Adam Gottschalk wrote Tuesday, 29 February 2000 09:38

>I am very sensitive to the view that animal rights is only in certain,
>narrow formulations related to
>Environmental Ethics. On the contrary, I think animal rights is the premier
>Ecological-ethics issue.

Chris Perley: Why?

>Who could argue that Leopold with his old notion of
>the Land Ethic is the premier ecological-ethicist?

CP: An "old" does not make it a "wrong" notion.  I would argue that
Leopold - if not THE premier ecological-ethicist - is certainly one of a
number that is way up there.


>As I have mentioned before on this list (with no responses), I think
>Leopold's Ethic is faulty and doomed because of his not seeing the
>animal-rights issues as primary to any land ethic.

CP: I have responded to you (I think it was you Adam) before on this issue.
I do not think that animal rights is primary to any land ethic.  I have
argued that you have to consider the whole of a functioning ecosystems, with
functions and processes (as the underlying determinants of the temporary
structures that so many of humanity sees as static) being more important.
Leopold saw this I believe.  It is summed up in his Think Like a Mountain
essay.  This is far more "primary" than animal rights (by which I think you
mean that animals have rights not to be killed by humans).

If I could use an example - under the primacy of the ecosystem functions it
is NOT OK for someone to release mink from mink farms into the wild
(irrespective of the ethics of keeping minks in that way) - thereby causing
enormous damage to an ecosystem that is not conditioned to the inclusion of
such a species.  Under the primacy of animal rights (correct me if I am
wrong) it would be MORE acceptable to release them because your PRIMARY
concern is to the animal - NOT to the ecosystem.  I think the primary
concern is to the ecosystems (defined more by function than individual short
lived entities).  Primacy of animal rights may well lead to ecological harm,
or at the very least an unhealthy ecosystem.  Leopold saw this.  That is why
I think he is very good.

I think I have asked you the question before Adam - What do you find
acceptable to kill to save the animal?  Save the deer - kill the white pine
regeneration.  Save the wolf, kill the deer, etc., etc.

>How can anyone conceive
>of "the beauty, integrity, and stability of the biotic community" if there
>are a host of sensitive, sentient beings within that community who aren't
>first accorded moral status?

CP: What do you mean by moral status?  Are you giving them the status where
the killing of individuals is a crime?  Or is it a different moral status?
As necessary parts in a number of ecological processes I think they also
deserve moral status - but I suspect we differ in interpretation.

>I agree with Regan that an environmental ethic
>is not possible before intrinsic value is accorded to animals in the same
>way that it is accorded to humans.

CP: Ah.  Does this mean that we need to raise the moral level of animals to
those of humans, or do we need to lower the moral level of humans to those
of all animals within an ecosystem?  In other words do we set animals apart
from ecosystems (being above them, like so many humans want to be above the
ecosystems on which they ultimately depend) OR do we include humans within
ecosystems with the same status of all animals within the system?  The
latter raises interesting questions about the status of individuals -
whether human or animal.  (I ignore non-animals because that seems to be the
preference from your arguments).


>Though he doesn't conclude the same, my reading of his book is that deep
>ecology, environmentalism that doesn't address animal rights first is
>premature.

CP: As discussed above - I think that any environmentalism that places
animals as having primacy over the ecosystem as a whole is an
environmentalism without foundation in reality.  Treating them "first" could
be very unhealthy - cf the mink farm situation.  First comes the ecosystem -
in all its functions and entities - animals, non-animals, and all the
processes that enable the biodiversity, the evolution etc.


>In addition, another reason that I think animal rights is essential to
>ecological ethics is this: I think sentience _and_ intelligence are both
>hopelessly faulty criteria for moral considerability.

CP: agree re faulty criteria of sentience and intelligence (frightening).
But don't see that animal rights is then an alternative.  Giving rights to
an animal over something else (which is what you DO if you think animals are
primary over other processes and entities [esp. non-animal entities] of an
ecosystem) is to replace one criterion of primacy (sentience/intelligence
etc.) over another arbitrary criterion (it being an animal).

I would like to
>consider an "entropy criterion," one that brings all biology into the fold
>along with the inanimate world on which it depends. The criterion is
>ecological at its core. The goal is to honor the process of living as it
>transpires (dialectically) for all living things, to honor the entropic
flow
>of matter-energy which all life depends on, whether animals, barnacles,
>plants, whatever.

CP: you propose a primacy of ecological function (as represented by energy
flowing through a system - death, predation and decay being one of the
mechanism incidentally).  This seems at odds with your views on animal
primacy, but perhaps I misunderstand you.

[snip]

Chris Perley



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%