Hi everyone,

The topic of bioeccentric misanthropy and genocidal self-hatred brings to
mind an important essay by Bob Pepperman Taylor entitled "Democracy and
Environmental Ethics."  Taylor examines a selection of biocentric texts
from the environmental ethics literature and finds it wanting on many
different counts.

"Biocentrism is in obvious tension with conventional ethical theories that
revolve around individual rights, freedoms or utility" (89).  One common
theme he identifies to most if not all biocentric theory is its tendency to
jettison democratic principles in order to prevent ecological disasters
from occurring.  While other observers (such as Robyn Eckersley) feel that
this "survivalist" authoritarianism was more overtly expressed in the
past--i.e. in the early enviroethics literature (e.g. Garrett Hardin's
'Tragedy of the Commons')--than in more recent biocentric theory, Taylor
writes in contrast, "The break with survivalism has not been as complete as
it first appears" (88).  The anti-democratic tendencies toward what Tom
Regan has called "environmental fascism" are still present in biocentric
theorizing today, albeit expressed in a somewhat more toned-down rhetoric.

Among those whom Taylor discusses are Eckersley, Arne Naess, Paul Taylor,
and Laura Westra.  Westra, author of a well known enviroethics text on
ecological integrity, comes in for special criticism:

--"While the undemocratic conclusions come reluctantly to Naess and others,
Westra bites the bullet and parades her distrust of democracy as proof of
her intellectual independence and radicalism.  She takes the 'risk of
impugning the "sacred cow" of democracy' . . . and admits that 'our
entrenched beliefs in the primacy of individual or, at best, of
democratically chosen preferences above all else' present 'a major stumbing
block to the practical acceptance of PI [principle of integrity]' . . . .
She offers her moral absolutism as a 'revolutionary' alternative to
democratic majoritarianism, as if calling something revolutionary is
sufficient to demonstrate its desirability: 'The insistence on . . .
categorical principles that are nonnegotiable or amenable to majoritarian
choices is revolutionary . . . in today's moral climate' . . . .  It is
perhaps inevitable that a philosopher committed to a 'complete paradigm
shift' . . . in the way we view the world displays what appears to be
contempt for the way common people think" (97; citing Westra 1994 at 193,
202, 188-89, and 66).

While time constraints this afternoon don't allow me to develop much more
of this email to relate Taylor's essay to our recent discussions on global
warming, the precautionary principle, etc., I would like to say that the
Taylor article and especially his critique of Westra's work gets right to
the heart of the problem of the tendency of environmentalists and
environmental philosophers to appeal to fear as a basis for the
environmental ethic.  We see this tendency toward fear-mongering all the
time in the popular environmental literature--but what is perhaps
surprising is the thought that professional philosophers rely on the same
scare tactics as well to ground their biocentric theories.

Taylor comments that Westra's work is not properly environmental "ethics"
at all:
--". . . [I]n Westra's work there is another argument presented for
accepting a biocentric ethic, an argument that moves biocentric
environmental ethics closer yet to the earlier authoritarian
environmentalist literature.  Westra defends biocentrism first and foremost
on survivalist, rather than ethical, grounds.  Just as the ideological
foundation of the Green movement is a particularly severe understanding of
resource scarcity . . . so Westra's environmental ethics appeals ultimately
to empirical claims about environmental survival.  Our society, she holds,
is 'already living beyond ecological limits': 'We must admit that our
society has "touched bottom ," having drifted out of control, beyond a
sustainable state we can justify' . . . .  She therefore promotes a
'heuristic of fear' as the basis for a new 'ethic of [environmental]
responsibility' . . . ."(98-99; citing Westra at 34 and 11).

Taylor sees this appeal to fear as morally and epistemologically suspect.
"With Westra, biocentric environmental ethics has lost its nerve, its faith
that it could offer a set of ethical arguments independent of prudence and
physical necessities to guide our moral relationship with the natural
world," Taylor comments.  "Instead, it has resorted to the survivalism it
had originally grown to replace.  And the empirical claims upon which this
survivalism is built have returned as articles of faith, a reality to be
insisted upon, rather than something to be scrutinized and evaluated as it
had been in the earlier literature" (99).  In other words, Westra is
engaging in ideological sloganeering, not doing environmental ethics.

Why is this important? When environmentalists and environmental ethicists
rely on appeals to fear, survivalism, and expressions of misanthropy, they
are headed in the wrong direction, i.e. toward authoritarianism and
anti-democratic social structures.  Such a move implies the abandonment of
environmental ethics, for as Taylor observes, "it is probably just plain
wrong to believe that appealing to fear for survival is a sound foundation
for ethical analysis":

--"When environmental ethics moves in this direction, it forfeits the only
grounds--moral and philosophical--upon which it might legitimately seek to
justify it hostility to democracy.  Instead of defending a philosophical
vision of a better world on its own terms, it implies that this alternative
world is necessary by default, since only this can save us from
environmental disaster.  But to take this road is to leave the world of
normative argument and enter the worlds of social and natural science. . .
.  [I]t is probably just plain wrong to believe that appealing to fear for
survival is a sound foundation for ethical analysis.  If the building is
burning, by all means yell fire.  But such circumstances are not ideal for
moral reflection, and yelling fire is not a philosophical task.
Christopher Lasch has observed: 'people committed only to survival are . .
. likely to head for the hills.  If survival is the overriding issue,
people will take more interest in their personal safety than in the
survival of humanity as a whole.  Those who base the case for conservation
and peace on survival only appeal to a debased system of values, and they
defeat their own purpose' (Lasch, 1984, p. 78).  Fear can certainly spur us
to action, but there is no reason to believe that the action will be
principled, rational or even constructive.  When environmental ethics moves
back in the direction of survivalism, it cuts the philosophical ground out
from under itself.  Its hostility to democracy is unjustified and its
normative focus is compromised" (99).

The problem with democratic politics is that it is messy and
time-consuming.  Biocentrists dislike both.  "But as biocentrism nurtures
an increasing hostility towards democracy," Taylor observes, "it becomes
almost by definition a conversation limited to the ideologically pure, the
already convinced" (100).  This impatience with the messiness of democratic
ideals manifests itself in, among other things, the "dangerous nonsense" of
biocentric misanthropy and genocidal self-hatred, as Richard Watson puts
it.

Taylor argues pretty convincingly that "the road to deep ecology can
ironically be a road to disengagement with the particulars of environmental
politics" (100-- see especially his book, Our Limits Transgressed ).
"Democratic politics insists that common ground be sought," writes Taylor,
"that solutions to political problems be found that as many people can
accept, however grudgingly" (101).  The biocentric clarion calls for
radical new worldviews and the like, coupled with its reliance on fear and
apocalyptic doom-mongering, paradoxically doom it to political marginality
and philosophical irrelevance.  "[B]y turning environmental theory into a
battle over ideology, biocentrism directs us away from the particulars of
environmental policy and the policy-making process, thus blocking our
ability to critically evaluate outcomes and the legitimacy of environmental
politics" (104).  Biocentrism is therefore bad philosophy, but even worse
politics.

Thus the abandonment of democratic environmental ethics can lead to the
embrace of authoritarian environmental fascism.  "In these ways," Taylor
concludes, "biocentric environmental ethics puts itself in an antagonistic
relationship with democratic discourse and more or less opts out of
democratic political life.  Ironically, . . . [such biocentric]
environmental theory stands in a hostile relationship to the kind of
politics that holds the best opportunity for the development of
significant, constructive environmental policy" (104).  The impatience with
democratic human values that finds philosophical expression in Westra's
work and "sound-bite" illustration in Paul Taylor's colorful thought
experiment is just misanthropy dressed up as environmental ethics: which is
to say that it is not "ethics" at all.

Jim T.


Lasch, Christopher. 1984. The Minimal Self : Psychic Survival in Troubled
Times. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton.
Taylor, Bob Pepperman. 1992. Our Limits Transgressed: Environmental
Political Thought in America. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Taylor, Bob Pepperman. 1996. Democracy and Environmental Ethics. In
Democracy and the Environment: Problems and Prospects, edited by W. M.
Lafferty and J. Meadowcroft. Brookfield, VT: Edward Elger.
Westra, Laura. 1993. An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of
Integrity. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.