Human interests, intrinsic value and radical questioning:

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Human interests, intrinsic value and radical
questioning

• Three necessary aspects of environmental ethics
  as international action?
• Johan Hattingh

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Overview

• Environmental ethics
• Practical enterprise
• Theoretical enterprise
• Three snapshots of environmental ethics as
  international action
• Interpretation of these snapshots
• Human interests
• Intrinsic value
• Radical questioning

3
Snapshot 1 Kyoto Protocol

• 16 February 2005 activated
• Binds industrialized countries
• Cut 6 key greenhouse gasses
• 5 below 1990 levels
• Commitment period 2008 2012
• 128 signatories
• Mechanisms to assist other countries

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Main aim of Kyoto Protocol

• To stem global warming by reducing greenhouse-gas
  emissions in the most cost effective manner,
  while addressing issues of environmental
  integrity and equity.

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Main instruments

• Emissions trading
• Free market in Carbon Reduction Credits.
• Credits earned by meeting reduction targets.
• Surplus credits can be sold
• The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
• Joint Implementation (JI)

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Snapshot 2 World Summit on Sustainable
Development

• Johannesburg, 2002 WSSD
• Assessment of implementation of Agenda 21
• Ten years after Rio de Janeiro (1992) the
  diagnosis is still pessimistic

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Global state of the environment

• The global environment continues to suffer. Loss
  of biodiversity continues, fish stocks continue
  to be depleted, desertification claims more and
  more fertile land, the adverse effects of climate
  change are already evident, natural disasters are
  more frequent and more devastating and developing
  countries more vulnerable, and air, water and
  marine pollution continue to rob millions of a
  decent life

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Other concerns of Johannesburg

• Growing gap between rich and poor
• Distribution and equity issues
• Justice and equity environmental issues
• Causes
• Unsustainable production and consumption
• A new commitment to sustainable development was
  adopted

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Sustainable development

• is development that meets the needs of present
  generations without compromizing future
  generations to meet their needs
• Two important provisos
• The needs of the poor are central
• Only constraint on sustainable development is the
  state of technology and social organization in
  society

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Snapshot 3 Millenium Development Goals

• Protecting our common environment
• Peace, security and disarmament
• Development and poverty eradication
• Human rights, democracy and good governance
• Protecting the vulnerable
• Meeting special needs of Africa
• Strengthening the United Nations

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Key values driving MDGs

• Respect for nature
• Freedom
• Equality
• Solidarity
• Tolerance
• Shared responsibility

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New ethics of conservation and stewardship

• Implementing Kyoto Protocol
• Protection of all types of forests
• Implementation of the Convention on Biological
  Diversity, combat desertification
• Sustainable water use
• Reduce number and effects of natural and manmade
  disasters
• Free access to info on human genome

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Normative basis of practical environmental ethics

• Ethics entails distinctions
• Right vs wrong
• Good vs bad
• What deserves respect vs what not

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Right vs wrong

• Duties of nations, corporations, professionals
  and individuals
• To fight climate change
• To reduce greenhouse emissions
• To pursue sustainable development
• To eradicate poverty
• To ensure justice and equity
• To improve the lives of people

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Good vs bad

• What we embrace as the good life
• Dignity and justice for all
• Peace and prosperity
• Freedom from terror, diseases and manmade
  disasters
• Prerequisites for such a life
• Access to clean water
• Access to information
• Technology transfer between nations

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What deserves respect what not

• What we can identify with as human beings accept
  as source of our being
• Caring for life
• Our own lives
• The lives of other humans
• The lives of non-humans
• The vulnerable and the poor
• The victims of our own unwise decisions
• Thinking and cautionary approach

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Quality of our justifications

• Kyoto Protocol
• Preventing harm to people living now and in the
  future
• Johannesburg Summit on Sust. Dev.
• Justice, human dignity, social development,
  caring about future generations
• Millennium Development Goals
• Cooperation to achieve freedom, equality,
  solidarity to improve the lives of people

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Three positions in environmental ethics

• Human centered
• Anthropocentric
• Nature centered
• Ecocentric
• Radical positions
• Root causes of environmental problems
• Transformative agenda

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The anthropocentric position

• Conserve nature for the sake of humans
• Enlightened self-interest
• Nature is valued instrumentally
• Nature is a means to human ends
• Nature is nothing but a resource
• Consumptive use of nature?
• Non-consumptive use of nature?

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3 snapshots anthropocentric

• Kyoto Protocol, WSSD, MDGs
• Overcome harm to humans
• Promote human interests
• Enlightened self-interest
• We care for nature for the sake of humankind
• Best place to start to engage governments,
  multinational corporations
• What is good for nature is good for humans

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Is this good enough?

• Ecocentrists argue
• Instrumental values are not strong enough to
  protect nature from humans
• In trade-offs humans will always win
• We need a stronger position
• That change our attitude towards nature
• That can stop us when we want to go too far

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Intrinsic value

• Whole or parts of nature has intrinsic value
• Value in and of itself
• Regardless of value to humans
• Entities with intrinsic value should be
• Treated with respect
• Cannot do with them what we want
• Moral duty to protect that intrinsic valueif
  not to promote it

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3 snapshots and intrinsic value

• Kyoto Protocol, WSSD and MDGs
• Move us away from a cynical and ruthless
  exploitation of nature
• Take a few necessary first steps
• But only ensure a weak protection of nature, and
  weak sustainability
• We have to move on and find stronger measures to
  protect and promote intrinsic value

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Radical environmental ethics

• Try to understand root causes of our
  environmental problems and overcome them by
  transforming society
• Root causes are found in
• Structure of worlds economy
• Distribution of political and economic power
  between and within countries

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Radical questioning

• Focus on social and cognitive structures
  informing organization of the world
• Political economy of decision-making
• Dominant conceptions of self and self-realization
• Narrow egotistical self of consumer society
• A logic of dualistic, hierarchical thinking that
  justify exploitation of nature, women and darker
  races

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The value of radical questioning

• Is total transformation not going too far?
• Is the momentum of global consumerism not too
  strong?
• But
• Are we happy with the images of self and
  self-realization that we see all around us?
• Do we recognize ourselves in the mirrors held up
  to us by our cities, our shopping malls, our TV
  ads, our glossy magazines and fashion?

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Radical questioning starts

• When we start to feel uncomfortable with living
  in the world we see around us
• When we do not recognize ourselves in it seeing
  no future for our children in it
• Wondering whether what we do is meaningful or not
• When we realize that we are faced today with a
  crisis of character and culture

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So, why this deep interpretation

• To underline that our environmental predicament
  is more than
• A crisis of survival
• A crisis of justice and human dignity
• To underline that our environmental problems
  challenge us to ask serious questions about who
  we are and how we realize ourselves in this world
  on this earth

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• To underline that the Kyoto Protocol, Sustainable
  development and the MDGs are but first, initial
  steps that need to be followed up by stronger
  measures of protection, and that we have to take
  a harder look at ourselves and how we produce and
  consume in order to realize ourselves in this
  world

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• To underline that if we think that we have done
  enough by putting in place measures like the
  Kyoto Protocol, sustainable development and noble
  development goals, and not also question the
  root causes of global climate change,
  unsustainable development, and increasing poverty
  and human indignity in the world, we seriously
  fool ourselves

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Conclusion 1

• To address environmental issues without humans
  benefiting from it would be futile
• Measures like the Kyoto Protocol, sustainable
  development, MDGs should
• Never increase world poverty
• Never entrench current patterns of injustice and
  inequity in the world

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Conclusion 2

• We need more than instrumental values to protect
  nature
• Acknowledging intrinsic value, the value of
  entities for their own sake, regardless of their
  use value to us, is an effort to change our
  attitude towards nature by thinking about it
  differently

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Conclusion 3

• The state of the world today, of which the
  environmental crisis is but one symptom,
  confronts us with
• A crisis of identity, of character and culture
• Radical questions about who we are, what we
  define as meaningful, and how we realize
  ourselves in this world have to be asked

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A last unconcluding word

• Human interests, intrinsic value and radical
  questioning are all necessary to look at our
  environmental crisis
• Each make a valid contribution to our
  understanding of our environmental crisis, what
  it means, and how to start thinking about
  overcoming it
• We need all three we cannot ignore any

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• This is what I would like you to take to heart
  today
• Speaking from my heart
• And what I believe is at the heart of
  environmental ethics today, as a theoretical
  enterprise, as well as in the format of practical
  international action