatever to be working or looks like helping, within reorganised ethical seems Indeed, (and other) constraints: situation, methods, should we as such urgency, the the of direness the and nondemocratlc very (and down certainly negotiations on arms limitations between main nuclear states. The direction of most hope is given be fairly catholic and not inflexibly commited to narrow bogged unrepresentative) direction embrace for especially new. not has progress however come into view; the The political means of the Way Out are what they have been on almost every larger liberal or that issue humanitarian has from outside state governmental apparatus by organised pressure from mattered; within or without upon it, characteristically Bottom-Up Such Top-Down. familiar and practically never considerations are but part of the more general, and very effective, case against reliance upon states for a range of things they are now supposed required, to more supply, effectively but can almost Invariably be obtained, where which and less expensively without (and them their monopolies). In the case of security it is states, with very few exceptions, that have imposed, or acquiesed in, military solutions involving nuclear installations and The nuclear weapons. frequently from across nations. installations opposition local and the to neighbourhood These groups have been and establishing, for escalating groups, successful the time nuclear fix has come some of them now federated in blocking being, some some nuclear nuclear-free Page 34 The patchwork grass-roots movement against nuclear is strongest neighbourhoods. in which Europe, - as the movement realised, and what gave it impetus - a is leading theatre, on US American touching thinking, strategic American nuclear installations in Europe will make it a contrary it probable seems nuclear limited a war that Europe safer much become will place: safer on the if the anti-nuclear movements succeed in having these installations removed and rendered nuclear-free. not is extremely doubtful that increasing NATO and It shores. for Europe The chances of grossly immoral conduct will thereby also be considerably reduced. What the movements must press for is accordingly clear it is in broad outline: what they have been pushing for, nuclear reduction and disarmament. But the argument also makes it clearer how far this should go, namely all the way to nuclear unilateral disarmament if necessary, certainly to local disarmament across progressively larger parts of the planet’s surface. is its demoted, importance and the necessity of For once the state its maintenance properly downgraded and reliance on its decision-making diminished in favour of localised decision-making (say) - once all that happens or is allowed for, one major component in the nuclear fix is removed, namely the worry about sovereignty. the of that sovereignty has of been assigned a mistaken weakest links in the moral fix structure. In the weigh-up that should occur in charting a way out of moral dilemma, much more Important elements features state The state, and accompanying features such as misplaced nationalism, importance. are Maintenance loss than the state are those things the state is supposed to safeguard such of as individual and local welfare and autonomy, but they are better ensured by the removal of nuclear weapons. The nuclear circumstances threaten the loss of basic values, autonomy, for in particular, main reasons are familiar; such as welfare and many creatures and regions, and the potential loss is in general Page 35 much greater than in a nuclear-free situation (even should party remain armed with nuclear weapons). for example, the production (because of nuclear another ideological There are also subsidiary reasons; weapons reduces local both welfare of the opportunity costs of weapons manufacture) and autonomy (because of the accompanying security measures). Thus the nuclear fix is resolved, theoretically at loss of the state. any rate, by risking But, although that is the best way out at least cost in the circumstances, it will be strongly resisted in practice, since those who hold power hold it, in one way or another, under the auspices of state. FOOTNOTES 1. The US Catholic Bishops make the point forcefully: ’Nuclear weapons ... and nuclear warfare ... are new moral issues ... There exists a capacity to do something no other age could imagine: we can threaten the created order ... We could destroy [God’s] work’ (PL, p.312). While the analysis offered in what follows has a great deal in common with the Bishop’s position, it differs significantly in removing the religious backdrop and associated features and, it is hoped, in bringing out the logical structure of the argument more clearly and sharply (the paper was Initially drafted independently of PL). To illustrate the differences that emerge with removal of the religious backdrop and its acoutrements, consider two examples from PL, p.323:- Firstly, peace is possible without religious enlightenment if it is possible with it: religious enlightenment is not an essential condition as there implied. Secondly, violence does not take all the forms the Bishops try to give it, e.g. sexual discrimination is hardly a form of violence, pornography can operate without it, etc. It is a serious mistake to try to heap so many diverse and independent issues together under the one head (forms of violence) as if they stood and fell together, e.g. abortion and nuclear war. 2. Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially the type of strike involved. Though the sequence is important for the moral assessment, for example of the main actors, it is in no way alters the immorality of LN wars, as will emerge. 3. ’The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no limits’, (PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars: that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war, and risk is far too large to take. The point in fact follows by straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LN war by its probability given a Page 36 limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and present communication arrangements, the idea of a purely nuclear exchange between the superpowers, perhaps in the European "theatre", is really a myth. But limited wars are not the present focus. 4. There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of prowess) in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological wars. Nuclear wars are not just unsporting, in that no notice is given, etc. They are unjust in a much deeper way. 5. There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term ’war’, which was derived from a term meaning ’confusion’. In particular, ’it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had in living use any world properly meaning ’war’’. (OED) 6. But of course there can be something quite analogous to war between clans, multinational firms, even nature, etc. (To this extent, a strict definition of ’war’ is being insisted upon.) So the diffusion of power structures has to extend beyond just the break-down of states. 7. Thus the ubiquitous war against Nature of modern times, which features just as large in marxists as in capitalists. As could have been guessed, someone - it was James - suggested chanelling all war into "war" in the metaphorical sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive "opponent", Nature. James proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a war against Nature (see Wasserstrom, p.12). What it boiled down to, however, was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in that way to acquire manly virtues military activities "rightly" instil, especially discipline, but also service, devotion, physical fitness, constructive exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical substitute for wars proper is through war games and other games of competitive cast. Again specious arguments enter for bringing out the "best" in human males. 8. War can be seen as a structural problem of state arrangments, to be removed along with these (otherwise defective) arrangements. Wars arise from political organisation of states - a situational fix. 9. Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes, p.776, top). The argument presupposes rather a lot, Including a neat public/private distinction. Put Aquinas’s way, it looks as if it could be readily transferred into an argument for international government, or at least effective law-courts. Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be one state! 10. There is however the degenerate idea of war as annihilation or extinction, and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while not being entirely annihilated oneself: the side that somehow "survives" is said to "win". But this is an extremely tenuous sense of winning. Moreover any such war is radically unjust, because of violation of the traditional requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons developed in the text. Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective medical intervention ... (PL, p.313). Page 37 Unfortunately as documented in Scheer, significant officials who are responsible for the nuclear destiny of the U.S.A. - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived and that a global nuclear war can actually be won! 11. In practice they often were not, they drained limited economies, they layed waste countryside (though to a minor extent by nuclear or chemical or modern mining standards), impoverishing Inhabitants, etc. 12. For as Nagel contents (early on), there are moral restrictions on the conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither arbitrary not merely conventional nor a matter of usefulness. These themes run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausowicz - a theory outlined in Walzer. 13. As Nagel remarks. 14. The progressive escalation argument is an incremental Sorites. This is part of the so-called "logic of war". 15. As Walzer argues, p.24. 16. The severe limitations of those also come from the failure person from inside the homeland which excessive applications of 17. Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and the other, in Cohen et al. 18. The pattern of moral argument has much in common with procedure in anarchist political discussion. 19. There are other arguments against two (or Routley and Plumwood. 20. For details see Routley and Plumwood. 21. According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are responsible only for the intended effects or consequences of our freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences, even if these are forseen and/or intimately tied to the intended consequences. The doctrine is pernicious allowing those who adjust their intention suitably to escape responsibility for evil they knowingly perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme command which intended only to take out US military targets would, under double effects, effects have no responsibility for the resultant effect on American and Canadian cities! 22. Despite Nagel’s suggestion (pp.158). 23. Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from military in the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants. One is a variation of the Bald Man: there is no clear line between combatants and noncombatants. However as Nagel argues (p.20) there are distinctions between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g. in carrying or using argument like the lesser virtues, nationalism and patriotimsm, of replacement - try for example swapping a by one from outside as regards treatment patriotism can engender. multiple) morality Hare lines: on see Page 38 arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of their harmfulness, the threat they offer. See also PL, p.312, where a simple and effective paradigm case argument is applied. 24. The principle can be argued to in various ways. One (not entirely conclusive) way is Nagel’s way, from the requirements of directness and relevance in combat, the underlying principle being that, ’whatever one does to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject, with the intention that he receive it as a subject’. (p.15) 25. The situation with limited nuclear wars where the targets are essentially military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed "indirectly' is different. Such wars are not however excused by the pernicious doctrine of double effect. For such wars remain unjust on several counts, e.g. they inflict disproportionate damage, e.g. on life systems. As Zuckermann says, ’It is still inevitable that were military installations rather than cities to become the objectives of nuclear attack, millions, even tens of millions of civilians would be killed ...’ (quoted in Thompson and Smith, p.14 where the Italics are added). 26. Throughout the OED equations,reflecting common usage, of just with right or correct, and unjust with morally wrong, are adopted. 27. These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear. For the aim of just war theory is not ’to legitimize war but to prevent it. The presumption is against the use of force’ (PL, p.312). And most types of wars are ruled out by the theory. However not all wars or violent revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction between the alternatives. In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may be condemned - ’the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of lethal force to prevent aggression against innocent victims’ (PL, p.311). Under Twentieth Century international law defence, narrowly construed, is the only legitimate basis for war; Roman law was only slightly more generous, in allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780). 28. An argument of this sort is developed in more detail, though not in complete generality, in Goodin. 29. As to the first point, there is not only overkill capacity and the drive for superiority (often represented via "negotiating" strength) but the matter of counterforce weapons which are offensive weapons. As regards the second point, US policy has been decidedly expansionist with regular intervention in other nations; there have been repeated US threats to use nuclear weapons, especially to deal with revolutionary activities in the third world, but also in Europe in "limited" nuclear war; and in official military strategy no sharpline has been drawn between conventional and nuclear weapons: on these and other related points see further Lackey 82, p.l91ff., and also Thompson and Smith. 30. The example was supplied by D. 31. Deterrence also commonly includes elements of mendacity, deception, misinformation. There is a grain of truth in the claim that ’deterrence is primarily about what the other side thinks, not what we think’ (Pym quoted morally Johnson. Page 39 in Thompson, p.19). simply 32. Nor are degrees of wrongness required: ordered as regards worseness. 33. Can this be done semantically in terms of closeness/worseness The attempted X world is close to the X world? 34. There is a need for further clarification here. Passive spectatorship of evil events where one is in a position to make a difference is quite another thing, from contemplation of other worlds where evil occurs. 35. It is this principle especially that forces Ramsey, a Protestant theologian who is a nuclear hawk, into the tight position he ends in, which as Walzer explains, really leaves no room to move. For in virtue of C3 it must be allowed that the threatened wars are permissible to carry out. Ramsey tries to limit these to military exchanges. But to be effective as a deterrent, the exchange permitted must both threaten and also, in view of C3, not threaten nonmilitary targets, collateral non-combatant populations. It appears that Ramsey’s position, if worked out, would be inconsistent. wrongs can be partially of worlds? Principle C3 is also invoked by the US Catholic Bishops: see PL, p.316. They put the point both in terms of threat and of declared intent to use nuclear weapons, which they pronounce morally wrong. 36. As is widely known, inadmissible considerations of expediency frequently enter into reasons why states allow foreign nuclear facilities upon their territories, e.g. economic considerations such as trade or local revenue and jobs. 37. Cf. 38. It was considered long ago in China by the alternative systems, see especially Sharp. 39. Thus Green, along with many others, ’find[s] nuclear deterrence ... the best of practical policies available to us now ... given the realities of world politics’ but ’still demurfs] because of moral qualms’ (p.xil). Green also represents both Morgenthau and Halle as having ’rather agonisingly presented a ... case for a deterrence strategy, even while asserting that the strategy is morally indefensible according to the traditional ethical codes’ (p.252). Walzer ends in a similar dilemma (he is committed to a stronger and less qualified form of it than he sets down): ’... though it [deterrence] is a bad way, there may well be no other that is practical in a world of sovereign and suspicious states’ (p.274) (an indictment of the state system that Walzer does not pursue). the last article in Thompson. Mohists. For contemporary Similarly the Catholic Bishops present the situation in terms of a moral dilemma: they speak of ’the political paradox of deterrence ... the dilemma of how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons ... (PL, p.313). 40. Situations in war are also a major source of moral dilemmas. See Routley and Plumwood where several examples are given. A general logical account of and theory of moral dilemmas is elaborated therein. Page 40 41. There are exceptions of course, e.g. Sartre; and Nagel’s final example is very instructive. For a full theory of moral dilemmas see however Routley and Plumwood. 42. Reported in The Economist; reprinted in The 1983, Weekend Magazine p.2. 43. This is no longer a radical theme but is widely promulgated. The source of the nuclear problem comes from state arrangements: it is ’... a world of sovereign states ... which brought the world to the present dangerous situation’. (PL, p.313) 44. It is not alone responsible for these other dilemmas. Large-scale nuclear power and other types of warfare and security arrangements also contribute. 45. In principle it would be relatively easy for states to agree to settlement of their disputes by less damaging and expensive contests than military ones, e.g. by contests of selected representatives, and not just through fighting in some form but by contests of footballers, singers, dancers, lawyers, or etc. In practice, however, such more civilized alternatives are never considered. Animals, by contrast, are smart enough to settle disputes by means much more like these. 46. Americans, for example, tend to forget that their State (like USSR) is a union, of fairly recent origin; and that a State of the Union message could consider the dissolution of the union. 47. Thus for example, Kahn, where such a "solution" is quickly dismissed as, impractical, etc. Hardly necessary to say the Way Up has won most favour with the legal fraternity, and from more authoritarian organisations. 48. See further Routley and especially Griffin. 49. Schell does not make it clear whether he is thinking of the Way Up or the Way Down, but some of the names he drops suggest the Way Up. So can some of what he says, e.g. ’Thus the peril of extinction is the price that the world pays not for "safety" or "survival" but for its [sic!] insistence on continuing to divide Itself up into sovereign nations’ (p.76, III), as if the natural or original state were an undivided one? Routley and Australian, material referred February to 12- therein, 13 and Page 41 APPENDIX 1; Remarks on J. Schell’s THE FATE OF THE EARTH. Schell’s book is an important and influential document, which is significant having a and urgently needed effect in shifting attitudes towards nuclear. It is especially valuable for aftermath example defects. is Some exhibits, also it just nothing else that we undertake together can make any sense ...’ the of both for rubbish, a world-wide program of action for preserving the [human] ’without ... species ... moral scenarios horrifying Unfortunately severe philosophically and factually, and vivid attack. nuclear of its (p.104, Humans rearranged). however like rabbits in are Australia, virtually beyond human power to extirpate. or practical The claim presupposes two of the major defective assumptions of the book: 51. That nuclear war will eliminate life, human life, at least, on earth total extermination assumption); (the and 52. That very many notions, not only those of morality and value, but those of time and space, make no sense in the absence of humans, or, to put it into a more sympathetic philosophical form, in the absence of an actual context human (the anthropocentric assumption). The frequent applications of S2, which philosophical depth and induce give the book some of its apparent suitable puzzlement through their paradoxical without total extermination aspects, depend essentially on SI; there will be humans, about to make past and future, good and evil, go on making sense! Now although the factual assumption SI is possibility, unlikely. example, it appears in Schell’s argument on an unjustified no means ruled out as a light of present (inadequate) knowledge most the to by SI is extremely extrapolation from Hemisphere, but for the most part it does that very flimsy. It depends, for the Northern to the Southern North American thing, of Page 42 the contracting North to world (All that matters, all worthwhile America. civilization, is in USA, or at least, to be more charitable, and Europe, also be wiped out, i.e. will which eliminated in the nuclear holocaust). the example out of date. America North its human population will be Some of the data Schell relies upon, for of nuclear explosions on the ozone layer, is significantly Other effects than ozone destruction transfer even less well South. to North effect in from A factually superior study of nuclear disaster that Schell’s, Preddy and others, indicates that parts of the Southern Hemisphere, New Zealand and Southern Africa and America could escape relatively unscathed even from most massive northern exchanges. The penetration of human chauvinism as in S2 is not something Schell but product a is of truths necessary mathematics of and in Wittgenstein ’s philosophy, where even the are a product of human conventions and would In Schell human chauvinism is dished up in a particularly vanish with humans!). powerful obnoxious Kantian Thoughts form. tenses, values and morality, all depend in the and propositions, time and presence life-giving of human - past or future or merely potential humans are not enough, persons that beings are not humans are certainly not enough. ’... e.g.): Thus according to (II, Schell p.74, the thought "Humanity is not extinct" is an impossible one for a rational person, because as soon as it is, we are not. In imagining any other we look ahead to a moment that is still within the stream of human time, event, ...’. right to philosophy especially, which is still European unfortunately alive and well (e.g. peculiar The thought is however perfectly possible for humans; now. Though we (p.74)l. ’... outside can have it no doubt have it falsely a later rational creature may well be able to have it truly. "later" we the Schell erroneously denies human tenses of past, that: there is no present, and future ...’ Human extinction eliminates ’the creature that divides time into past, Page 43 present future’: and so annihilation cannot ’come to pass’ (p.77). simply false that the tenses are human: the tenses depend on But it is time local a (perceptible to many creatures other than humans, but not depending at ordering all on perceptibility for its viability) relating other times to the present, to now (also a human-independent location, evident to other creatures, and borne witness to by such sequences as the passing seasons). too easily come And annihilation may also to pass, for many humans in the North at least, as it came to pass in recent geological times that humans began to exist upon that there was a time before there were any human beings. earth. Before Here as elsewhere the human chauvinism is mixed with other distorting metaphysical assumptions of Western our heritage, verlficationism and Implicit ontic assumptions (to the effect that there are severe difficulties in talking about what does not exist). Thus, for example, Schell takes over dubious metaphysics from Freud, according to whom "it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; do so, we (p.77/4?). In can perceive that we are in attempt and whenever we fact still present as spectators" The second clause goes a good distance towards refuting first. the fact there is no great problem in describing counterfactual situations which undermine both Freud’s claims. chauvinism into one of The same goes for Schell’s extensions human of its main traditional strongholds, value theory: the simple and basic fact [sic!] that before there can be good or evil, or to service harm, lamenting or rejoicing there must be life’, human life (p.103). are no facts, but entrenched philosophical assumptions which have been ’... These exposed 2 and criticised elsewhere . Another obnoxious theme, which Schell repeatedly infiltrates, is the Pogo theme, which S3. Distributes responsibility for the present really) onto everyone, every human in the world. nuclear situation (fiasco, An especially blatant example 3 Page 44 the world’s political runs as follows: menace leaders ... though the earth with nuclear weapons, do so only with our permission, and even at our bidding. theme At least, this is true elsewhere elaborated is ’... for democracies’ pay 4 we are the authors of the destruction . while for the peoples of the non-nuclear-armed world it sense to an argument of all The moral cost of only true in the sensitivity nuclear of representative And again ’... we is it armaments that of us underwriters of the slaughter of hundreds of millions - ’. And again ’[as] perpetrators ... is not sacred but is worthless; be killed’ (p.88). vote the against of the populace they allegedly govern. many are potential mass—killers. makes is that they fail to try to do anything about the danger)’ (p.87). But this is more of government since extinction and support the governments that pose the threat of it, for negative The III). (p.106, (For the populations of the superpowers this is true in a positive sense, we now they we convey the steady messsage ... it ... that ... Little of this is true. that life is acceptable for everyone to Those who campaign against nuclear, against nuclear-committed parties so far as is possible, and the like, are certainly not the authors of potential destruction, and responsibility nuclear situation does not simply distribute onto them. - or the unlikely opinions as to worth Schell everyone - fall on those who have done less. for the Nor does responsibility illegitimately attributes to Responsibility for decisions taken in "liberal democracies" even by representatives (in the unlikely event of this happening in the case of anything as important as defence) cannot be traced back to those represented, since among many other things, a representative of a party is only which offers a complex and often ill-characterised package of policies, and a voter may vote for zero package. representative or more policies of this Only in the (unlikely) event of a clear single issue referendum, which is adopted, can responsibility, still of a qualified sort, be sheeted home, to Page 45 those who voted for it, not every one in the community. When however the Pogo assumption is disentangled from the following theme what results is decidedly along the right lines: The controllers [not to be confused, in Schell’s fashion, with all of S4. have failed to change our pre-nuclear institutions. The sovereign system is out HI) (p.51, of step with nuclear age, the one-earth system, etc. earth us] (the whole Unfortunately Schell often loses sight of this important theme. theme). S4 forms part of Schell’s critique of the state which is, by an large, scattered and fragmentary. As we saw, in §7, Schell arrives at the conclusion that the nation-state has outlasted its usefulness, and that new institutions political more ’consonant the global reality’ are required as a matter of urgency. evades what he admits is the major task, making viable out But he alternatives. most he makes some passing suggestions, some of which point to the Way Up. he remains clear about are the serious defects of the state and the At What frequently immoral purposes for which the state is used. At one stage he contrasts what he calls Socratic-Christian ethics with that of state, where ’the end [state] justifies the means . .., the raison d’etre of government, is the basis on which themselves to commit crimes of governments, every in sort’. anything whatever in the name of [their] survival’. that all So times, licensed ’states may do virtually Schell then argues however, extinction nullifies end-means justification by destroying every end; that argument is far from sound, and depends again on extreme (S2) have combined with ontic assumptions. under system SI) ends could remain, e.g. human but chauvinism Even if all humans were extinguished (as for nonhumans (actual or not). Page 46 As to the part of the state and (state) sovereignty in war, in us Schell leaves A sovereign state is virtually defined as one that enjoys the no doubt. right and power to go to war in defence or pursuit of its interests (III, p.51). War from how things are: arises jealous nation states (p.51). and sovereignty from the arrangement of political affairs via Indeed there is a two-way linkage between On the one side, sovereignty is, Schell capacity to wage war. contends, necessary for people to organise for war. is impossible to preserve sovereignty. it war transparently clear as they stand. having On the other side, without Neither of these contentions is Now that the state system in entrenched, it however easy for conservatives (in particular) to argue from the "realities" is of international life, which include self-interest, is It on basis this that peace arrangements aggression, readily are hatred. fear, dismissed as unrealistic, utopian, even (amusingly) as extremist. Schell’s further theme that nuclear "war" is not war threatens to undermine his case erroneous an sovereign characterisation nation to achieve an end’ (III, sufficient for p.52): war as ’a violent means employed by a of but neither considerations but not all wars or games are won). It they fail (even on one side being defeated on a But in nuclear "war" this doesn’t happen, ’no one’s strength But what these sorts contribute to showing is not that nuclear wars are not wars, but that they are not wars of certain sorts, e.g., not just wars because nor LN falls until both sides have been annihilated* (III, p.52). of necessary if is also claimed that war depends on weakness; by arms. is But nuclear attacks can certainly have ends cannot be won in the older sense: decision this It is then claimed that war requires an end which nuclear war. "war" does not have. wars state based, for example, on its nuclear war But the not-war theme needs much qualification, and starts out making capacity. from the against on such criteria as reasonable when LN wars prospect of success and Page 47 improvement, not rational wars (in a good sense), and so on. wars nuclear weapons have also ruined "conventional" wars, and that demise the war of not just on his connected the mistaken has removed been proposition The (p.52). concerning the conventional war and the mistaken proposition that war of some sort the theme has left no means to finally settle disputes between nations, for the final court of appeal depends conventional nuclear times does damage to Schell’s argument that into persisted have That theme demise has to of be "court of appeal" between nations (for, as observed, there are other final types of contests that could serve, and there is also the cooperative behaviour, e.g. joint referenda); possibility of more it also imports the assumption of Clausowicz (criticised earlier) that war has to proceed to the technological limit - as if war and violence were thoroughly natural activities independent of recognised social settings (for winning, surrender, etc.) and ruleless. wars contrary, are parasitic on On the social organisations such as states and are They are a social governed by a range of understandings, conventions and rules. phenomenon, with a rule structure if not a logic. Much capital has been made from what is called "the and the "logic logic of deterrence" The message that is usually of nuclear (strategic) planning". supposed to come through is that the massive nuclear arraangements the world now entangled in are perfectly logical, sound, reasonable, rational. this represents little more than a cheap semantical the justifies reasonable. can be present arrangements, or trick. anything in strategic planning; values no in way in Jeffrey) which but is does not yield specific results without desirability measures being assigned to alternative without However like them, or renders them There is a logic of decision (as presented e.g. applied Logic is being pumped in, extralogically . outcomes, that is There are varaious ways these value assignments may be determined, to meet moral requirements or not; but in Page 48 nuclear planning strategic (Selecting the usual expediency. automatically; is have invariably been settled on the basis of game theory setting based something cover strategy of’. term almost Thus too the presumption in Walzer, p.277, that the logic of on eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth assumptions.) ’logic of’ tends to be used very generously, as a word of general to this to sees for it is then assumed that each player plays to maximize his or her own advantage. deterrence they like In fact commendation, ’rational considerations entering into the policy or In these terms, Schell, who like others enjoys playing with the ’logic of’, should write of ’the illoglc of deterrence’, for he emphasizes (III, p.80) the disparity between the supposed rationality of threatening use of nuclear weapons and the irrationality (even from a national interest viewpoint) of actually using them should the threat fail: doctrine depends irrational use. deterrence (e.g. on credibility of the yet the threat of of success this deterrence unjustifiable and Indeed Schell wants to go further and locate a contradiction in HI, pp.67-8): but the argument depends on an interesting confusion of contradiction with cancellation, which deterrence is supposed to (etc.) is involve. FOOTNOTES 1. The appalling theme that humans create past, present and repeated, e.g. p.104 top. 2. See e.g. ’Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’ in Environmental Philosophy (editor Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1980. 3. Another example of spreading the responsibility runs as follows (Schell p.46, III): we plan to exterminate species in certain circumstance, though we don’t quite admit this to ourselves, as sane or sensible (or rational?). Further (p.55 III), ’the world ... chose the course of attempting to refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons’: the world? Connected with this is the argument from defence of fundamentals [ideology] - e.g. for liberty, the (USA) nation, and against socialism. In the course of this yet another fallacious assumption is rolled out: ’The means to the end are not limited, for the end itself sets the limits in each future Page 49 case’ [?] 4. There is also, mixed in, a weaker more plausible claim that gives lie to the stronger one, namely that we have some responsibility (the Nazi situation is compared). 5. There is however a simple solution to Schell’s problem of the missing motive, namely an ideological one: remove the rival ideology from future dominance. Page 50 APPENDIX 2: Strategies and the Matter of Collective and Individual Responsibility What one does depends, naturally, on where one lives and what sort of power it is. responsibility work to entirely to an In present circumstances states have and states, there ends: responsibilities these no individual, or (smaller scale) is collective responsibility to work out a policy or people on stance matters such as While such a non-responsibility nuclear and still less to act on such a stance. (or opt-out) theme no doubt suits many evident There are however some persuasive out their policies. arguments that this is where the responsibility accrue one means what as what strategy a state should adopt depends on where it is located much has, and — many for some, themselves, especially more authoritarian power-holders, for others - it does involve opting out of moral responsibilities, responsibilities acquired by virtue of being a person within the framework of certain social arrangments. Now there is no doubt that individuals and a group can out. They can neglect their moral responsibilities; in doing so. being this, do can opt but they are not justified Against this claim, which is based ultimately upon each person’s caught in a web of responsibility-inducing social relations, whether they like it or not, there are some neat arguments which appear to permit opting out. One goes as follows: 1. The (ordinary) individual, difference to what happens. 2. Such difference. 3. individuals, or or group, has no possibility of making a make a Therefore groups, have no obligation to try to Hence Such individuals, or groups, are not morally responsible, for instance when things go wrong. Page 51 There are two main assumptions resisted; this in argument, both which of be firstly, a variant of the ought implies can theme , and secondly, the assumption that individuals can’t make a difference. cannot individuals competitive highly that true What an individuals do. full of hopeful free-riders, a person may communities, encouter a familiar impasse: is on their own, together they can. much accomplish it While individual can achieve depends on what sufficiently many other In should that he or she acts M-ly (e.g. against morally, nuclear arrangements, present destruction) at considerable personal cost with no Such an impasse no guarantee that others will also act M-ly. longer faces so many in the West at least as regards initial steps against nuclear arrangements. The individual can cooperate with others in ways that do make a difference. An individual is not exonerated from responsibility by the argument. While individuals can respond by joining organisations whose activities are at directed difference, many individuals also have the option of some making more individualistic action in such disobedience. important An forms as or deployment) Evidently, various or parts redirection however, work more effectively go slows, political form of individual resistance, already adopted in Canada and north-western USA is refusal to pay defence boycotts, thereof of such (e.g. taxes, income taxes nuclear for directed weapons Instance towards production to peace and funds. all these more individualistic forms of political activity if individuals integrate their activities since the impacts aggregate (and appear after a certain stage to exponentiate). There are arguments of some weight that individuals are under some sort moral obligation to take political action to disaffiliate themselves from what contributes to the prospects of nuclear depends on the of sort of state war. What type of action this is one resides in, e.g., whether it is a nuclear Page 52 power, whether it provides nuclear issues complicating as or bases facilities, and such on kind of preventive action the state is likely to what One argument - it is one of a type take in return. etc., be can that varied from making nuclear weapons to, for example, providing facilities for them - proceeds from the wrongness of nuclear war to the position that it is making weapons the such for The war. argument here not applies principles (like that of §5), for instance that the manufacture of such weapoons increases the risk of such war. right and to connecting deployment But if it is not morally right to be making such weapons then those who live in a state that is doing so to disaffiliate themselves from such substantive without The argument is but the assumptions opt-outers and do-nothingers assumption, ought defence production, and disaffiliation 2 includes not paying for such production through defence taxes . not be morally appear reasonable and defensible. Such arguments not only insofar as they put to contribute national for those 3 take action, even limited action such as redirection of taxes . in some fashion to moral obligations; political obligations. And political limited, by moral constraints. are already answer for then moral obligations override obligations are already significantly The nuclear situation does not so much bring out new limits on political obligation, as emphasize the obligations who There is however no dilemma under any theory which takes political obligations to back spot the objectives, they also raise serious questions and perhaps dilemmas as regards political obligations would on limited, and respects in which those introduce further moral considerations against sponsorship of national defence arrangements. Page 53 An obligation to try war does not commit one to more than this: for an to an obligation, for example, work to But alternative national defence policy which avoids nuclear elements. no doubt this would be a good thing to try to contribute to. one nuclear spending part of one’s working life contributing indirectly to it, not by to disaffiliate oneself from preparation for attempts depends commitments, and on forth. so where lives, one For not only the level are Once of again, one’s pacificist types different what policy of appropriate for different nations and regions, but there are more reorientation superficial and deeper reorientations that can be worked out and promoted, schemes that "conventional" leave e.g. warfare apparatus more or less Intact, and deeper (ecological) schemes that change that. The US Bishops, for example, present a shallower set of goals for such power as the USA, which includes such as preventing the objectives working development and deployment of destabilizing nuclear weapons systems and for better of already operational systems (see PL, p.317). control super a For those whose very limited political Influence is exerted in considerably lesser even the shallow goals may look quite different: there are no weapons (except perhaps those of another power planted on local territory) better control. The view from the very minor to in or redeploy to powers in the Antipodes is furthermore different from that of the medium powers in Europe. prospect powers is There some the Antipodes of avoiding the more immediate effects of an LN war, while there is little such prospect in Europe (cf. Preddy and others). There is accordingly some obligation - an obligation little considered and not grasped by the power holders - on those in the Antipodes to make some effort to preserve there elements of what is valuable in world civilization. Local and regional self-interest would also suggest steps towards self-preservation that been initiated. have not Page 54 What is broadly required in the Andipodes is a work out once removal of American bases alliance, which is in any case of questionable merit; and withdrawal of American rightss for nuclear-carrying equipment to access ports, air bases and other facilities, so as to remove pursuit of more a evenhanded policy targets; nuclear is That much easy, in principle. difficult to ensure is that economic and cultural collapse does not follow an LN war in the North. independence Secondly then the building of Increased in the Antipodes is required. sustainable of life its exercise unless combined with and Preddey it others is own. ’the region must also other desirable objectives: unlikely - the structural readjustment aims of moving for example, in estimated that 25 per cent of GDP would have to be included Australia the costs would be less. desirable have For a small region that looks a very costly diverted to build up New Zealand’s economic independence. which socio-economic It is not enough to make the region a nuclear-free zone not worth targeting militarily: a local of nonalignment (something quite small powers elsewhere have managed to achieve). More to Firstly, withdrawal from the American goals are glimpsed. the matter straightforward the were For a larger region If, furthermore - what seems combined with the independently whole region towards a multicultural conserver society and diverting "defence" spending to connected self-management and civil be considerably lessened. They only appear great in the setting of an on-going consumer-defence socleity. In any case where life itself defence goals, would is concerned, the costs do not appear excessive. FOOTNOTES 1. Any satisfactory deontic theory which takes moral dilemmas with due seriousness is bound to reject this theme. There are also independent grounds for jettisoning this Kantian theme: see Routley and Plumwood. Page 55 Seatie 2. An argument of this type was deployed by Bishop support of his refusal to pay defence taxes. 3. This dilemma and option is now removed for most wage earners by Pay As You Earn taxation schemes, schemes apparently introduced to give the state interest on gross earnings, but obviously very effective in removing taxation power from most workers, and so from individuals to the state. 4. Given the power of institutions and the state one may be able to do little more than try, without giving up one’s work and therby one’s ability to contribute to other deserving causes. For example, it may be virtually impossible for one to avoid contributing to a superannuation fund which is investing in projects which one opposes and/or ought to oppose. Hunthaassen of in Page 56 REFERENCES Berg, Reinhabiting a Separate 1979. P. M. Cohen, Nagel, Scanlan Princeton, 1974. Country, (editors) Planet War and Drum, Moral San Francisco, Responsibility , R.E. Goodin, ’Disarming nuclear apologists’, typescript, 1982. R.E. Goodin, ’Disarmament as a moral certalnuity’, typescript, 1983. P(hilip) Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 1966. N. Griffin, ’Lifeboat USA', typescript, 1982. Ground Zero Organisation, Nuclear War: New York, 1982. R. Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision H. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War. What’s In It For You? Pocket Book (editor D.P. Lackey, ’Ethics and nuclear deterrence*, in Moral James Rachels), Harper and Row, New York, 1979. D.P. Lackey, 'Missiles and morals: a utilitarian look at nuclear deterrence’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 11 (1982) pp.189-213. J.C. Problems Murray, Morality and Modern War, T. Nagel, ’War and Massacre' in Cohen et al, pp.3-24. J. Narvesen, 'Violence and War’ in Regan, pp.109-146. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on War and Peace, ’The challenge of peace: God’s promise and our response’, Origins 12 (20) (1982) pp.306-328 [hereafter referred to as PL, for ’New Draft of Pastoral Letter’]. G.F. Preddey and others, Future Contingencies 4. Nuclear Disasters, A Report to the Commision for the Future, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, 1982. T. Regan (editor), Matters of Life and 1980. R. Routley and V. Routley, Alternatives, (1982). R. Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas and (edit. notions’ in Paraconsistent Logic, Philosophla Verlag, 1983. 'The Death, Random irrefutability of the G. House, New anarchism’, York, Social logic of deontic Priest and others) Page 57 R. Scheer, With Enough Shovels: House, New York, 1982. J. Schell, ’Reflections (Nuclear Arms - Parts I-III)’, The New Yorker, February 1, 8, and 15, 1982, pp.47-113, 48-109, and 45-107, respectively. This series subtitled The Fate of the Earth, has now appeared as a book with that title (Kopf, New York, 1982). References in the text are to the original articles. All references by parts labels ’I’-’III’ are to these articles. T.C . Reagan, Bush and Nuclear Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971. T. Taylor, Nuremburg and Vietnam: R.W.. M.M.. M. R.A. S. Random Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, 1980. G. E.P.. War, Thompson and D. New York, 1981. An American Tragedy, Smith, Protest and Survive, Monthly Review Press, Tucker, The Just War, Wakin (editor), War, Morality and the Military Profession, Boulder, Colorado, 1979. Westview, Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Basic Books, New York, 1977. Wasserstrom (editor) California, 1970. War and Morality, Wadsworth, Zuckerman, Nuclear Illusion and Reality, Collins, London, 1982. Belmont,  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 97, Item 6: Working draft of On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and war-deterrence and the political fall-out Subject The topic of the resource Typescript working draft. 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