Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics 9781135042578, 1135042578

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Introduction: Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics
PART I Environmental Value and its Structure
1 The Bearers of Value in Environmental Ethics
2 Can Biocentric Consequentialism Meet Pluralist Challenges?
3 System Consequentialism
4 Indirect, Multidimensional Consequentialism
5 Why Leave Nature Alone?
PART II Consequentialism and Environmental Decision Making
6 On Some Limitations of Consequentialism in the Sphere of Environmental Ethics
7 Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism
8 Future Generations and Resource Shares
9 Can We Remediate Wrongs?
10 Moral Bookkeeping, Consequentialism, and Carbon Offsets
11 John Stuart Mill’s Green Liberalism and Ecofeminism
Index

Citation preview

Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics

This volume works to connect issues in environmental ethics with the best work in contemporary normative theory. Environmental issues challenge contemporary ethical theorists to account for topics that traditional ethical theories do not address to any significant extent. This book articulates and evaluates consequentialist responses to that challenge. Contributors provide a thorough and well-rounded analysis of the benefits and limitations of the consequentialist perspective in addressing environmental issues. In particular, the contributors use consequentialist theory to address central questions in environmental ethics, such as questions about what kinds of things have value; about decision-making in light of the long-term, intergenerational nature of environmental issues; and about the role that a state’s being natural should play in ethical deliberation. Avram Hiller is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University, USA Ramona Ilea is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Pacific University, USA Leonard Kahn is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University, New Orleans, USA

Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory

1 The Contradictions of Modern Moral Philosophy Ethics after Wittgenstein Paul Johnston

11 Reasons, Patterns, and Cooperation Christopher Woodard

2 Kant, Duty and Moral Worth Philip Stratton-Lake

12 Challenging Moral Particularism Edited by Mark Norris Lance, Matjaž Potrč, and Vojko Strahovnik

3 Justifying Emotions Pride and Jealousy Kristján Kristjánsson

13 Rationality and Moral Theory How Intimacy Generates Reasons Diane Jeske

4 Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill Frederick Rosen

14 The Ethics of Forgiveness A Collection of Essays Christel Fricke

5 The Self, the Soul and the Psychology of Good and Evil Ilham Dilman

15 Moral Exemplars in the Analects The Good Person Is That Amy Olberding

6 Moral Responsibility The Ways of Scepticism Carlos J. Moya

16 The Phenomenology of Moral Normativity William H. Smith

7 The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle Mirrors of Virtue Jiyuan Yu

17 The Second-Person Perspective in Aquinas’s Ethics Virtues and Gifts Andrew Pinsent

8 Caste Wars A Philosophy of Discrimination David Edmonds

18 Social Humanism A New Metaphysics Brian Ellis

9 Deprivation and Freedom A Philosophical Enquiry Richard J. Hull

19 Ethics Without Morals In Defence of Amorality Joel Marks

10 Needs and Moral Necessity Soran Reader

20 Evil and Moral Psychology Peter Brian Barry

21 Aristotelian Ethics in Contemporary Perspective Edited by Julia Peters 22 Modern Honor A Philosophical Defense Anthony Cunningham 23 Art and Ethics in a Material World Kant’s Pragmatist Legacy Jennifer A. McMahon

24 Defending Associative Duties Jonathan Seglow 25 Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics Edited by Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea, and Leonard Kahn

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Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics Edited by Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea, and Leonard Kahn

First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Consequentialism and environmental ethics / edited by Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea, and Leonard Kahn. — 1 [edition]. pages cm. — (Routledge studies in ethics and moral theory ; 25) Includes index. 1. Consequentialism (Ethics) 2. Environmental ethics. I. Hiller, Avram, 1971– editor of compilation. BJ1500.C63C66 2013 179′.1—dc23 2013022949 ISBN: 978-0-415-82380-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-37979-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To all students, educators, activists, and others who are working for the betterment of the environment

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Contents

Acknowledgments List of Contributors Introduction: Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics

xi xv 1

AVRAM HILLER AND LEONARD KAHN

PART I Environmental Value and its Structure 1

The Bearers of Value in Environmental Ethics

17

KATIE MCSHANE

2

Can Biocentric Consequentialism Meet Pluralist Challenges?

35

ROBIN ATTFIELD

3

System Consequentialism

54

AVRAM HILLER

4

Indirect, Multidimensional Consequentialism

70

ALAN CARTER

5

Why Leave Nature Alone?

92

BEN BRADLEY

PART II Consequentialism and Environmental Decision Making 6

On Some Limitations of Consequentialism in the Sphere of Environmental Ethics ALAN HOLLAND

107

x 7

Contents Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism

122

KRISTER BYKVIST

8

Future Generations and Resource Shares

136

ALLEN HABIB

9

Can We Remediate Wrongs?

147

BENJAMIN HALE

10 Moral Bookkeeping, Consequentialism, and Carbon Offsets

164

JULIA DRIVER

11 John Stuart Mill’s Green Liberalism and Ecofeminism

174

WENDY DONNER

Index

191

Acknowledgments

This book came about for many reasons and thanks are owed to many people. All three of us would like to thank the contributors to this book for their excellent work, their prompt communication, and their willingness to be accommodating in what is, at least sometimes, a complicated process. We are also indebted to the nice folks at Routledge—Margo Irvin, Felisa Salvago-Keyes, and Andrew Weckenmann foremost among them—who have impressed us with their competence, cheerfulness, and flexibility. We would also like to thank Emily Hodges for providing invaluable assistance in the preparation of the book proposal and Introduction, and Matthew Hernandez and Ben Brewer for their help proofreading and formatting some chapters in this volume. In the early stages of developing the plan for the book, Avram Hiller organized a symposium session at the 2010 American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting in San Francisco titled “Connecting Ethical Theory and Environmental Ethics” with talks by Alan Carter, Julia Driver, and Robert Elliot. We wish to thank the speakers and the audience on that occasion—the session demonstrated that there is a great deal interest in the book’s topic and that the work is of significant import. And Leonard Kahn and Hiller together organized a session at the 2011 International Society for Utilitarian Studies conference in Lucca, Italy, with talks by Wendy Donner, Krister Bykvist, and Hiller, and we are grateful to Donner and Bykvist and to the audience members as well as the conference organizers for including the session in the program. Each of the editors wishes to acknowledge the help others have provided in the preparation of this manuscript. Avram Hiller: I learned a great deal from both Ramona Ilea and Leonard Kahn, both of whom excel in their hard work, attention to detail, and stellar wit. I am grateful to have had the chance to work with both of them. When Leonard first suggested the idea for the book, I knew that it would be a deeply worthwhile experience, and it has been that indeed. Numerous people inspired me to be concerned with environmental issues; they are far too many to name, but I am grateful to all of them for showing me the value of the environment. I especially wish to thank my parents,

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Acknowledgments

Esther and Gerald Hiller, who each in their own ways helped instill in me an appreciation for nature. I would also like to thank my sisters—Phyllis Fine, who helped me considerably with her encouragement in moving forward with this project, and Susan Troen. Many philosophers helped inspire me to work to connect environmental ethics and consequentialism. Dale Jamieson has argued in favor of continued engagement between environmental ethics and ethical theory, and I am grateful to him. Discussions with Katie McShane, Ben Hale, and Marion Hourdequin at conferences of the International Society for Environmental Ethics also led me to understand the importance of this project. This book benefited greatly from my receiving a Portland State University Faculty Enhancement Grant, which provided me with a release from teaching and research support, and I am very grateful for it. Last and certainly not least, I am deeply grateful to Amie Peterson for all her help and support. Ramona Ilea: I want to begin by thanking my co-editors, Avram Hiller and Leonard Kahn, for allowing me to join this project after they had already started it. I had a great experience working on this book, and I am grateful to them for that. I am also thankful to Pacific University for giving me a Faculty Development Grant and for allowing me to have a full year sabbatical during the 2012–2013 school year. Having some funding and a release from teaching enabled me to work a few different projects, including this book. It also enabled me to present at twelve conferences in the past year, which in turn allowed me to hear some excellent talks, get feedback on my work, and meet many wonderful people. Since I arrived at Pacific University in 2006, I have had the best department chairs and colleagues: Dave Boersema and David DeMoss; I leaned on them for help and advice more often than I can remember, and I am grateful for everything they do. While I was working on this book, my friends—especially Susan Hawthorne, Monica Janzen, and Bharati Kasibhatla—and my family have also been, as usual, understanding and enthusiastic about my work. A special thanks goes to my life partner, Gregory Oschwald, who is always extremely supportive, perceptive, and encouraging. I could not do everything I do without him. Leonard Kahn: If I were to be entirely forthcoming, my acknowledgements would be at least as long as the rest of this book. I will spare the reader the trouble of sorting through the details of my debts here, but I hope that anyone I fail to mention will put down my omission to a spirit of brevity and not to anything even faintly resembling ingratitude. To begin with, I am exceedingly happy to thank my co-editors, Avram Hiller and Ramona Ilea, for their hard work, collegiality, insights, persistence, and, of course, patience. This volume would not have seen the light

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of day but for their considerable labors, and the world would thereby be a poorer place. Furthermore, I am grateful to my colleagues and students at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), where I taught from 2009 to 2013. The faculty members in USAFA’s Department of Philosophy have been enormously helpful to me in ways too numerous to mention, though Colonel James Cook, the department’s chairperson, deserves to be singled out for special praise. I am also thankful to Ashley Anderson, Carlos Bertha, James Carey, Mike Growden, Mark Jensen, Brent Kyle, Deonna Neal, Bill Rhodes, Rhonda Smith, Mark Swiatek, and Tennille Thorne for help on this and closely related projects. My students at USAFA have provided me with inspiration, a renewed sense of the importance of undergraduate education, and a remarkable glimpse into the development of officers in the U.S. military. Moreover, I am in debt to the members of the Springs Philosophy Discussion Group especially James Carey, Helen Daly, Rick Furtak, Marion Hourdequin, Jennifer Jensen, Ivan Meyerhofer, and James Reid. I am not sure that I expected so many good philosophers to be working in the shadow of Pike’s Peak, but I am delighted to have found them there—and to have found them so willing to discuss the arcana of consequentialism and environmental ethics. I will miss all of these fine people, though I look forward to working with new colleagues and students at Loyola University in New Orleans in the fall of 2013. Just a few more: Roger Crisp provided encouragement and fine advice about this volume, as well as much else for which I cannot thank him enough. Finally, I lack the words to thank Kimberly Kahn, so I will simply register this deficiency, trust that she will understand, and hope that she will continue to provide much-needed support.

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List of Contributors

Robin Attfield has taught philosophy at Cardiff University since 1968. He is the author of God and the Secular ( 1993), The Ethics of Environmental Concern (1991), Environmental Philosophy (1994), Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics (1995), The Ethics of the Global Environment (1999), Environmental Ethics (2003), Creation, Evolution and Meaning (2006), and Ethics: An Overview (2012). See http://tinyurl.com/7eauglx and the companion website, http://philosophy.attfield.continuumbooks.com. Ben Bradley is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Syracuse University. He is the author of Well-Being and Death (Oxford 2009) and coeditor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death (Oxford 2012). His published articles on consequentialism and environmental ethics include “The Value of Endangered Species,” “Virtue Consequentialism,” and “Against Satisficing Consequentialism.” Krister Bykvist is a Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2009), and his published articles include “Can Unstable Preferences Provide a Stable Standard of Well-Being?” (Economics and Philosophy 26:1 [2010]: 1–26). His current research is on well-being, value theory, and moral uncertainty. Alan Carter held, until July 2011, the historic Chair in Moral Philosophy at The University of Glasgow. Previously he was Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at The University of Colorado at Boulder. He has also worked at Heythrop College (University of London) and at University College Dublin. He is the author of three books and more than 65 articles. Wendy Donner is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where she taught for two decades. She is the author of The Liberal Self: John Stuart Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy (Cornell 1991) and Mill (with Richard Fumerton; Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and has published many articles on environmental ethics, feminist ethics, and Buddhist ethics.

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Julia Driver is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University. She has published three books, the most recent, Consequentialism, with Routledge in 2012. She has published articles in a variety of journals such as The Journal of Philosophy, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. She is an Associate editor for Ethics, and a co-editor for the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Allen Habib is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. He writes on environmental ethics, in particular sustainability theory and intergenerational justice, as well as on promises, agreements, and contracts. He is the author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on promises, and his work has also been published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy and Environmental Values. Benjamin Hale is Associate Professor in the philosophy department and the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also currently the vice-president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics and co-editor of the journal Ethics, Policy & Environment. He has published widely on topics regarding pollution, geo-engineering, and environmental market failures. Avram Hiller is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Portland State University. He has published papers in a variety of areas, including epistemology, metaphysics, and environmental ethics (especially climate ethics). His work appears in numerous journals, including Synthese, The Monist, and Ethics, Policy, and Environment. Alan Holland is Emeritus Professor of Applied Philosophy at Lancaster University, the United Kingdom. He has published work in environmental philosophy, ecological economics, animal issues, medical ethics, and the theory of evolution. He was founding editor of the journal Environmental Values and served on the U.K. government’s Animal Procedures Committee. He is coauthor, with John O’Neill and Andrew Light, of Environmental Values (Routledge 2008). Ramona Ilea is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Pacific University. Her work includes publications in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Teaching Philosophy, and the Journal of Social Philosophy. Her current research focuses on animal and environmental ethics, empathy, and civic engagement. Leonard Kahn is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University in New Orleans and previously taught at the United States Air Force Academy. He is the editor of Mill on Justice (Palgrave 2012) and “On Liberty” and Other Essays (Broadview 2013) and has published work

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in Philosophical Studies, the Journal of Moral Philosophy, Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, and Ethics, Policy, & Environment. Katie McShane is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, where she came after teaching philosophy at North Carolina State University. She has published work in Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, Philosophical Studies, and Ethics, Policy & Environment.

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Introduction Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics Avram Hiller and Leonard Kahn

1.

ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

One of the defining features of our era will be the way in which humanity deals with environmental challenges. We are faced with the threat that due to human activities, there will be climatological changes that will affect the entire planet, causing harm to millions if not billions of people and leading to massive species extinction. But anthropogenic climate change is only one among many interrelated environmental problems. Every day there is news of the environmental impacts of natural resource extraction, or of the treatment of animals in industrial farms, or of species extinction, or of genetically modified organisms, or of limitations in the supply of clean water, to give just a few examples. In more general terms, the challenge to be sustainable is one of the core ethical issues of our time. The environmental movement in the West is not a new movement, but humanity faces a critical moment in confronting the challenges we face. These issues are making the headlines, but behind the scenes, philosophers are working on questions both directly within environmental ethics as well as on more general questions in ethical theory that can apply to these issues. Environmental ethics has been and continues to be an exciting area of growth within philosophy. The last decade has seen a steady increase in the number of journals, books, and classes devoted to the subject. For all that, environmental ethics remains a young subdiscipline, and for various reasons, it has been to a significant degree marginalized as a subdiscipline within philosophical ethics. However, not only are issues of environmental ethics of the highest import in today’s world, there is room for much fruitful work in connecting issues in environmental ethics with the best work in contemporary normative theory. Both environmental ethics and ethical theory have much to gain from increased interaction, and this book is an effort to promote such dialogue. Richard (Sylvan) Routley’s (1973) article “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?” is heralded as beginning a new era for environmental thinking within Western philosophy. Sylvan argues against the anthropocentrism long dominant among ethical theorists. In his famous “Last People”

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example, Sylvan asks the reader to consider a science-fiction scenario in which people know that they will be unable to reproduce and that the human species will go extinct. If they were to also destroy all the forests and ecosystems and to kill all the wild animals just for fun, they would have behaved wrongly, according to Sylvan. Sylvan concludes that what is needed is a new, non-anthropocentric environmental ethic to explain the wrongness of such behavior. How should one react to Sylvan’s argument? There are three classes of response: (A) Reject the intuition that the last people are acting wrongly. However, this response to Sylvan is legitimate only insofar as it can be justified based on considerations independent of anthropocentric ethical theories. For Sylvan’s intention is to call these theories into question, and thus to use an anthropocentric theory to reject the intuition would simply be to beg the question. (B) In accord with Sylvan’s exhortation, generate an entirely new ethical theory. This is what happened with Deep Ecology, a radical view according to which ethical behavior requires what Arne Naess (1989) calls “Self-realization,” which (in effect) is to realize that one is not independent of the rest of the world. True self-realization, according to Naess, is to realize that we are one with other species, and thus harming other species would be harming one’s Self. Although we will not try to defend or reject Deep Ecology here, it is based on highly disputable metaphysical and ethical assumptions and thus does not have many supporters among philosophical ethicists. (C) Adapt a traditional form of ethical theory to account for ethical concern for the non-human world. For instance, Tom Regan (1983) has argued on Kantian grounds that we owe respect to other individual advanced sentient animals, and Paul Taylor (1986) argues more generally that we owe respect to all living things. Thomas Hill, Jr., (1983) has argued that virtue ethics is the proper framework through which to apply environmental ethics, and others such as Ronald Sandler (2007) have developed a more complete environmental virtue ethic. Bryan Norton (2005) has developed an approach to environmental issues based upon the writings of the American pragmatists. And consequentialist views from Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic” (1980: 262) to Peter Singer’s (1975) argument for the ethical treatment of non-human sentient animals have become well known. We maintain that it is imperative that there be a more intensive focus on consequentialist environmental ethics. We believe that the consequentialist framework is the correct one in normative theory, and although there has been considerable work in applying consequentialist theory to environmental issues, it has been fragmented. Although this book does not have as

Introduction

3

its goal the development of a complete consequentialist environmental ethic (or even an unqualified endorsement of consequentialist environmental ethics), it is our hope that it encompasses in a systematic way a discussion of at least most of the facets of a well-developed consequentialist environmental ethic. 2.

WHAT IS CONSEQUENTIALISM?

“Consequentialism,” Amartya Sen once quipped, is “not a prepossessing term” (1999: 58). Indeed, it is not, though the term has become indispensable in contemporary ethical theory, and it is central to the approaches to environmental ethics taken in this volume. So it is natural to ask, “What, if anything, is unique about the consequentialist point of view?” Our answer is ecumenical and aims to be as comprehensive as possible. As we see it, the term consequentialist refers to anyone who holds that the rightness or wrongness of an agent’s action depends solely on the value of the consequences of this action, compared to the value of the consequences of any other actions that the agent could have undertaken (Kagan 1998: 60–61; Hurka 2003: 4; Shaw 2006: 5). That’s a mouthful, but we will spend some time unpacking that idea in the rest of this section. Consequentialists often disagree with one another about the details of the relationship between the rightness or wrongness of an action and the goodness or badness of its consequences. That said, many of these details are not central to this book, and, for this reason, we shall be highly selective in our discussion of them in this introduction. We do not, of course, resolve any of these disagreements here, but we highlight ways in which they are especially salient to those interested in environmental ethics.1 One area of disagreement among consequentialists concerns whether we should evaluate the consequences of actions directly or indirectly. Those who believe that we should evaluate the consequences of actions directly are usually called “act consequentialists.” Act Consequentialism: It is morally right for agent A to do action F if and only if the value of the consequences of A’s doing F is greater than the value of the consequences of A’s doing any other action available to her.2 Pigeonholing those who believe that we should evaluate the consequences of actions indirectly is a somewhat more complicated affair. Perhaps the most widely held version of indirect consequentialism is called “rule consequentialism.” Here is one statement of the view: Rule Consequentialism: It is morally right for A to do F if and only if the value of the consequences of accepting a set of rules which permits doing F is greater than the value of the consequences of A’s society accepting any other set of rules.

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Rule consequentialists are indirect, rather than direct, consequentialists because they believe that the moral rightness of an action is a function of accepting the set of rules which permits the action rather than a function of the particular action itself. While there are other ways to be an indirect consequentialist—for example, Bradley (2005) and Sverdlik (2011)—we leave this can of worms only partially opened. We would hazard the opinion that the vast majority of consequentialists are either act consequentialists or rule consequentialists, and it is primarily these two views that are in play in this volume. It is also worth admitting that act and rule consequentialists often agree in practice, if not in all aspects of theory. In most cases that we are likely to encounter, actions that bring about the best consequences on particular occasions are also the actions that are permitted by the set of rules, the acceptance of which would lead to the best results. Nevertheless, environmental issues are foremost among those that threaten to drive a wedge between direct and indirect forms of consequentialism. Consider one’s use of nonrecyclable materials to pack a gift for a friend. It may make rather a lot of difference whether, on one hand, we think of the rightness or wrongness of this action as being determined by the value of consequences of one’s using nonrecyclable materials on this occasion or, on the other hand, we think of the rightness or wrongness of the action as being determined by the value of a moral code that permits everyone to act this way. As the name suggests, what distinguishes consequentialism most sharply from other ethical theories is its focus on the consequences of actions (Williams 1973: 83–84; Hooker 2000: 33 n. 2). But clarification is required to understand what consequences are exactly. On one view, a consequentialist should be concerned with what is caused by, for example, an act of lying or stealing; he or she is not concerned with whether lying or stealing is bad or wrong in itself. Indeed, the person is usually thought to hold that no action can be bad or wrong in itself. However, some authors who express sympathy for consequentialism have, nevertheless, expressed doubts about whether this line of thought can be maintained (Crisp 2006: 40 n. 7; Parfit 2011: 22; Hiller, this volume), and others have suggested that once these doubts have been taken to heart, we might use a term like teleology to replace consequentialism (Scanlon 1998: 80; Broome 2004: 10). One might fear that this may put us on the road to perdition. For once we have made the move from the value of consequences to value more generally, we may lose track of the boundaries between various approaches to ethical theory. Alternatively, one might regard this result as a step forward—it may synthesize what is right in different types of ethical theory. Or one may claim that there are still important distinctions between consequentialism and non-consequentialism; in particular, consequentialists are those who claim that an evaluation of the rightness or wrongness of an act cannot be determined without considering the full range of consequences of the action, even if the action itself has value or disvalue.3

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Most of the chapters in this volume put the emphasis squarely on the results of actions—and this is where most ethicists initially attracted to consequentialism believe it should be. When, for instance, we take up the question of the permissibility of factory farming, we typically are concerned with the positive and negative results of such a practice, not its intrinsic value or disvalue—whatever that would be. A little more specifically, we find it quite sensible to point to the disvalue in the suffering experienced by animals in factory farming and of the 1.4 billion tons of waste produced by it (Jamieson 2008: 122) as morally important consequences of the practice; perhaps these on their own suffice for changing society’s judgment that this practice is acceptable. One of us (Kahn) is dubious about any value or disvalue intrinsic to the practice of packing as many animals as possible into one space, but the other (Hiller) does view the intrinsic disvalue as an additional reason to rethink our farming practices. Clearly, this is not the place to settle the matter. Another area of disagreement among consequentialists concerns whether we should be primarily concerned with the actual value of the consequences of actions or with the value they are expected to have by the agent at the time when the action is undertaken. A little more specifically, we can divide the warring parties into two camps: Actual Act Consequentialism: It is morally right for A to do action F if and only if the actual value of the consequences of A’s doing F is greater than the actual value of the consequences of A’s doing any other action available to her. Expected Act Consequentialism: It is morally right for A to do action F if and only if the expected value of the consequences of A’s doing F is greater than the expected value of the consequences of A’s doing any other action available to her. When the consequences of one’s actions are reliably predictable, the differences between actual act consequentialism and expected act consequentialism are small. For example, the consequences of poisoning the town water supply are reliably predictable. Those who use the well will sicken and die, and the disvalue of these consequences is likely to be very large indeed. As a result, both actual act consequentialism and expected act consequentialism will—thankfully—prohibit such an action. Yet matters are somewhat more complex when it comes, to take another example from environmental ethics, to global climate change. There is some fact of the matter about what the world climate will be like in 100 years, though at present we can at best specify a range of conditions with some degree of certainty (Garvey 2008: 91). So it is at least possible that we will enact policies now that will result in global catastrophe in the future, even if we act with the best of intentions. An actual act consequentialist would judge the rightness or wrongness of our enactment of policies now based on the value that the actual consequences of this enactment will have in, say,

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100 years. An expected act consequentialist would judge the rightness or wrongness of our enactment of policies now with reference to our current expectations regarding the value of the consequences of these actions. A third important area of disagreement among consequentialists concerns what we will call the nature of the good. Strictly speaking, consequentialism is a theory of the right (Brandt 1977: 193; Pettit 1990: 230). As we have seen, consequentialists hold that the moral rightness and wrongness of actions is solely a function of the goodness and badness of the consequences of these actions, whether understood directly or indirectly, in actual or expected terms. But in what does this goodness or badness consist? While consequentialists do not differ as consequentialists in their answer to this question, they do differ in nontrivial respects. Many consequentialists hold that the good is correctly conceived solely as well-being. We use the term welfarist for a consequentialist who embraces this thesis.4 This raises two further questions: What is well-being, and whose wellbeing is relevant? We consider only some very general answers here for the purposes of sketching the terrain ahead for the readers of this volume.5 With regard to the first question, we could do worse than begin by distinguishing between subjective and objective forms of welfarism (Railton 1984: 162). According to subjective welfarists, well-being is rooted in an experiential state such as pleasure or desire-satisfaction (Mill 1998; Smart 1973; Harsanyi 1977), while according to objective welfarists, well-being is to be found in what are often thought to be less obviously experiential states such as creativity, autonomy, and friendship (Moore 1903: 183–185; Brink 1989: 217; Driver 2012: 22). Turning to the question of whose well-being counts in determining the good, we can distinguish inclusivist and exclusivist answers. Inclusivists tend to think that the well-being of every sentient being matters (Bentham 1996; Singer 1979: 48–71). Exclusivists, on the contrary, are inclined to think of well-being as limited to human beings (Frey 1980). One might think that those who reject welfarism should be called “anti-welfarists,” but this name would be highly misleading. Consequentialists who deny welfarism do not claim that well-being is not a factor in determining the good; rather, they are simply unpersuaded that well-being is the only factor determining the good. Hence, it might be more accurate to call such individuals “extra-welfarists.” Some such welfarists include so-called prioritarians who believe that the good is determined, at least in part, by the way in which well-being is distributed (Arneson 2000; Dorsey, forthcoming). At any rate, it is clear enough that a concern for issues within environmental ethics does much to push consequentialists to think very hard about the nature of the good and its relation to their theory (Singer 2002: 40–43). Can an exclusivist theory of the good do justice to questions raised about the survival of non-human animals? Does an extra-welfarist approach derive any advantage when considering whether we must conserve resources for future generations? Can an objectivist approach avoid concerns that she makes too sharp a distinction between us and our environment? Are consequentialist

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approaches that attribute a good to an entire species or to an ecosystem to be thought of as inclusivist or exclusivist? All of these questions are very much in play here.6 The majority of authors who write on ethical theory see utilitarianism as a special case of consequentialism (Donner 2006: 117; Vallentyne 2006: 21), though some have their doubts (e.g., Jacobson 2008). A little more specifically, the typical view is that a utilitarian is simply a consequentialist who is also a welfarist. Such a conjunction of theories provides no room for providing special weight, say, to the welfare of those who are least well off (Hooker 2000: 59; Parfit 2011: 373). As readers may have gathered for themselves already, we favor an easily digestible view of the relationship between these terms. Occasionally, authors use the term “utilitarianism” to mean something very close to what we mean by “consequentialism” (Bykvist 2010). But we’re not inclined to pick a fight over terminology alone, provided the use of the terms is sufficiently clear. There is, of course, much more to be said about consequentialism than we can say in this introduction. We have aimed in this section to do no more than set out some of the fundamental issues for the theory and its general relationship to environmental ethics. 3.

CONSEQUENTIALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Perhaps surprisingly, given the prevalence of the consequentialist tradition in ethics over the last century, few philosophers whose work is primarily in environmental ethics explicitly avow consequentialism.7 One might speculate why this is so: (A) Utilitarianism has traditionally been seen by environmental ethicists as being anthropocentric, and in dismissing utilitarianism, environmental ethicists dismiss consequentialism as a whole rather than simply dismiss the utilitarian theory of value. (B) Relatedly, environmentalists sometimes describe nature as being sacred and such an attitude is incompatible with a consequentialist view in which in principle any aspect of nature may be sacrificed for the greater good. (C) Those who are attracted to consequentialism within mainstream philosophical ethical theory have been steered away from working primarily in environmental ethics because of a general distrust of applied ethics, and perhaps also because of the specific history in twentieth-century environmental philosophy with its metaphysically odd Deep Ecological or Heideggerian tendencies. (D) Those who are attracted to consequentialism outside mainstream philosophical ethical theory and who are interested in environmental issues become environmental economists rather than environmental ethicists.

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Avram Hiller and Leonard Kahn (E) Consequentialist theories, given their technical and calculative nature, are more likely to be endorsed by philosophers with personality traits that are not often found alongside personality traits that lead people to be nature lovers.

These are mere speculations, though we do believe that there is at least a kernel of truth in each. Our overall sense is that the reason why there aren’t more consequentialist environmental ethicists has more to do with historical and sociological contingencies rather than with what the questions within environmental ethics dictate. Nevertheless, consequentialist environmental ethics is not entirely new. Even before the environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s, individuals such as Gifford Pinchot (1998) argued on utilitarian grounds for not overusing natural resources, since doing so would not be in the best long-term interest of humans. This view is still a fully anthropocentric view, but other consequentialists, such as Singer, have argued (as noted earlier) that traditional utilitarianism shows that we have obligations to promote the welfare of non-human animals who are sentient. However, Singer’s utilitarian view does not ground the kind of obligations that Sylvan believes humans have to non-sentient organisms such as trees, as well as to species as a whole. On Leopold’s view, acts are morally correct insofar as they promote the “integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community” (1980: 262); this view is fully non-anthropocentric but is very radical in its implications since most human activity disrupts some biotic system. Clearly, there are many ways to apply consequentialist theories to environmental issues, and many open questions. First, there are deep questions concerning axiology. These can be placed into two categories, first-order axiological questions and higher-order questions. For the former, the key question is, What kinds of things are valuable (or, are parts of valuable states of affairs)? There is a long list of candidates: human experiences, persons as a whole, other sentient animals, non-sentient animals, other individual living organisms, individual nonliving things, species, ecosystems, the Earth (perhaps including its atmosphere), and the cosmos as a whole. For higher-order axiological questions, one might wonder the following: Is there only one source of value, or is there a pluralism of values? If the latter, how can one compare competing values? An additional concern is whether the bearers of value are objects or states of affairs—do environmental goods fit more naturally into the former or the latter? Relatedly, if what is valuable in nature is not stasis but events in ever-changing ecosystems, and if we view human beings not as being separate from nature but as parts of ecosystems, can we then view human actions themselves as having value? If so, must we reject consequentialism? Finally, does something’s being natural entail that human intervention in it would cause it to lose value? Or can two places that are otherwise identical in terms of their intrinsic physical properties have different intrinsic values

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if one has been created by humans and the other exists apart from human intervention? If so, how can this be squared with consequentialist theory? The essays in Part I of this book address these questions. In “The Bearers of Value in Environmental Ethics,” Katie McShane discusses a general concern that may differentiate consequentialist and Kantian environmental ethical theories. McShane argues that the fact that consequentialist theories typically focus on the value of states of affairs and non-consequentialist theories typically focus on the value of persons or individual things makes a significant difference with regard to the two types of theories’ approaches. McShane concludes that although we may find the Kantian approach more familiar, consequentialists’ emphasis on states of affairs makes it better suited to respond to environmental problems. Robin Attfield has long been at the forefront of consequentialist environmental ethics. In a series of works, Attfield (1991, 1999, 2003) has explicated and defended biocentric individualism, the view that what has value are the goods of living creatures. On Attfield’s consequentialist view, living beings all have interests and capabilities in defending their own good, and this makes their flourishing valuable, although Attfield’s view is inegalitarian—it is not the case that the good of all living things is of equal value. In his chapter in this volume, “Can Biocentric Consequentialism Meet Pluralist Challenges?” Attfield defends this view from criticisms from Alan Carter, and Attfield shows how consequentialist biocentric individualism accounts for other claims of moral considerability (such as for species and ecosystems). Avram Hiller’s “System Consequentialism” incorporates a holistic environmental worldview within consequentialist theory. The view has two main aspects. First, we should morally consider natural systems as part of consequentialist calculus. Second, since humans are natural beings and systemically depend upon other humans and on the natural world, when a typical human action is performed, consideration must be given to whether the action and its end together comprise a good system. Human actions, then, may have value other than merely instrumental value. Alan Carter defends a pluralist version of consequentialism in his “Indirect, Multidimensional Consequentialism,” a view that he has also laid the groundwork for in other important work (e.g., 2011a, 2011b). Carter first argues that consequentialism need not contain an injunction to maximize value. Then Carter defends the view that there is a plurality of values, and shows that this multidimensional axiology grounds an environmental ethic that is preferable to those offered by monistic views. Carter gives a detailed account of the structure of consequentialist theory if we countenance a plurality of values. In his chapter “Why Leave Nature Alone?” Ben Bradley argues against the idea that there is a neutral state of human noninterference (“moral inertia”) that is relevant in comparing outcomes. For Bradley, this means that neither consequentialist nor non-consequentialist theories can easily claim that there is something intrinsically bad about disrupting wilderness. To claim that human action in wilderness causes it to lose value is to be

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chauvinistic regarding human action—such a claim depends on an unprincipled distinction between human and nonhuman activities. Since consequentialist theories contain both an account of what is valuable and an account of right action, in Part I, the chapters about what is of value do not on their own provide a full picture of the pros and cons of consequentialist environmental ethics. Furthermore, a number of specific issues arise when attempting to apply consequentialist theories directly to real-world environmental issues. Thus, there are many other open questions for consequentialist environmental ethics. An important category of concerns connecting consequentialism to environmental ethics regards uncertainty in assessing the value of outcomes. There are several related issues here. First, there is tremendous uncertainty about the long-term environmental consequences of actions, and this uncertainty may render consequentialism inadequate as a practical means of responding to environmental questions. Second, there is the famous non-identity problem (Parfit, 1984, chap. 16), where those future individuals (both human and non-human) who will be adversely affected by anthropogenic environmental problems will owe their very existence to our actions, and any harm-based theory of right action will need a solution to the problem. Third, due to uncertainty about what features of the environment are morally considerable, we may not have a decision procedure to decide which actions are best. Fourth, there may be special ethical questions that arise due to the potential of environmental catastrophe that are not normally considered in typical discussions of individual harm. Fifth, there are political issues regarding how political actors must consider the interests of those who cannot play a role in public policy deliberation because they are not yet born or are not human. A wedge issue in distinguishing consequentialist from non-consequentialist theories is whether it is acceptable to directly cause some harm in the service of a greater good. This question arises prominently in environmental ethics since so many of our actions cause some harm to the environment and to people in a way that is hard if not impossible to avoid. Is it possible for such harm ever to be justified? If not, is there a way to remedy the harm? Finally, although there are deep social and political questions about the environment that consequentialist theories ought to address, there are also personal questions. How does consideration of the environment affect our day-to-day decisions on how to act? What makes for the best life for a person given our current environmental situation? The selections in Part II of this book address most of the questions mentioned in the preceding two paragraphs, with some authors defending the consequentialist approach and others rejecting it. In “On Some Limitations of Consequentialism in the Sphere of Environmental Ethics,” Alan Holland argues that a consequentialist framework will rarely be acceptable in making environmental decisions. This is because environmental issues typically occur at a large scale (both spatial and temporal) that cannot be delimited in advance, and thus consequences of actions cannot easily be determined at the time of

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decision making. However, Holland accepts that an evaluation of consequences still must play a role in environmental decision-making even if environmental decisions cannot be made solely based on an evaluation of consequences. It is worth inquiring what we should do if, as is arguably the case, the axiological issues discussed in Part I of this book are unresolved. In “Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism,” Krister Bykvist argues that in addition to the uncertainty regarding the long-term consequences of actions, there is moral uncertainty about what things have value. Although Bykvist’s chapter relates to axiological issues, his main concern is a structural issue for consequentialism in dealing with moral uncertainty. In parallel to how Holland argues that empirical uncertainty may undermine consequentialist approaches to environment ethics, Bykvist argues that moral uncertainty may be problematic for consequentialists. Unlike Holland, however, Bykvist argues that the solution to this problem does not require any radical changes to traditional consequentialist theory. Instead, Bykvist argues that once a distinction is made between what is morally right and what is rational, a consequentialist framework is still appropriate. The next three chapters in the volume address the issue of whether and how it is possible to offset in an appropriate manner environmental damages we cause. Allen Habib argues in “Future Generations and Resource Shares” that typical ways of understanding our responsibility to offset the depletion of natural resources we cause, such as Brian Barry’s view, are misguided. Instead, Habib argues that one must consider what he calls “window resources,” since what resources are needed shifts over time, and just distribution across generations must account for these shifts. In “Can We Remediate Wrongs?” Benjamin Hale argues that environmental considerations undermine consequentialism. If what is wrong with environmental pollution is the harm that it causes, as a consequentialist would hold, then pollution would be permissible from a consequentialist perspective if the harms could be remedied. However, Hale argues that there is no way to remedy some damages caused by pollution; what is really wrong with pollution is that it is a kind of trespass. Hale claims that restitution and reconciliation are also necessary in responding to environmental damages, but that these do not fit in a consequentialist framework. In “Moral Bookkeeping, Consequentialism, and Carbon Offsets,” Julia Driver addresses the question of whether offsetting the damages we cause due to anthropocentric climate change using carbon offsets is acceptable. Although some argue that such offsetting is similar to buying indulgences which do not in fact exculpate one from wrongdoing, Driver argues, unlike Hale, that those who harm nature can compensate for that harm. There are many trade-offs we make in day-to-day life, and carbon offsets are indeed a way of maintaining an acceptable moral bookkeeping. The final chapter in Part II and in the book as a whole is Wendy Donner’s “John Stuart Mill’s Green Liberalism and Ecofeminism.” Donner uses Mill’s prescient views on the “Art of Life” to formulate an environmentally

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informed view of the good life for a person. Donner argues that the good life is a simple life that is rich in appreciation of natural beauty and that avoids the excesses of materialism. Donner shows that this understanding of the proper place of humans in the natural world applies more than ever to today. * * * We are confident that anyone concerned with either practical environmental issues or ethical theory will find much of value in these pages. Ethical theory quite generally stands to gain from the development of a consequentialist environmental ethic, and criticisms based in environmental concerns made by opponents of consequentialism (such as those in this volume) must be answered for consequentialism to be generally viable. Furthermore, resolution of the pressing environmental issues of our era would be aided by the development of an adequate theoretical framework, and though there is much work yet to be done, we hope that this book is a significant step in its construction.8 NOTES 1. Readers who seek a more comprehensive treatments of consequentialism would be well served by starting with Mulgan (2001: 25–52), Brink (2005), and Driver (2012). 2. We ignore, for the sake of simplicity, cases in which there are two or more actions, F1 and F2, which A can do which have equally valuable consequences and in which there is no other action, F3, which A can do which has more valuable consequences than F1 or F2. 3. Concerns of this sort come and go. See Nozick (1981: 494–498), Raz (1986: 268– 269), and Dreier (1993) and more recently Portmore (2007) and Brown (2011). 4. Of course, one need not be a consequentialist to hold this view—but it helps. Epicurus was arguably one welfarist who did not embrace consequentialism (Annas 1993: 293–301). Perhaps Hume was another (Gill 2011). 5. Interested readers might pursue these matters in far greater detail in Griffin (1986), White (2006), and Feldman (2012), among many other sources. 6. To be sure, the reader may experience vertigo when thinking through the possibilities. One might a subjectivist inclusivist welfarist actual act consequentialist, or one might be an extra-welfarist actual rule consequentialist, or one might be an objectivist exclusivist welfarist expected act consequentialist, and so on. But every serious ethical theory must take on issues of this sort, and consequentialism is no exception. 7. In addition to some of the contributors to this volume, Robert Elliot (1997) and Dale Jamieson (2002, vii) have explicitly done so. (Also see Jamieson and Elliot 2009.) Elliot (2001, 181) also notes the paucity of avowed consequentialist environmental ethicists. 8. Many thanks to Emily Hodges for her research assistance and to Ramona Ilea for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this Introduction.

WORKS CITED Annas, Julia. The Morality of Happiness. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993. Arneson, Richard J. “Luck Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism.” Ethics 110.2 (2000): 339–349.

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Attfield, Robin. The Ethics of Environmental Concern, 2nd Edition. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991. ———. The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. ———. Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the 21st Century. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Eds. J. Burns and H.L.A. Hart. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Bradley, Ben. “Virtue Consequentialism.” Utilitas 17.2 (2005): 282–298. Brandt, Richard. A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1977. Brink, David O. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ———. “Some Forms and Limits of Consequentialism.” The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. Ed. David Copp. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005. 380–423. Broome, John. Weighing Lives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. Brown, Campbell. “Consequentialize This.” Ethics 121.4 (2011): 749–771. Bykvist, Krister. Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum, 2010. Carter, Alan. “Some Grounding for a Multidimensional Axiology.” Philosophical Studies 154 (2011a): 389–408. ———. “Towards a Multidimensional, Environmentalist Ethic.” Environmental Values 20.3 (2011b): 347–374. Crisp, Roger. Reasons and the Good. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Donner, Wendy. “Mill’s Theory of Value.” The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism. Ed. Henry R. West. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2006. 117–138. Dorsey, Dale. “Equality-Tempered Prioritarianism.” Politics, Philosophy and Economics, forthcoming. Dreier, James. “Structures of Normative Theories.” Monist 76.1 (1993): 22–40. Driver, Julia. Consequentialism. London: Routledge, 2012. Elliot, Robert. Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration. London: Routledge, 1997. ———. “Normative Ethics.” A Companion to Environmental Philosophy. Ed. Dale Jamieson. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001. 177–191. Feldman, Fred. What Is This Thing Called Happiness? Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012. Frey, R.G. Interests and Rights: The Case against Animals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1980. Garvey, James. The Ethics of Climate Change. London: Continuum, 2008. Gill, Michael B. “Humean Sentimentalism and Non-Consequentialist Moral Thinking.” Hume Studies 37.2 (2011): 165–188. Griffin, James. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measure, and Moral Importance. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986. Harsanyi, John. “Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior.” Social Research 44.4 (1977): 623–656. Hill, Thomas E, Jr. “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments.” Environmental Ethics 5.3 (1983): 211–224. Hooker, Brad. Ideal Code, Real World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hurka, Thomas. Virtue, Vice, and Value. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003. Jacobson, Daniel. “Utilitarianism without Consequentialism: The Case of John Stuart Mill.” Philosophical Review 117.2 (2008): 159–191. Jamieson, Dale. Morality’s Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ———. Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

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Jamieson, Dale and Robert Elliot. “Progressive Consequentialism.” Philosophical Perspectives 23.1 (2009): 241–251. Kagan, Shelly. Normative Ethics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, New York: Ballantine Books, 1980. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Ed. Roger Crisp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Moore, G.E. Principia Ethica. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1903. Mulgan, Tim. The Demands of Consequentialism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001. Naess, Arne. Ecology, Community, Lifestyle, Trans. and Ed. D. Rothenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Norton, Bryan G. Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1984. ———. On What Matters. Vol 1. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pettit, Philip. “Consequentialism.” A Companion to Ethics. Ed. Peter Singer. Oxford, UK: Blackwell: 1990. 230–240. Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1998. Portmore, Douglas W. “Consequentializing Moral Theories.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88.1 (2007): 39–73. Railton, Peter. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13.2 (1984): 134–171. Raz, Joseph. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. Routley, Richard (Sylvan). “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?” Proceedings of the 15th World Congress of Philosophy. Vol. 1. Sophia: Sophia Press, 1973. 205–10, Sandler, Ronald. Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Scanlon, T.M. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998. Sen, Amartya. Freedom as Development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Shaw, William. “The Consequentialist Perspective.” Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory. Ed. James Dreier. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2006. 5–20. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New York: Random House, 1975. ———. Practical Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979. ———. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. Second Edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Smart, J.J.C. “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics.” Utilitarianism: For and Against. Eds. J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 3–76. Sverdlik, Steven. Motives and Rightness. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011. Taylor, Paul. Respect for Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Vallentyne, Peter. “Against Maximizing Act Consequentialism.” Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory. Ed. James Dreier. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2006. 21–37. White, Nicholas. A Brief History of Happiness. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2006 Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Utilitarianism: For and Against. Eds. J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 77–150.

Part I

Environmental Value and its Structure

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The Bearers of Value in Environmental Ethics Katie McShane

There are many reasons to worry about climate change. Predicted consequences include the spread of infectious disease, depletion of available fresh water, and the disruption of our food systems, our economic systems, and even our political systems, leading to widespread suffering and death. And that’s just for humans. Outside of our species, climate change is likely to lead to a significant increase in the rate of extinction as habitats change more rapidly than adaptive mechanisms can adjust.1 Some predicted victims of these rapid changes include polar bears, flamingoes, sea turtles, coral, wolverines, giant sequoias, and mangroves. The result is likely to be a decrease in species-level biodiversity worldwide—one estimate puts the figure at between 13%- and 19% worldwide by 2050.2 Given these worries about a dramatic decline in biodiversity, scientists sometimes mock popular representations of climate change in which the bad consequences are represented simply by the image of a forlorn polar bear on an ice floe. What we should really be worried about is the decrease in biodiversity, they say—that’s an ecological problem, not just a sentimental problem (e.g., “The Arctic Experience” 2007). This raises an interesting question. On one hand, a rapid decrease in biodiversity on the scale predicted by many climate-change scenarios looks to be a serious threat to our ecological life-support system. And so we should worry about such a decrease and hence care about biodiversity. But, on the other hand, we’re not crazy to care about polar bears—or coral, sequoias, or wolverines. These creatures play an important role in our culture, our imagination, the world as we have come to know and love it. These parts of our world don’t matter to us just insofar as they contribute to the provision of “ecosystem services”—that is, the benefits provided to us by our ecological life-support system. From this alternative perspective, polar bears don’t matter only because they partly constitute or contribute to biodiversity. Rather, biodiversity matters because it is what helps to keep polar bears— and the other concrete particular things about which we care—around. Why else would we care about biodiversity, except insofar as it helps to sustain the world as we know and care about it?

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In this chapter, I argue that the difference between valuing polar bears for their contribution to biodiversity and valuing biodiversity for its contribution to polar bears is one that can be traced to different ways of thinking about value. In particular, it can be traced to different understandings of what kinds of things are the primary bearers of value and different views about how we should respond to that value. These two different ways of thinking about value are thought to have their origins in consequentialism and Kantianism, respectively, at least on certain interpretations of those traditions.3 In the first section of what follows, I describe the interpretations of both consequentialism and Kantianism within which one might locate these different theories of value, paying particular attention to the ways that the theories differ from one another and the moral psychology implicit in each. In the second section, I explain the implications that the differences between these approaches have for environmental ethics—in particular, for the substantive ethical claims that environmental ethicists want to make about what is good, what we should do, and why. In the third section, I consider how these differences might affect the way that we think about the problem of climate change, particularly the kind of rapid and serious climate change that some have predicted, in terms of what is bad about it and of what it calls for from us. Ultimately I argue that while both theories of value can recommend environmentally good behaviors, they invite different kinds of explanation of what makes a behavior an environmentally good one. While this might sound like a mere technicality, I argue that it reflects two deeply different psychological orientations toward our relationship to the natural world. I conclude that in the face of climate change, we might well find that the psychology involved in the Kantian approach is the most familiar and natural, but the psychology involved in the consequentialist approach is the most helpful for addressing the kinds of choices that we will face.

1.

CONSEQUENTIALIST AND KANTIAN ACCOUNTS OF VALUE

Recent work in ethics has suggested that consequentialists and Kantians typically have very different views about how one ought to respond to the good: the consequentialist view is that we ought to produce or promote it, while the Kantian view is that we ought to respect it (e.g., Anderson 1993; Bradley 2006; Parfit 2011). Following Derek Parfit’s convention, I refer to the consequentialist view of value as value-to-be-promoted and the Kantian view of value as value-to-be-respected.4 Some writers have suggested that the difference between value-to-be-promoted and value-to-be-respected follows from another more fundamental difference between consequentialism and Kantianism: consequentialism attributes intrinsic value to instantiated states of affairs, while Kantianism attributes it to concrete individuals, for example, persons or things.5 My aim here is not to assess the arguments for

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these claims, but rather to consider what impact such differences might have on the claims that environmental ethicists want to make about the value of and in the natural world. Let us first consider consequentialism and the consequentialist understanding of value-to-be-promoted. Though consequentialist theories are quite varied, they tend to agree that one ought morally to do whatever produces the best consequences compared to the consequences of the alternative courses of action open to one.6 Understood this way, the core of consequentialism is a theory of the right: the claim that the right thing to do is whatever produces the best consequences. To be helpful as an ethical theory, consequentialism must be conjoined with a theory of the good—a theory about which aspect(s) of the consequences makes them good consequences. Here there is much disagreement, though consequentialists typically opt for a welfarist theory of the good, according to which the “good” just amounts to the “good for”—that is, the aspect of consequences that makes them good consequences is the amount of welfare contained in them. In any case, if a consequence is a state of affairs, a way the world might be, then all versions of consequentialism must understand the good as consisting in some state of affairs or another. That is to say that good consequences will always be the primary bearers of value; the value of all other entities will depend on their contribution to good consequences. Following Elizabeth Anderson, we can say that according to consequentialism, only good consequences have (positive) intrinsic value; the value of everything else can only be extrinsic.7 Viewed this way, consequentialism involves a metaphysical restriction on the kinds of things that can be bearers of intrinsic value: the bearers are restricted to states of affairs. On a consequentialist view, you couldn’t have intrinsic value, but the following states of affairs involving you could: you existing, you feeling pleasure, your desires being satisfied, your preferences being satisfied, you exercising your rational agency, and so on. On this interpretation, not only is consequentialism committed to a view about the kinds of metaphysical entities that can be bearers of intrinsic value; it is also committed to a view about what one ought to do about intrinsic value: one ought to bring it about. The consequentialist agent isn’t just supposed to sit around admiring good consequences, she is supposed to produce them. Furthermore, she is supposed to produce them not just once, but as much as possible: the more value that is brought into the world, the better.8 If she has a choice between a course of action that will make one person very happy and a course of action that will make two people very happy, then all other things being equal, a (hedonist) consequentialist will tell the other person to choose the course of action that makes two people very happy. Why? Because people feeling happiness is good, and more of the good is better than less of the good. Value-to-be-respected is often traced back to Kant, since it seems to accord with his claims about the value of persons (Anderson 1993: 19–20; Korsgaard 1996: 275–310). Because of its association with Kant, I refer to

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it here as “the Kantian view,” though I do not wish to take a stand on its fidelity to the various aspects of Kant’s overall moral theory—that is a project best left to Kant scholars. According to this view, it is concrete particulars that have intrinsic value: people, animals, ecosystems, communities, places, and things (Anderson 1993: 19). (Kant himself would limit this list to rational agents.) The value of states of affairs involving these concrete particulars is extrinsic: it derives from the value of the particulars themselves.9 Thus, unlike consequentialism, wherein you couldn’t have intrinsic value, but the state of affairs “you feeling pleasure” could, the Kantian view says that “you feeling pleasure” couldn’t have intrinsic value, but you could. What is at issue here seems to be an order of explanation claim. The Kantian claims that “you feeling pleasure” only has value because you do. If you didn’t have any value, why would it be a good thing that you feel pleasure?10 Thus, on this kind of view it would be the value of a community that makes the state of affairs “the community prospering” valuable; it would be the value of pandas that makes the state of affairs “pandas being saved from extinction” valuable; it would be the value of ecosystems that makes the state of affairs “the ecosystem continuing to exist and flourishing” valuable, it would be the value of rational agents that makes the achievement of their rational ends valuable, and so on. As Anderson describes it, on this view it makes sense to care about these states of affairs only because it makes sense to care about the particular things (people, communities, animals, ecosystems) involved in them.11 Of course, for this order of explanation claim to work, proponents of the Kantian view must deny that the value of particulars just is the value of certain states of affairs involving them. That is to say, they must reject the view that to value polar bears is nothing more than to value their continued existence or their flourishing. To be sure, the Kantian would argue, when we value living things we often also value their continued existence and flourishing, and when we value nonliving things we often value simply their continued existence. But this is not a conceptual truth. We can value things without valuing their existence or flourishing. To borrow an example from Anderson (1993: 26), “[a] remarried widow may still love her long-dead husband, but be appalled if he were to pop back into existence.” There is no contradiction involved in valuing things while embracing their (current or eventual) nonexistence. Conversely, we also can value the flourishing or the existence of a particular thing without valuing the thing itself—for example, when we value a thing’s existence or flourishing instrumentally. On the Kantian view, because the bearers of intrinsic value are concrete particulars rather than states of affairs, it doesn’t make sense to think that the correct response to intrinsic value is to produce as much of it as possible. The way to respond to your value as a person isn’t to make as many of you as possible (perhaps by cloning you). Rather, the way to respond to your value as a person is to respect you: to treat your experiences and your ends as worth caring about.12 The right actions are those that express respect for

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what is valuable, the right character traits are those that orient us toward both feeling and expressing respect for what is valuable, and so on. On this view of value, the aim isn’t to maximize one’s correct responses to the valuable, as it is in the consequentialist view. It might make sense to maximize the number of good consequences that one produces in the world, but it doesn’t make sense to maximize the number of times that one expresses respect for what is valuable (e.g., by trying to meet as many people as possible to express one’s respect for them as persons). Rather, the idea is that when one is in a circumstance in which one can either act in ways that express respect for the good or act in ways that express disrespect for the good, one should choose the former. Other theoretical differences between consequentialist ethics and Kantian ethics might help to explain their different understandings of value. For one thing, they each conceive of the task of morality somewhat differently. In the consequentialist view, we imagine the moral agent as someone who has to decide among many possible courses of action. Consequentialism advises her not just to consider the consequences that each course of action will have for her, but rather to consider the consequences that each course of action will have for everyone affected by it. The ideal consequentialist agent will make choices as a wise ruler does: by considering which course of action will produce the best consequences for everyone, all things considered, over the long run. A wise ruler shouldn’t be swayed by the fact that some courses of action will be better for her or for her friends and family. The job of a wise ruler is to determine what is best for everyone. Such an agent is in the business of trying to bring about the best state of the world possible in the future. Because of this approach, some have argued that consequentialism cannot account for what have been called “agent-relative reasons” or “personal values.” As Thomas Nagel describes it, agent-relative reasons concern what we do rather than what happens. The idea is that in cases in which bringing about the best state of the world requires me to do something unconscionable to another person, I have a strong pro tanto reason not to bring about that state of the world. The force of this reason comes not from the state of the world that would be produced by my action, which by hypothesis is the best state of the world, but rather from the unconscionability of doing that to another person, even in the service of an admirable end (Nagel 1986: 165). Of course, the consequentialist could always try to deny that such reasons exist. However, it is precisely that denial for which consequentialism is being criticized here. For this reason, the response from most consequentialists has been to try to accommodate such reasons within the structure of consequentialism. As a result of these efforts, consequentialism has developed many ways around the problem: deontological side constraints, agent-centered restrictions and prerogatives, indirect consequentialism, and so on (Scheffler 1982; Railton 1984; Nagel 1986; Korsgaard 1996; Parfit 2011). But all of these solutions rest on the idea that the overall state of the world is better if we don’t do these sorts of unconscionable things to people (or at least

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believe that we shouldn’t do so) even in cases where doing them would produce the best consequences.13 That is to say that the reasons that one might think come most naturally out of concern for what it is acceptable to do must be transformed within consequentialism into claims about what it is good to have happen. The Kantian account imagines morality somewhat differently. As Christine Korsgaard describes it, on this view “[t]he subject matter of morality is not what we should bring about, but how we should relate to one another”; “having decent human relationships, not bringing them about, is the primary concern of morality” (Korsgaard 1996: 275, 310 n. 46). Kantian thinking about morality starts from the picture of oneself as enmeshed in a number of relationships with others. On the Kantian picture, as Korsgaard describes it, values “supervene on the structure of personal relationships” (Korsgaard 1996: 276). Exactly which of these relationships matter and how they matter have been subjects of much discussion in Kantian ethics. Stephen Darwall (2006: 8, see also 213–242), for example, sees “authority and accountability relations” with others as basic within Kantian morality.” Other Kantians focus more on our ability to share ends; to enable or prevent others’ pursuit of their ends; to give, request, accept, or reject one another’s reasons for action; or to hold others responsible for their actions.14 While these are construed as the most basic relations that we bear to other rational agents, Kantians (and Kant himself) also take other relations to be of serious moral importance, and the nature of those relationships affects the moral obligations of the people involved in them.15 These relationships differ qualitatively from one another: some are more intimate (friendship) and others less so (citizenship); some are more competitive (sportsmanship) and others less so (teaching); some are more fleeting (bus ridership) others less so (parenting). The moral agent’s task is to behave in ways that express respect for the value of those with whom she is in relation, and how to do this depends in part on the kind of relationship and the kind of value that is at issue.16 The importance of some behaviors, such as keeping your promises, protecting the vulnerable, and being willing listen to those who disagree with you, might seem to come more naturally out of the Kantian view of value than out of the consequentialist view. These behavioral norms are more immediately about how to respect one another within the contexts of particular relationships than about how to produce as much goodness in the world as possible. The Kantian view of morality, then, is one that starts with the others with whom we are in relationship and tells us to acknowledge their value, their mattering, their legitimate claims on us. Behavioral norms come out of our thinking about how to respond to the kind of value that they have, the particular way that they matter, and the particular claims that they make on us. That is to say that Kantian morality starts from concrete particulars in relation with one another and gets moral norms out of thinking about which actions do right by the value of the others with whom we are in relation. Korsgaard argues that this leads to ethical recommendations that

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are substantively different from those of consequentialism. For example, she argues, the two approaches will disagree about whether we can take away a good from one person in order to produce a greater good for many more people. While maximization of this type is often endorsed by consequentialism (after all, the more of the good we produce in the world the better), Korsgaard (2011: 387) argues that the Kantian view does not permit it, since “there is no aggregate . . . party for whom this is better.” That is to say, the “aggregate,” the good of which we are trying to maximize, is not an individual that we have some relation to—the kind of relation that would give rise to an ethical obligation to look after its welfare. Thus, the fact that the aggregate would be ‘better off’ if we did this shouldn’t matter in our moral reasoning about what to do.17 Of course, this leads some to worry that the Kantian approach cannot do a very good job of accounting for what are called “agent-neutral reasons” or “impersonal values.” The Kantian can say that you ought to keep your promises, but not that it is a better world when more promises are kept. Yet, the consequentialist will argue that surely we want a world in which more promises are kept, a world in which fewer people are treated as mere means to the ends of others. Furthermore, if doing something unconscionable to another person would really make the world better in a significant way— for example, by saving millions of people from terrible suffering—then shouldn’t you do it? It is, after all, the lesser of the two evils. If taking a good away from one person and giving it to others would produce a much higher level of welfare in the world, then one might think it a wise distributive choice. We do often think that such considerations should be given weight in our reasoning about what to do. In any case, there seem to be times when we have a sense of what kinds of things are good and bad in the world that floats free of considerations about particular relationships with particular individuals. Surely we can accept the claim that suffering is bad without first assessing the value of the sufferer or our relationship to him or her. If this is right, then we might want a view that can capture these impersonal values, and the consequentialist account does just that. Having described these competing criticisms, however, it must be noted that much work has been done in ethical theory to answer them. Many theorists have gone to great lengths to show how each of these conceptions of value can capture the key insights of the other. Consequentialists try to accommodate value-to-be-respected by counting outcomes such as “people keeping their promises” or even “things’ value being respected” among the good consequences that are to be promoted. Alternatively, they can adopt indirect forms of consequentialism or side constraints on consequentialist maximization that treat value-to-be-respected as more than just one kind of value among many. Likewise, Kantians can try to accommodate value-to-beproduced by noting that trying to produce good outcomes for others is part of relating to them well. They also make duties to further the ends of others or to increase their happiness centrally important to expressing our respect

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for others’ value, giving value-to-be-promoted a special place within the Kantian account. There are, then, many ways of addressing the criticisms mentioned earlier. However, it is unclear how successful these theoretical modifications will be. While a consequentialist might have a good case when arguing that “a sentient creature suffering” is a bad state of affairs regardless of that creature’s relation to anything else, it is more difficult to see why “people keeping their promises” is a good state of affairs without its goodness being reduced to the goodness of the welfare produced by it. In that case, though, the improvement in welfare is really the bearer of value, not the promise keeping, and so the justification of promise keeping will always depend, directly or indirectly, on how much welfare promise keeping produces. Furthermore, the consequentialist constraints, permissions, first-order rules for action and so on will always ultimately depend for their justification on facts about the aggregate value of the consequences they produce, and so ultimately what we are responsible to on the consequentialist picture is the aggregate value of the consequences rather than to one another. Similarly, it is difficult to see how the Kantian can fully capture the badness of suffering via claims about respecting the value of others. The consequentialist can say that an empty universe with a suffering rabbit is worse than an empty universe with a happy rabbit. It’s unclear how a Kantian could say this, since there is no moral agent with any relations to the rabbit in the picture, and the rabbit isn’t a sophisticated enough creature to bear those relations to itself.18 Similarly, if Korsgaard is right, then the Kantian cannot make sense of the concerns that we have that are directed at the aggregate consequences—for example, concerns to minimize aggregate suffering or maximize aggregate happiness. In some cases—famine, for example, war, or even runaway trolleys—concerns for overall welfare do not seem to be misplaced. The person who would not kill one person to save the lives of millions might rightly be criticized for that choice. There is much to be said about whether these fixes could ultimately be made satisfactory, and there is not room to explore all of the possibilities here. However, even if they did manage to offer roughly the same recommendations for action, it remains true that these theories would still offer different explanations for why agents ought to do what they ought to do. What is at issue between the two views seems to be a disagreement about the way our values relate to one another. Should I care about your welfare because I care about you? Or should I care about you because I care about welfare? My suggestion here is that these differences in explanation matter. In telling a different story about why this or that is worth doing, each approach tries to do right by different parts of our moral psychology.19 Because of this, each approach is successful in satisfying some parts about which we care and less successful in satisfying other parts about which we care. On a practical level, since different environmental problems (or different aspects of the same problem, or different ways of framing the same problem) tap into different parts of our moral psychology, each approach

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will do a better job of making sense of some of the problems that we face than it will of other problems that we face. The Kantian view seems to capture well the part of our moral psychology that concerns how to do right by one another within the social and communal relations that bind us together. Many of its most important moral recommendations concern the very behaviors that are crucial for individuals to live together successfully in cooperative, mutually dependent communities. Such arrangements depend on trust, and so we should not be dishonest with one another. Such arrangements depend on working together, and so we should not be shirkers or free riders. Such arrangements require us to be able to hold one another accountable for our actions, and so we should respect one another’s autonomy. Such arrangements require mutual care and social support, and so we should aim to further one another’s ends, including the end of happiness, and so on. The natural home of Kantian moral thinking is the relations we bear to those with whom our social ties are greatest: our families, our friends, and our local communities. It is they more frequently than others whom we trust, work with, hold accountable, support, and seek support from—we live cooperatively more closely with those around us than with those far away. Of course, Kantian moral thinking can go beyond these boundaries—but only when we remind ourselves that in the contemporary world, some of these relations go far beyond the local.20 Our actions and choices can have a profound effect on the ability of far-distant others to achieve their ends, we bear relations of accountability and responsibility to them as well, and so our moral responsibilities in fact extend far beyond the local. The consequentialist view, on the other hand, better captures the part of our moral psychology that asks about the adequacy of policies or arrangements in general. This is the part of our thinking that starts from a more global and abstract view about which states of the world are best and then uses it to move to a more local view about what course of action we should choose in a particular situation. Because the consequentialist view looks at total consequences, it is an easier way to reason about courses of action in which many people will be affected. It also allows trade-offs—harming some to benefit others—which are often viewed by Kantians as a problem. However, such trade-offs might well be inescapable in large-scale decisions. Instead of telling us not to make them, consequentialism tells us how to make them as well as possible. There is some empirical evidence supporting the claim that these different ways of thinking about value really do represent different parts of our moral psychology. Joshua Greene and his collaborators, for example, have shown that in reasoning about personal moral dilemmas (dilemmas where one is contemplating doing something that will directly harm another particular individual), areas of the brain associated with emotion and social cognition are activated. In reasoning about impersonal moral dilemmas (where harm will result from one’s choice, but not direct harm to another identifiable individual), areas of the brain associated with abstract reasoning and problem

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solving are activated. Further, higher levels of activity in the areas of the brain associated with abstract reasoning and problem solving is predictive of utilitarian reasoning. The authors speculate that the parts of the brain that navigate personal relations are older and more primitive, used by many different primates to navigate social relations in small, close-knit groups. The parts of the brain that navigate impersonal relations and are associated with utilitarian reasoning are more recent evolutionary developments. As human social groups became larger and more complex, humans developed their capacity for abstract reasoning, and utilitarian thinking about moral choices came out of these developments (Greene and Haidt 2002; Green et al. 2004; Greene 2007).

2.

CONSEQUENTIALIST AND KANTIAN VALUE IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

If the preceding descriptions are right, we should expect the Kantian account to do a particularly good job of making sense of the personal attachments that motivate much of our care and concern for the nonhuman natural world. And, indeed, it seems to do so. On the Kantian view, it is the value of polar bears (and many other things in the world) that explains the value of biodiversity, in the same way that it is the value of persons that explains the value of personal happiness. This is, I think, a psychologically realistic explanation of how environmental concern is generated for many people. While one needn’t be a nature lover to be an environmentalist, there is a long history of environmentalist concerns arising out of a deep attachment to and love of particular people, places, and things.21 On the Kantian view, what is most explanatorily basic is the value of these things—the other “citizens” that we live together with in our biological communities. That value then explains why various states of affairs seem worth trying to achieve: the river running free, the toxic spill being cleaned up, the extinction being prevented, and so on. The order of explanation claimed by the Kantian account is also the temporal order in which our environmental commitments often develop. We might know that we love the forest, but still be unclear about which states of affairs ought to be promoted as a result. Should we do our best to protect the forest from invasive species? Or should we keep out and let nature run its course? Should we build trails into it so that we can go there as often as possible? Or should we respect its wildness and let it be as free from human “interference” as possible? If Greene’s dual-process theory of moral judgment is correct, this shouldn’t be surprising: the emotional parts of our brain might form attachments to and acknowledge relations with these concrete particulars before the abstract reasoning parts of our brain know which states of affairs ought to be brought about as a result. The Kantian order of explanation also makes particularly good sense of our concern for the treatment of nonhuman animals. Peter Singer’s (1990)

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commitment to utilitarianism notwithstanding, what moves many people to oppose animal experimentation and industrial farming practices isn’t a concern about suffering as such, but rather our care for particular animals with whom we see ourselves as in some kind of relationship.22 This is why people become much more upset about the suffering of animals that humans frequently interact with than they do about the suffering of wild animals that operate largely independently of us. The former are beings with whom we have relationships, and we want to act in ways that express our respect for their value in the context of these relationships. To see dogs or cats abused upsets Westerners because these are animals we keep as pets—they are our companions and our dependents. Seeing them abused can upset us in much the same way that child abuse does. When people buy no-kill traps for mice, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, and even rats, it is in recognition that these animals have adapted themselves to us and that in pillaging our gardens, our cupboards, or our garbage, they mean us no harm—they’re just looking for a meal. These animals are, in a sense, our ecological dependents (and mostly benign ones at that). If we can secure our own health, safety, and food supply while allowing them to feed and care for themselves, all to the good. We’re even willing to go to some trouble to make that happen. People also get especially upset about the abuse of animals in factory farms and laboratories, in part because we have bred them into helplessness and then confined them in various ways to use them for our own purposes. They are uniquely vulnerable to and dependent on us, and to treat them as meat factories or petri dishes disrespects their value as independent sentient beings. Notice that we do not bear these relations to animals in the wild. Of course, people understand that predators kill their prey and that often great suffering goes along with that process, but the suffering that happens in that context doesn’t trouble us nearly as much as suffering that we create for animals with whom we are in direct relationships.23 Again, our concern for the nonhuman animals in these relationships and our sense of their value often precedes our views about which states of affairs involving them ought to be produced. Should we keep pets and farm animals and just try to stop them from being abused? Or is it wrong to make them dependent on us in these ways in the first place? Is the best way to express respect for the value of cows to treat them more humanely as we extract their milk for our own consumption? Or is the best way to express respect for their value to stop confining them and consuming their milk, even though they are so unable to fend for themselves that this might result in their disappearance from the face of the earth? This uncertainty is psychologically familiar: we often know that we care about things but don’t know exactly what state of affairs that care should lead us to desire. In many ways, then, the Kantian understanding of which kinds of things have value and how we ought to respond to their value mirrors the shape of our own cares and attachments. But this might not be an unqualified good. To the extent that our own cares and attachments are parochial, shortsighted,

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or otherwise flawed, perhaps what we want is an understanding of value that is designed to counteract the mistakes and biases that characterize these aspects of our psychologies.24 Even if we do, as many Kantian urge us to, recognize that our relations with others go far beyond the local, if it is nonetheless true that (1) the Kantian understanding of value directs our attention to the others with whom we are in relation and (2) we have a (perhaps regrettable) psychological tendency to pay more attention to our relations with those nearby than those far away, then the upshot of Kantian thinking—though not one Kantians would endorse—might well be a kind of moral nearsightedness. In trying to save this river, this valley, and so on, for example, the Kantian side of our moral psychology might be thought to invite a kind of NIMBYism that often works in the favor of the already privileged.25 That is to say, if all of us were to try to do right by the things we think of ourselves as most closely related with, the result might well be an exacerbation of existing power asymmetries among us. Moreover, many well-meaning people, in trying to do right by those things they care about, might inadvertently produce disastrous environmental results. In saving our river from being dammed for hydroelectric power, we might force people to burn trees for fuel, thus destroying forests and exacerbating climate change in a way that produces bad results for everyone. From a consequentialist perspective, on the other hand, the ultimate aim is to make the world a better place, and the consequentialist can start by asking the large-scale question of which policies would do that, on the whole, over the long term. If respecting the value of all of the individual goods around us doesn’t do so, then so much the worse for respecting the value of those goods. The consequentialist view of value also has the virtue of bypassing some of the thornier issues that a Kantian account has to grapple with: the questions of what to count as a relation, what kinds of value those we relate with actually have, and what behaviors of ours should be counted as expressing respect for that kind of value within those relationships. A consequentialist can simply start asking what we should try to make happen in the world. If happiness is good, then the consequentialist can tell us just to go out and start making more of it. We don’t need to work out the value of the individuals we’re in relation with to see why it would be good to do that. Further, it might be thought of as an advantage in a policy context that consequentialism allows trade-offs among individuals’ goods for the sake of achieving better overall consequences. Almost every large-scale policy choice will result in costs to some and benefits to others. If Kantian moral reasoning says that all such choices are impermissible, it is unclear what large-scale policy choices a Kantian could ever endorse. One of the helpful features of the consequentialist approach to value is that it asks us to abstract away from our own personal attachments and consider what would be good more generally. This is useful as a way of counteracting the human tendency toward moral nearsightedness, and it is a perspective not unfamiliar to those concerned with environmental policy.

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Policy often starts with goals, that is, a view about what should happen, and then formulates strategy, that is, a view about what we should do as a means to achieving those goals. When you are trying to get things done, this approach often makes more sense than trying to do right by all of the particular things that are important and hoping that these small decisions will coalesce into a coherent and effective policy. The consequentialist approach to value, then, might fit less well with the ways in which we care, but better with the ways in which we try to get things done.

3.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE BEARERS OF VALUE

So in the context of climate change, what does the difference between thinking of our jobs as trying to make the world as good a place as possible and trying to act in ways that express respect for the value of the things we are in relations with amount to? Let us first consider how the Kantian approach would have us think about climate change of a particularly serious nature. In the Kantian account, the tragedy of climate change is the threat it poses to the parts of the world with which we have relationships and to which we have attachments. In our selfishness, ignorance, and incompetence, we have put in great peril polar bears and penguins, coral and giant sequoias, and mangrove swamps and shortgrass prairies. The places that we call home are slowly becoming unrecognizable. The trees our grandfathers planted are dying; our favorite fishing holes are drying up; the crops that we know how to plant, tend, harvest, and then cook into our favorite meals can’t be sustained on our land anymore. And this is for the luckier among us. For others of us, our homes are being swallowed by rising oceans, our children are dying of newly arrived diseases, and famine is killing us slowly and painfully. In a world where this much of what we care about is disappearing, it is difficult to think of our moral job as acting in ways that respect the value of everything we are in relationship with. We couldn’t possibly do that, or in many cases even come close. Most of our relations with our fellow biotic citizens are rapidly disintegrating; the question is perhaps which of them, if any, can be salvaged. Respecting the value of all the others in those relationships is perhaps the ethics of more stable times—an ethics well suited to conditions in which we know what we are in relation with, what value it has, and what behavior that value might call for from us. But in a world of rapid and drastic climatic change, there may well be so many others with legitimate claims on us that it is impossible to do right by all of these claims. What rapid climate change might seem to call for instead is an ethics of triage—an ethics for navigating disasters, making difficult decisions, and trying to determine which is the least bad of the many, many evils that we face. If we cannot possibly do right by all of the legitimate claims made on us, then perhaps the next best option is to minimize the total amount of harm that our actions produce in the world. Rapid and serious climate

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change is a large-scale problem, well outside the scale on which our personal attachments are formed and navigated. It is also an urgent problem: we need a coherent and effective policy right now. Determining our policy goals by way of our relationships might not be the best way to get that. It might well turn out that saving polar bears or coral reefs or pine forests is not the best way to deal with climate change. Perhaps it would be better to concern ourselves with general conditions such as biodiversity and then let the changing climate and natural selection determine which ecosystems will exist where and what particular organisms they will contain.26 But if the preceding claims are right, if the Kantian account more closely captures the ways of caring that we typically employ, we can expect the consequentialist approach to be psychologically difficult for people in a number of predictable ways. First, we can expect emotions such as grief to result, even when a formerly healthy ecosystem is replaced by an equally healthy but different one. If our emotional attachments and relationships are with concrete particulars, then their premature disappearance will be a difficult one for us even if the result is a state of affairs that is equally good overall. Second, we can expect environmental goals to feel impersonal and abstract to people, since they only connect with what people care about in an indirect way. If this is true, then motivating people to make sacrifices for these goals, especially immediate sacrifices for the sake of long-term goals, might be difficult. Yet when saving the stuff you care about isn’t really an option, making the disaster a little less disastrous might still be the best strategy, and the consequentialist account gives us a better framework for thinking about how to do that than the Kantian account does. In conclusion, under conditions of rapid and serious climate change, a consequentialist approach to value might be more helpful than a Kantian approach. While the Kantian approach to value is more psychologically familiar and may well connect better with our emotional dispositions and motivational structures, we will be living in very unfamiliar circumstances. In a situation in which we face widespread disruption of our relationships, an ethic that tells us to navigate the world via those relationships looks to be less helpful to us than an ethic that shows us how to navigate the world independently of them. All this said, we are not yet at the point where rapid and serious climate change is inevitable. We can still avoid going down that road. If we want to avoid ending up in a situation where our psychologically familiar ways of dealing with the word are of no help to us, we would do well to act now to prevent it. NOTES 1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s)4th Assessment predicted 40% to 70% of assessed species will go extinct if global mean temperature rises above 4°C. See IPCC (2007: §4.4.11).

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2. The IPCC (2007: §4.4.11, citing Duraiappah et al. [2005]) reports that “[g] lobally, biodiversity (represented by species richness and relative abundance) may decrease by 13 to 19% due to a combination of land-use change, climate change and nitrogen deposition under four scenarios by 2050 relative to species present in 1970.” It is worth noting that the term biodiversity is used to refer to many different concepts. I ignore the differences among these concepts here, as they have no bearing on the discussion that follows, but for further discussion of this issue, see Sarkar (2005). 3. What I refer to in what follows as a “Kantian account of value” (value-to-berespected) should be understood to be a view derived from only one type of claim that Kant makes about value. Kant sometimes seems to talk of consequentialist value as well. See, for example, his discussion of the highest good (1993[1788]: 116; Ak. 109–110). See Parfit (2011: chap. 10). What I refer to as a “consequentialist account of value” (value-to-be-promoted) should be understood to be a set of claims that some believe consequentialism is committed to accepting; however, as with many generalizations about the philosophical commitments of consequentialism, these have been controversial in the philosophical literature. 4. This terminology is from Parfit (2011); it rests on a distinction that Parfit gets from Scanlon (1998: 78–107). 5. Anderson (1993: 20–30) and Scanlon (1998: 79–80). These claims, particularly the claim that consequentialism only attributes value to states of affairs, have been controversial. Some have claimed that the primary bearers of value in a consequentialist framework are acts and events; others claim that they also include experiences. For a further discussion of this issue, see Card (2004), Ramon Lemos (1991), Parfit (2011: 235–36), Rønnow-Rasmussen (2002), and Schroeder (2012). 6. For the sake of simplicity, I set aside satisficing versions of consequentialism, according to which one ought to do what produces “good enough” consequences. See Slote and Pettit (1984) for a further discussion of satisficing forms of consequentialism. The difference between satisficing and maximizing forms of consequentialism has no bearing on the arguments that I make here. 7. This analysis is originally from Anderson (1993); Scanlon (1998) also adopts this view. For defenses of the view that only states of affairs have intrinsic value, see Chisholm (1981), Noah Lemos (1994), and Zimmerman (2001). For a criticism of the preceding analysis, see Schroeder (2012). 8. Of course, on a satisficing view, the “more is better” claim will only be true up to a certain threshold. 9. His view is articulated most directly by Anderson (1993). Versions of it are also endorsed by Korsgaard (1996) and Scanlon (1998). Some writers have treated the value of concrete particulars as independent of and more important than the value of states of affairs involving them, but have not endorsed the further claim that the states of affairs only have extrinsic value. See, for example, Regan (1983: chap. 7). 10. Kant (1964 [1785]: 61–62, Ak. 393–94). 11. Anderson (1993: 20). For criticisms of this argument, see Zimmerman (2010: 35–46) and Card (2004). 12. Tom Regan’s respect principle expresses precisely this view. Regan, who advocates extending Kantian respect for persons to some nonhuman animals, argues for adopting the following principle: “We are to treat those individuals who have inherent value [i.e., value-to-be-respected] in ways that respect their inherent value” (1983: 248). 13. See Korsgaard (1996: 275–310; 2011: 387–88) for further discussion of this issue.

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14. See, respectively, O’Neill (1980), Scanlon (1998), and Korsgaard (1996: 188–221). 15. See, for example, Kant’s discussions of friendship, marriage, private agreements, author–publisher relationships, and parent–child relationships in The Metaphysics of Morals (1996 [1797]). 16. This might make it sound as if the value of the others with whom we are in relation is logically prior to and independent of those relations, but Kantians such as Korsgaard regard the relations as constituting the value in the sense that value just is about how to relate to one another. 17. Thus, in the Kantian view, values start off as personal; while they can move to interpersonal, they never get all the way to impersonal (Korsgaard (1996: 275–310)). 18. Though see Regan (1983) for an argument that rabbits do have the capacities needed for inherent value—that is, value-to-be-respected. 19. While I refer to this as “our moral psychology,” there is much to be said about whose moral psychology this is. Ultimately, this is an empirical question. I assume here that what I describe is a moral psychology common at least in modern Western societies, but how far it extends beyond these (and exactly how common it is within them) is still an open question. 20. As O’Neill (1980) famously argued. 21. For studies drawing the same conclusion, see Scannell and Gifford (2010) and Devine-Wright (2011). For more anecdotal reports, see Vickery (1994). 22. For a discussion, see Palmer (2010). 23. For an excellent discussion of these issues, see Palmer (2010). 24. It is worth noting that most of Kant’s moral theory is designed precisely to do this, so one needn’t move to consequentialism to get the tools for correcting these biases. The point is just that the Kantian view of value I describe here, unlike the consequentialist view, is susceptible to this kind of problem. 25. NIMBY stands for “Not In My Back Yard” and refers to opposition to the siting of undesirable projects near to one. In environmental policy, responsiveness to this kind of local opposition has been partially blamed for the frequency with which undesirable projects are sited near to communities that are less well organized and/or less politically powerful. 26. For a more thorough discussion of this type of proposal, see Sandler (2012).

WORKS CITED Anderson, Elizabeth. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. “The Arctic Experience: Arctic Biodiversity beyond Polar Bears.” GRID-Arendal, May 22, 2007. Bradley, Ben. “Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9.2 (2006): 111–130. Card, Robert F. “Consequentialist Teleology and the Valuation of States of Affairs.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (2004): 253–265. Chisholm, Roderick M. “Defining Intrinsic Value.” Analysis 41 (1981): 99–100. Darwall, Stephen. The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Devine-Wright, Patrick. “Place Attachment and Public Acceptance of Renewable Energy: A Tidal Energy Case Study.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 31.4 (2011): 336–343.

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Duraiappah, A., S. Naeem, T. Agardi, N. Ash, D. Cooper, S. Díaz, D.P. Faith, G. Mace, J.A. McNeilly, H.A. Mooney, A.A. Oteng-Yeboah, H.M. Pereira, S. Polasky, C. Prip, W.V. Reid, C. Samper, P.J. Schei, R. Scholes, F. Schutyser and A. van Jaarsveld, (eds). Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Biodiversity Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2005. Greene, Joshua D. “Why Are VMPFC Patients More Utilitarian? A Dual-Process Theory of Moral Judgment Explains.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11.8 (2007): 322–323. Greene, Joshua D. and Jonathan Haidt. “How (and Where) Does Moral Judgment Work?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6.12 (2002): 517–523. Greene, Joshua D., Leigh E. Nystrom, Andrew D. Engell, John M. Darley, and Jonathan D. Cohen. “The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment.” Neuron 44 (2004): 389–400. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Yokohama, Japan: IPCC, 2007. Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Trans. H.J. Paton. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. ———. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. L.W. Beck. New York: Macmillan, 1993. ———. Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Korsgaard, Christine M. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ———. “Natural Goodness, Rightness, and the Intersubjectivity of Reason: Reply to Arroyo, Cummiskey, Moland, and Bird-Pollan.” Metaphilosophy 42.4 (2011): 381–394. Lemos, Noah M. Intrinsic Value: Concept and Warrant. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Lemos, Ramon M. “Bearers of Value.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51.4 (1991): 873–899. Nagel, Thomas. The View from Nowhere. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986. O’Neill, Onora. “Kantian Approaches to Some Famine Problems.” Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy. 3rd edition. Ed. Tom Regan. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. 258–270. Palmer, Clare. Animal Ethics in Context. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Parfit, Derek. On What Matters. 2 vols. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011. Railton, Peter. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13.2 (1984): 134–171. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni. “Hedonism, Preferentialism, and Value Bearers.” Journal of Value Inquiry 36 (2002): 463–72. Sandler, Ronald L. The Ethics of Species: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Sarkar, Sahotra. Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Scanlon, T. M. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1988. Scannell, Leila and Robert Gifford. “The Relations between Natural and Civic Place Attachment and Pro-Environmental Behavior.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 30.3 (2010): 289–297.

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Scheffler, Samuel. The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1982. Schroeder, Mark. “Value Theory.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2012 Edition. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New revised ed. New York: Avon Books, 1990. Slote, Michael and Philip Pettit. “Satisficing Consequentialism.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 58 (1984): 139–76. Vickery, Jim Dale. Wilderness Visionaries. Minocqua, WI: NorthWord Press, 1994. Zimmerman, Michael J. The Nature of Intrinsic Value. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

2

Can Biocentric Consequentialism Meet Pluralist Challenges? Robin Attfield

1.

WHAT IS BIOCENTRIC CONSEQUENTIALISM?

Biocentric theories recognize the moral standing of all living creatures, and not of humanity alone. Consequentialist ones understand rightness as a function of the foreseeable consequences either of individual actions or omissions, or (in situations to which practices are applicable) of general recognition of practices with which they conform. This granted, biocentric consequentialism has been perspicuously characterized by Alan Carter in his review in Mind (Carter 2001) of my book The Ethics of the Global Environment (Attfield 1999).1 Carter, who also takes into account an earlier work of mine in his purview,2 well summarizes this normative theory, and purports to be impressed by my attempt in The Ethics of the Global Environment to apply it to environmental issues.3 Accordingly, it is appropriate to present his summary here, since the aims of the present chapter are to clarify the nature and implications of this theory, and to defend it against some challenging supposed further implications that Carter goes on to ascribe to it, which would undermine its acceptability if they were genuinely implied. Here, then, is Carter’s summary, which accurately depicts biocentric consequentialism and several of its key themes: Attfield’s ethical system . . . is cosmopolitan in refusing to draw ethical boundaries around one’s own community. It is consequentialist in claiming that actions are right when they conform to practices whose general recognition would bring about the greatest overall good, or, where practices do not apply, when an action’s foreseeable consequences would consist in the greatest overall balance of good over bad. And it is biocentric in ascribing intrinsic value to the good of all living beings. Attfield argues that whatever has a good of its own has moral standing, and that all living creatures have a good of their own. However, this is not to say that all living beings have equal moral significance. (2001: 149)

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At this point, Carter quotes the following passage from The Ethics of the Global Environment (Attfield 1999: 39): For biocentric consequentialism, intrinsic value lies in the good or the well-being of bearers of moral standing. Following Aristotle, I take this good to consist in the development of the capacities essential to their kind, whether capacities for growth and reproduction (as in plants and animals alike), for mobility, perception and sentience (as in most animals), or for these plus capacities such as practical reason and autonomy, as in human beings. I also maintain that more complex and sophisticated capacities (such as that for autonomy) take preference over less complex and sophisticated ones, but only where both are at stake; no automatic priority belongs simply to membership of a sophisticated species, or simply to being human.4 Carter perceptively distinguishes this biocentric position from ecocentric positions that locate intrinsic value in ecosystems and in species over and above the intrinsic value possessed by their component creatures or species members, but acknowledges that my position recognizes the inherent value of ecoystems and of species (value dependent on their appreciation by conscious observers) and their immense instrumental value in supporting multitudes of individual bearers of moral standing and in making possible their flourishing. Species also possess value because they often play indispensable roles within ecosystems, and because on their continuance “depends the very possibility of the existence of every possible future member of the species in question” (Attfield 1999: 40).5 This supplies a further ground for the preservation of the greatest possible biodiversity (or rather, in Carter’s account, seems to provide such a reason; Carter 2001: 150). But before we turn to Carter’s critique of biocentric consequentialism, it will help for present purposes to contrast biocentric consequentialism with other forms of biocentrism and with other forms of consequentialism. For these theories are subject to widespread misunderstandings, which should as far as possible be allayed before consideration of Carter’s detailed critique can begin.

2. CONTRASTING BIOCENTRIC CONSEQUENTIALISM WITH COMPATIBLE THEORIES It is common ground among biocentrists that all living organisms have moral standing, as has well been argued by Kenneth Goodpaster, and that their well-being or flourishing has intrinsic value (that is, that there are non-derivative reasons for promoting, cherishing and protecting it as such; 1978: 320). However, while some biocentrists, such as Paul Taylor, hold that all bearers of moral standing deserve equal respect or consideration (or have equal moral significance), biocentric consequentialists, mindful of

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the need to provide for clashes of interest and of the bearing of the greater capacities of some creatures than others when such clashes arise, maintain that equal interests should be given equal consideration, and that greater interests (such as interests in the development of different kinds of capacities) should receive greater consideration (1986: 202–206). Thus, when nothing else is at stake, the interests of gorillas are to be preferred to those of grass, and indeed to those of goats. Often, much else will be at stake, such as the survival of a habitat or ecosystem and of the creatures that depend on them; in such cases multiple interests need to be balanced against one another. Here, rather than discuss details of decision-procedures, it may suffice to explain that different capacities can supply grounds for priorities among the bearers of moral standing and that consequentialists, who are concerned to select actions that make the greatest available positive difference, will reasonably take into account the impacts of action on the various different capacities that stand to be affected. In this respect, then, biocentric consequentialists are inegalitarian with regard to conflicts between species,6 although they are not committed to any form of inegalitarianism in which conflicts in society between human beings are concerned. All this is fully consistent with a biocentric stance about moral standing (as opposed to moral significance) and about intrinsic value. Divergences from other forms of consequentialism include the recognition of biocentric consequentialists that adherence to beneficial (or “optimific”) practices makes actions right. Carter, as we have seen, puts the matter as follows: “actions are right when they conform to practices whose general recognition would bring about the greatest overall good, or, where practices do not apply, when an action’s foreseeable consequences would consist in the greatest overall balance of good over bad” (2001: 149). This divergence allows biocentric consequentialists to take account of our conviction that the fact that a promise has been made can make an act that delivers that promise right. It also means that they have no need to calculate the balance of the foreseeable good over bad consequences of action, at least in cases in which a beneficial practice is in question. Some of the other divergences from other forms of consequentialism correspond to biocentrism’s value theory. Recognition of the intrinsic value of the good of all living creatures, including non-sentient ones, means that not only pleasure and happiness have intrinsic value, but also the development of the essential capacities that is crucial for the various creatures’ good. Accepting this both brings the good of myriads of creatures into the picture when the impacts of actions are being considered, and also implies acceptance of the value of much in human life, such as health, and the exercise of powers, such as perception and emotional sensitivity, that is liable to be omitted both with theories that lionize intellect-related powers (such as Aristotle’s) and with theories such as utilitarianism that focus on subjective states. Here it should be added that recognition of the moral standing of future living organisms (including members of different possible futures) allows

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this theory to make strong provision for future human generations, and at the same time for future generations of other species. This means that, without according moral standing to species as such, the theory has ample resources to call for the preservation of the range of current species, partly based on the good of future members that would be deprived of existence, the precondition of their good, if the species were allowed to go extinct. Similar grounds exist for the preservation of the habitats on which vulnerable species depend. Narrower varieties of consequentialism, particularly anthropocentric ones, are liable not to supply grounds of sufficient strength for policies of preservation. Indeed, in current circumstances, it is much more clearly biocentric theories such as biocentric consequentialism that supply a strong case for greenhouse gas mitigation, however sensitive other theories, including other consequentialist theories, may be about the foreseeable human future.

3.

SOME OBJECTIONS TO BIOCENTRIC CONSEQUENTIALISM CONSIDERED

There are, of course, many objections that can be raised against consequentialism, against biocentrism, and against their intersection. Largely these cannot (for reasons of space) be considered here, but the reader deserves some indication of the responses that could be made to these challenges, or of where to find them, before the more specific challenges posed by Alan Carter are addressed. Generic objections to consequentialism include its alleged inability to address adequately issues of distribution and of justice, and its problematic apparent requirement for agents to calculate consequences continually or even obsessively, which is sometimes held to alienate them from their integrity. To problems grounded in distribution and justice, I have presented replies in the sections on justice in Ethics (Attfield 1999), in “Toward a Defence of Teleology” (Attfield 1974-5), in “Racialism, Justice and Teleology” (Attfield 1977) and in Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics (Attfield 1995); justice is there related to the satisfaction of needs, and related to value accordingly. Other generic objections, including ones about impartiality, have been well tackled by Julia Driver (2001: 137–151; 2012: 105), while problems about calculation have been addressed by Elinor Mason (2004: 316–321). As for problems about alienation and integrity, and the accusation that consequentialist theories are overly demanding, raised initially by Bernard Williams (1973: 108–117) these are among problems shown by Peter Railton (1984: 147–156) and Attfield (1995) not to be conclusive. For consequentialism can consistently encourage its adherents to adhere to beneficial practices, beneficial traits (virtues) and beneficial relationships, thus exonerating them of the (imaginary) burden of calculating the impacts of whole successions of actions or omissions, and of making adherence to key loyalties and relationships conditional on the felicitous outcome of such calculations.

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I turn now to objections to biocentrism, and more specifically to objections to biocentric accounts of moral standing and of intrinsic value. Objections such as these come sometimes from anthropocentrists, who draw the line at humanity and human interests, and sometimes from ecocentrists, who attach moral standing and intrinsic value to collective entities such as species and ecosystems. Anthropocentrists are prone to argue either that non-anthropocentric theories are impossible (because human appraisers cannot avoid employing the criterion of human interests) or that they are superfluous (because they generate the same practical guidance as anthropocentric theories). But these reasons are entirely misguided. Human appraisers must be capable of being swayed by non-human interests, or compassion toward animals would be impossible. And biocentric theories supply grounds for stronger and therefore different policies of preservation than anthropocentric ones, including the preservation of species in the survival of which humans have no interest. These replies are more fully presented in Attfield (2003b: 43–52) and Attfield (2011: 29–46). Objections from ecocentrists are prone to maintain that biocentrism gives inadequate recognition to species and to ecosystems; and certainly the value of both species and ecosystems seems greater than that of their current members or inhabitants. This is partly due to the importance of the other species and ecosystems that they uphold, whose importance can be explained by biocentrists through the value of the flourishing of the creatures that are members of those other species, or which depend on those other ecosystems. But it is also due in large measure to the value of the flourishing lives of future members of the relevant species (as mentioned earlier) and similarly of future inhabitants of the relevant ecosystems, something that biocentrists accept as important and to which they can make appeal. For all this value is prone to disappear and be lost if the current population of a species is extinguished, or if suitable habitats become unavailable for members of the species in question. Biocentrists, then, can consistently recognize that species are more significant than are their current populations. Further, the importance of their having valuable individual future members (a key biocentrist theme) helps explain the widespread recognition of the significance of the last surviving members of a rare species, and of its being greater than that of similar numbers of members of plentiful species. Accordingly, there is no need to resort to ecocentrism to explain the high value of species and of ecosystems. The value of current and future flourishing lives is sufficient to explain the intuition that these collectives have a value greater than that of their (current) members. It can be added that the high value of species and ecosystems will not be intrinsic value, and lies not in their own natures or abstract structures as collectivities, but depends on the value of the lives that they facilitate (both present and future). A more detailed defense of the biocentrist case can be found in the two opening

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chapters of Attfield (2003b), which discuss moral standing, intrinsic value, and biocentric understandings of them with a fullness of text that is inappropriate here.

4.

BIOCENTRIC CONSEQUENTIALISM AND THE REPUGNANT CONCLUSION

Some of the implications of biocentric consequentialism, together with supposed implications of which it stands accused, can now be introduced. One implication is the rejection of the Person-Affecting Principle, according to which obligations only exist where there are identifiable individuals or organizations to which they are owed. This has to be rejected so that possible but hitherto non-actual human beings and non-human creatures of the future are not denied moral standing and moral significance (Attfield 1995: 150). This rejection, as Carter recognizes, secures the theory against the Non-Identity Problem (2001: 150). Some philosophers take this problem to undermine obligations with regard to future generations, on the grounds that the identity of most future individuals is currently undetermined and that where no identifiable individual or body is affected for better or worse, no wrong can be done. The moral standing of possible human beings and non-human creatures, by contrast, means that the good of future generations must be considered. While this implication is likely to be welcome to environmentalists and indeed to everyone concerned with the future of humanity, it also supplies the context for Carter’s accusations about constraints to the quality of life of each and every generation that is supposedly implicit in biocentric consequentialism. Being an enriched variant of the Total View of consequentialism discussed by Parfit (the theory, that is, which takes into account the total of foreseeable consequences, as opposed to average levels of well-being), biocentric consequentialism also has to tackle the Repugnant Conclusion, which Parfit represents as an implication of that view (1984: 381–390). This is the conclusion that with regard to any number of lives well worth living it would be better, other things being equal, if there were a larger number of lives of much lower quality provided that they are all lives worth living, and thus lived just above the level at which life would cease to be worth living. Unlike the other Parfitean problem of non-identity, this conclusion is tackled by Total View consequentialists, as Carter remarks, not by rejection but by drawing its sting (or allaying fears of its apparent toxicity; 2001: 150). How this can be done was set out in some detail in Attfield (1995: chap. 10) where I also replied to Parfit’s attempt to come up with a defensible theory (perfectionism) not implying this conclusion (1986: 162–164) and anticipated some of Carter’s own replies to this kind of perfectionism presented in Carter (1999). Carter’s review reports just one of the arguments present in Attfield (1995) against overpopulation comprising an implication

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of biocentric consequentialism, neglecting such arguments as that concerning the dependence of life worth living on intact ecosystems that would be undermined by overpopulation (Attfield 1995: 169), that concerning the intrinsic value of future non-human creatures, whose habitats human population growth would occupy and foreclose (Attfield 1995: 168), and that deriving from Richard Hare concerning the serious likelihood of increases in human numbers removing some of the prerequisites of lives worth living such as privacy and the ability to get away from fellow humans (Attfield 1995: 164, 167f). Each of these arguments suggests that the Total View, despite urging the maximization of worthwhile life, does not in any case mandate overpopulation in terms of human numbers on Earth. Carter does, however, report one argument of mine, which is distinct from those just summarized (Carter 1999: 150f; Attfield 1995: 170f) and which turns on the Aristotelian element in my account of what a worthwhile life minimally involves (the development of certain characteristic human capacities). It argues that since a quality of life no lower than this is required for basic needs to be met and for life to be worthwhile, the Repugnant Conclusion (which only applies where worthwhile human lives are lived) is not recognizably repugnant, and that Parfit’s depiction of it as involving billions of people surviving on muzak and potatoes (as the only good things left in their lives) misrepresents what the concept of minimal worthwhileness involves. Carter here (2001: 150) quotes a passage from Attfield (1995) specifying that a worthwhile human life requires “the development, in some degree, of most essential capacities” of human beings, including capacities (among others) for perception, linguistic communication, autonomy, practical reason, theoretical reason, self-respect, aesthetic appreciation, forming friendships and self-creation (Attfield 1995: 170f). Summarizing this part of my argument, Carter remarks that “a world full to the brim of people with most of these capacities developed even to a limited extent seems considerably less repugnant than Derek Parfit’s imagined world” (2001: 151). While this is a reasonable conclusion, and suggests that this argument suffices to draw from the Repugnant Conclusion its repugnancy and its sting, it also misleadingly suggests that biocentric consequentialism actually advocates a world full to the brim of people. Yet the other arguments just mentioned, show, I submit, that for a planet of limited space and resources it has no such implication, as also do some additional, related arguments revisited in the coming two sections.

5. THE SO-CALLED MINIMAX IMPLICATION: CARTER’S POPULATION CHALLENGE But Carter proceeds to introduce a third problem, which theories such as biocentric consequentialism need to confront in addition to Non-Identity and the Repugnant Conclusion. This is what he calls “the Minimax Implication:

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the lowest acceptable level for the greatest number of human beings.” This implication “would seem to follow from the core premises of Attfield’s ethical theory that we ought to maximize the number of people who have most of the above-mentioned capacities developed to some degree” (2001: 151). Carter next informs the reader how this maximizing is apparently to be done; but it is appropriate first to ask whether such maximizing is an implication of biocentric consequentialism at all. For the core premise is actually that we ought to maximize, whether through actions or through practices, the balance of foreseeable value over foreseeable disvalue; and it is unclear that maximizing the number of people with developed capacities would in general achieve this. Admittedly, the theory implies that other things being equal, the more people with developed capacities, the better; hence, the theory implies that we ought to support such maximizing, other things being equal. But since in many kinds of circumstance the addition of such people will generate loss of quality of life for other people, damage to ecosystems needed for future quality of life, and/or loss of numerous non-human lives that would either have continued to display developed capacities of intrinsic value or were eventually going to achieve all this, the addition of these people is far from invariably what the core premise implies, let alone a core premise itself. However, Carter’s elaboration of his Minimax Implication criticism is worth following, despite his misidentification of the core premise of biocentric consequentialism, since it could theoretically bring to light any unacceptable implications of such maximizing to which the theory may really be committed. To “maximize the number of people” with capacities developed to some degree, Carter now suggests, “it would appear that we ought to limit the development of any human capacity to the lowest acceptable level when its development is constrained by a resource in limited supply” (2001: 151). But this claim is implausible as thus presented; for the limited resources that constrain the development of some capacities (e.g., the availability of light and of sound for different modalities of perception) often cannot be removed from one person and supplied to another, because it is of their nature to be available (like sunlight) simultaneously to large numbers of people, and other creatures too, at the same time. Carter must instead be envisaging resources for which there would more commonly be competition, such as the availability of trained teachers, or money for educational spending, or land itself. If so, then there is some justification for what he takes to be implied by the theory, but not much. The theory does imply that where such resources could be used either to satisfy hitherto unsatisfied basic needs or to further develop the capacities of someone whose capacities are already well developed, and cannot be used for both purposes simultaneously, they should be devoted to the first rather than to the second purpose, for greater value is more likely to be delivered in this way. (Indeed this seems a readily defensible approach.) However, since most capacities of most people are unlikely to cease to develop in the absence of

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such resources (for capacities such as those for autonomy, practical reason, theoretical reason and self-creation, once they have begun to develop, are prone to develop further even if the kind of resources just mentioned become unavailable), it would be unnecessary, as well as counterproductive in terms of maximizing value, to adopt a policy of seeking to limit or restrict the development of capacities in general to the lowest acceptable level. It would be absurd for theorists seeking to maximize value to seek to limit valuable processes of development for some people in the hope of facilitating such processes for others, when such development is likely to continue in any case through such unremarkable, resource-light processes such as conversations, discussions, debates, public meetings, or participation in spontaneous events and celebrations. Besides, as has been seen above, the theory does not imply that additional people should be brought into being without qualification or limit with a view to their basic needs being satisfied before anyone whose basic needs have already been satisfied can properly receive further attention. The generation of an additional person could be implied for some circumstances in which attention to the further development of an existing person whose basic needs have already been satisfied might have to be neglected in consequence. One common example occurs when a family has a second child, even though its arrival means fewer resources for the first. But the theory does not imply this for all circumstances in general. For the theory does not imply without qualification that the number of people with developed capacities should be maximized. To underline and develop points already introduced, this is not implied, for example, where such generation would be an obstacle to sustainability, or contribute to overcrowding and undermine basic needs thereby, or contribute to the erosion or loss of ecosystems, or undermine the prospects of worthwhile lives for numerous non-human creatures. Carter later recognizes that biocentric consequentialism upholds the goal of sustainability (2001: 152), and should recognize that sustainability is among the repertoire of constraints applicable to the generation of additional people. Hence, the Minimax Implication turns out not to be an implication of biocentric consequentialism. Since advocacy of the lowest acceptable level for the greatest number of human beings would seldom if ever maximize the balance of foreseeable value over foreseeable disvalue, biocentric consequentialists remain free to support quite different policies (including non-anthropocentric versions of sustainability) in pursuance of their commitments.

6. SOME ECOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF BIOCENTRIC CONSEQUENTIALISM: CARTER’S BIODIVERSITY CHALLENGE However, Carter immediately proceeds to suggest another apparent implication of maximizing the number of people with developed capacities, involving the possible extinction of species that lack human interests such as

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those in self-consciousness and autonomy. For he thinks that biocentric consequentialism implies that “maximizing the number of humans who have most of their essential capacities developed to some degree should be accomplished at the expense of all (such) creatures (of lesser capacities) . . . when this would be the most practicable means of achieving that goal” (2001: 151). In this section, I show that biocentric consequentialism lacks these implications about species preservation and supports quite different policies. Carter proceeds to explain why all this seems to follow, and why the theory appears, despite my own arguments, conclusions, and denials, to have implications, such as the extinction of many “inessential species,” that are unacceptable to environmentalists. (He avoids claiming that any of this really does follow, but seeks to represent these implications as seriously possible ones.) Carter opens this new argument by suggesting that biocentric consequentialism implies (what might be called the Competition Premise) that at any given time a finite number of actual creatures and an infinite number of possible creatures are in competition for existence “with certain other actual and possible creatures” (Carter 2001: 151; premise 1). But the goods of possible creatures have as much moral significance as (and are of no lesser intrinsic value than) the goods of (comparable) actual creatures (premise 2), and there is greater intrinsic value in the satisfaction of the basic needs of most humans than of creatures which lack the greater interests that the majority of humans possess (premise 3). Further, “where greater interests, such as interests in self-consciousness and autonomy, are endangered and conflict with lesser interests, they take priority” (Attfield 1999: 159; premise 4). Therefore, my theory implies that ceteris paribus, a human should be brought into existence and have his or her basic needs met in preference to those of such non-humans. Hence, “the Minimax Implication may well include the extinction of many inessential species, especially if their numbers are not too great, and when eliminating them would allow the maximixation of the number of humans whose basic needs can be satisfied” (Carter 2001: 152). Clearly Carter is relying here on the belief that biocentric consequentialism implies the maximization of the number of humans whose basic needs can be satisfied, a belief that was challenged in the previous section, and firmly rejected in Attfield (1995: 168; 1999: 116–119). But much is here at issue for biodiversity preservation, whether or not such maximization is projected, and hence, the rest of Carter’s argument warrants scrutiny. In particular, the question arises of whether premise (1), the Competition Premise, either is plausible or gives Carter what he needs. I set aside as trivial the objection that most possible creatures of the distant future are not in fact in competition with actual creatures, where being actual requires being identifiable in the present. Instead I construe the Competition Premise as saying that all creatures, actual and possible, are in competition with some other creatures, actual or possible. This innocuous

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premise, however, is much less than Carter needs to establish competition between additional human beings and the species he designates as “inessential” (by which the context suggests that he means “inessential for human interests and for the continued existence of current ecosystems”), and does not even show that there is competition between humans and other creatures. A stronger premise, which would imply this competition, is the proposition that all creatures, actual and possible, are in competition with each other. But this proposition (which Carter has wisely foregone) is untrue, for many creatures, actual and possible, each depend on others as their ancestors, making their existence possible, or as fellow members of the ecosystem necessary for their birth or their survival. Future humans are included among those actual and possible creatures that depend on myriads of other creatures in these ways. These points, besides overthrowing the suggested stronger premise, show that there are considerable limits to justifiable extinctions of other species even based on maximizing the satisfaction of basic human needs. They even cast doubt on whether there are any “inessential species” in Carter’s sense at all, for it is possible that all species are vital for the continued existence of existing ecosystems. But little can be rested on this, since current ecosystems are constantly changing their character, and constantly undergoing modifications that affect the continued existence of one or more species; indeed the demise of a given species might sometimes affect few species other than itself. Nevertheless, Edward O. Wilson argues that if invertebrates, which comprise over half of all known species, were to disappear, all vertebrates would die out within a few months (1987: 344–346); this suggests that the task of identifying “inessential” species could be much more formidable than it might seem. In place of his Competition Premise, Carter needs the premise that there is sometimes competition for existence between additional humans with interests such as those in self-consciousness and autonomy (and whose basic needs are likely to be met if they come into being) and other species with lesser interests, species that are also functionally dispensable. While this premise may possibly be false, and is not an implication of biocentric consequentialism, I henceforth assume it to be true, in order to see what follows. Certainly in arguing against the colonisation of the entire surface of the planet by humanity at the expense of other species (Attfield 1995: 166; 1999: 70) I have assumed that competition between humanity and other species (though not necessarily between humanity and inessential species) is seriously possible. Premises (2), (3) and (4) are recognizable variants of tenets of biocentric consequentialism. But premise (4) makes no contribution to Carter’s conclusion. Premise (4) states that “where greater interests, such as interests in self-consciousness and autonomy, are endangered and conflict with lesser interests, they take priority.” But interests can only be endangered if they and the creature to which they belong exist already; hence, premise (4) can form no part of the case for Carter’s conclusion that in some cases

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of competition additional humans should be brought into being, where the basis of this conclusion consists in the interests of these same possible people. The wording of premise (4) was so devised (Attfield 1999: 159) in order to preclude the kind of anthropocentric reasoning that prioritizes these characteristic human interests over all non-human interests universally or across the board, and this premise brings this off by prioritizing (for example) autonomy only where it is endangered, rather than wherever the interests (of any kind) of an autonomous being are at stake. It has no tendency to uphold generating additional human beings at the expense of non-human creatures. It remains to consider the bearing of other “core premises” of biocentric consequentialism, such as premise (3). First, however, I should explain that this does not affirm (as anthropocentric theories sometimes do) that there is greater intrinsic value in each human life than in any non-human life. Rather it affirms the greater value of the satisfaction of the basic needs of those creatures with capacities such as those for self-consciousness and autonomy than that of creatures lacking such capacities. Thus it does not prioritize the good of humans over that of those non-humans that share these capacities (including some higher primates and quite probably some cetaceans), nor does it prioritize the good of humans as such. It does, however, underwrite that respect for these (and comparable) capacities, which is implicit in all ethical traditions, and it raises the issue of whether niches that could be colonized by creatures with these capacities should be so occupied in cases of competition with other species. While this issue needs to be considered, my conclusion (both in Attfield [1995] and in Attfield [1999]) is that biocentric consequentialism does not justify, let alone require, the colonisation of the surface of the planet either by humanity or by creatures of whatever species having the characteristic capacities of human beings, but rather requires leaving habitats that could be thus colonized as the habitats of other species. For such colonization would guarantee the extinction of numerous species, and, whatever would be the impoverishment that such extinction would bring for human beings, it would also obliterate all that would have been intrinsically valuable in the lives of all the countless members of the extinguished species that could have lived and thrived across the full extent of future time. Since this would very often involve a net loss of value, it should not be done (Attfield 1999: 70). The same grounds also count against increases of the human population where space is limited and where the increases would take place at the cost of non-human species, and require areas to be left as the habitats of wild species (Attfield 1995: 166). Thus, the biocentric aspects of biocentric consequentialism clinch the case against comprehensive colonisation, against (that is) total use of the planet by humanity, and uphold the case for geographical limits to the areas of human habitation. At most, biocentric consequentialism only commends population increases “where the basic needs of non-human creatures would not be subverted” (Attfield 1995: 168).

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7. CARTER’S EVERY GENERATION CHALLENGE But Carter now challenges reasoning such as that of the previous section. “[I]t will not suffice as a response,” he writes, preemptively, to argue that the loss of future members of certain inessential species would outweigh the basic needs of the present-day humans whose invasion of their habitats threatens those species with extinction. For if the basic needs of present-day humans outweigh those of the present-day members of endangered species, then, at any future time, the basic needs of the humans then occupying the land in question will likely outweigh the interests of the members of the presently endangered species who would have lived at that future time had their species not earlier been driven to extinction. (2001: 152–153). Let us call this the “Every Generation Argument.” Once again, the task of understanding which these inessential species could be is not easy, but I assume, as the context seems to require, and as was suggested above, that they are species that are neither needed by human beings, nor necessary for the continued existence of current ecosystems, and also (for the sake of argument) that such species exist, and that some of them are endangered by human expansion. Now the Every Generation Argument is an enthymeme that depends on the unexpressed premise that the basic needs of the present-day humans using or occupying each and every land outweigh those of the present-day members of endangered species using or occupying the same territory. Yet this is neither obviously true nor anything to which I am committed. For one thing, it presupposes that the satisfaction of basic human needs is invariably of greater value than that of the basic needs of all non-humans, but this is an implausible stance that, as Carter himself recognizes (2001: 152), I reject. Nor is this an insubstantial point, for the flourishing of some endangered species, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, is arguably of no lesser value than that of human beings. Further, it suggests that there is a clear conflict between the basic needs of present-day humans and those of contemporary members of endangered species (for only if there is a conflict of interests is the outweighing of one set of interests by another significant); but, while some endangered species may be in competition with humans for food, other endangered species (such as oystercatchers) are endangered only through this belief being mistakenly held by humans, and yet other endangered species (such as polar bears) are endangered through anthropogenic processes such as global warming, despite their not being normally in any kind of competition with humanity. A critic seeking to argue at this stage from authentic premises of biocentric consequentialism, and avoiding misunderstandings of its premises, might reason instead from the proposition that the basic needs of creatures

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with relatively complex and sophisticated characteristics take precedence, where there is a conflict, over those of creatures of less complex and sophisticated characteristics (Attfield 1995: 94). This, such a critic might argue, must hold good of every generation if it holds of the present, and might justify extinctions not of endangered non-human species in general, but of those lacking complex and sophisticated characteristics. However, the other premise of the Every Generation Argument is open to challenge, the premise that the precedence among interests that holds for the present generation probably holds for all future generations too. Here it is relevant that since both human beings and other species of complex and sophisticated characteristics could easily become extinct well before many other species, there could (and probably will) be billions of generations of other creatures living in no kind of conflict with human interests or the interests of other creatures of sophisticated characteristics (if, that is, these species are not driven to extinction by human beings in the present or during the human future). Since these possible creatures would be affected by current actions, their interests and their value count in current decision making. Hence, it remains relevant that current extinctions could, as mentioned earlier, obliterate all that would have been intrinsically valuable in the lives of all the countless members of the extinguished species that could have lived and thriven across the full extent of future time, and it is far from clear that all this value is outweighed either by human interests or by the interests of creatures of complex and sophisticated characteristics. To put matters more graphically, it is unlikely to be justified to extinguish species that could have flourished for billions or even trillions of years for the sake of species including our own that might persist for millions of years only. Such extinctions could even, if the worst came to the worst, render the Earth lifeless for most of its future. Once again, the biocentric aspects of biocentric consequentialism underpin a strong case against extinction, whether of “inessential” species or of other species, based simply on the intrinsic value of living creatures, actual and possible. This case is, of course, further strengthened when human interests, present and future, in the continued existence of non-human species, are added, including interests in the preservation of current ecosystems. Carter recognizes that biocentric consequentialism can endorse this appeal to human interests, and its ability to ground the preservation of biodiversity, and the pursuit of sustainability in general (2001: 152). What is strange is his view that its appeal to non-human interests makes little difference, and that (whether or not for this reason) it is likely to disappoint those concerned about the environment. This is strange because this view effectively conflates biocentric consequentialism with the kinds of anthropocentric normative theory with which it is most centrally to be contrasted, as if fiercely contested debates concerning the intrinsic value of non-human flourishing and its constituting reasons for action7 made no difference to practical conclusions and policies in any case.

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I conclude that biocentric consequentialism does not involve the kind of support for the extinction of species that Carter ascribes to it, but in fact supports quite different policies, including the preservation of most non-human species and of their habitats, and of policies of sustainability grounded not only in human interests but in non-human interests as well.

8.

PLURALISTIC VERSUS MONISTIC THEORIES

Carter (1998–1999) attempts to fit my theory into a pattern that he identified in “Moral Theory and Global Population,” where he argued that each of the central moral theories is flawed because it attempts to maximize one value, and in so doing contrives to flout other values we hold (307). My theory, he now suggests, emphasizes autonomy at the expense of other values (a strange, nearly unrecognizable representation of biocentric consequentialism). In fact, biocentric consequentialism incorporates a rather elaborate account of priorities among values (Attfield 1995: chap. 6), and later relates “values” such as justice to the balance of value over disvalue that this theory of priorities seeks to optimize (Attfield 1995: chap. 9). Thus it embodies several features of value-pluralism (recognizing the value of health, the development of capacities, worthwhile life, justice, and so forth, as well as autonomy) while seeking to provide a value-based rationale for choices between recognized “values” (or sources of value, as we may designate valuable states and conditions such as health, autonomy and freedom). It is pluralistic in recognizing and relating a plurality of sources of value, but monistic in relating them, consequentialist-wise, to the overall balance of value over disvalue, rather like the Total View version of utilitarianism, of which it is a variant with a richer axiology and a broader understanding of the range of bearers of moral standing (as was explained above). Carter distinguishes value-pluralism, which honours a plurality of values, from pluralisms of theory and of principle (2005: 62–84), both of which are liable (as he recognises) to generate contradictions for those who espouse them. But is value-pluralism really distinct from a pluralism of theories (with its associated contradictions)? While this is possible in theory (as Carter has persuasively argued [2002: 577–599]), it is not so if the values are themselves characterised as representing theories that are contraries (Carter 2002).8 Yet on standard definitions, anthropocentrism, zoocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism are mutual contraries, conveying respectively that only human interests matter, only animal interests, only those of living creatures, or the supposed good of ecological collectives alone or together with the interests of individuals. So when the values of value pluralism are characterized as anthropocentric, zoocentric, and so on (as Carter now proposes), it seems to inherit the problems of theory pluralism after all. Maybe these problems can be avoided if different terms are used for these values. Thus, a value pluralist could discard the language of anthoprocentric

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values, zoocentric values, and so on and could talk instead of human wellbeing, animal well-being, the well-being of living creatures, and so on. But by now there is no longer any need to regard these values as incapable of being compared and prioritized, or as in any way incommensurable. Just as traditional consequentialists have argued that some actual or proposed courses of action do more good or less harm than others (from among proposals that uphold different human interests to different degrees), so biocentric consequentialists too can argue in a parallel way, against a background of recognition of a broader range of values and of a wider range of bearers of moral standing. And while this does not involve adopting monism of the naïve kind which recognizes one value only (as, for example, in the case of hedonism), it does involve adopting the kind of sophisticated monism which maintains that all the various values (or sources of value) are commensurable and actions and policies can be appraised accordingly. And if such rational appraisal is a possibility, there are clear advantages in attempting to implement it, rather than abandon it in the manner of radical pluralism. Carter effectively assumes that our values are neither commensurable nor (in at least some cases) reducible to one another. But no significant criticism of biocentric (or any other form of) consequentialism is made unless grounds are given for such a radical pluralist view. Short of such grounds, we have no need to resort to the ingenious multidimensional approach put forward by Carter, in which agents are guided into courses of action that honor all our (irreducible) values to some extent. Besides, anyone adopting this approach needs arguments for the values to be honored all being irreducible, but such arguments are not readily available. For example, Carter (through including ecocentric values in his pluralistic pantheon) assumes that the good of ecosystems is an irreducible value. But the good of an ecosystem could well consist in the good of the living members of a given ecosystem, plus that of its future members, related to one another in the manner that the ecosystem makes possible; and if so, then it is not an irreducible value. Yet the mistaken inclusion of a value as irreducible is liable to skew all the guidance supplied in any multidimensional decision-making methodology, however sound it might be in all other respects. In view of problems such as these, no further discussion will be undertaken here of Carter’s multidimensional value-pluralism. The underlying problem with all theories of this kind is the absence of any kind of meta-principle concerning priorities between values. It is because he holds that there is no such meta-principle that Carter proposes a system of multidimensional trade-offs. Consequentialist theories that recognize multiple values, by contrast, characteristically maintain that priorities between values (or, more accurately, sources of value) can be rationally discerned, and this is the chief feature that distinguishes them from forms of radical pluralism. As has been mentioned, such a theory of priorities, of a biocentric consequentialist kind, is offered and defended in the early chapters of, and particularly in chapter 6, of Attfield (1995).

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To what extent, then, is the criticism that monistic theories cannot do justice to the full range of our values applicable to biocentric consequentialism? This criticism would seem applicable to the kind of monistic theories that honour one value only (such as hedonism) and to corresponding forms of consequentialism (such as hedonistic utilitarianism). It could also be applicable to theories that, on one hand, recognize a plurality of values, but that persistently prioritize one of them; indeed, this is the basis of Carter’s objection to biocentric consequentialism, grounded in the claim that it prioritizes autonomy. But normative theories (consequentialist theories among them) that recognize a plurality of values (or, to use the phrase suggested earlier, sources of value) and give weight to the impacts of action or inaction according to the difference that they make to overall value and disvalue are not susceptible to this criticism. This is true, I suggest, even of anthropocentric varieties of consequentialism that honor both well-being and autonomy, or (like G.E. Moore’s normative theory) both friendship and experiences of beauty, and urge agents to weigh the difference to overall value made by impacts upon one or the other of these and make decisions accordingly, and for similar reasons it is true of biocentric consequentialism as well. To argue to the contrary, a critic would need to show that biocentric consequentialism fails to recognise or to give proper weight to one or another of our values; but no such failure has been shown (as I have attempted to explain in the previous sections of this chapter). Whether we designate theories such as biocentric consequentialism as monist or not is perhaps a matter of terminology. For they are pluralistic in recognizing a plurality of values (or sources of value), but monistic in holding that these values admit of rational comparisons and appraisals; and this is where they diverge from radical value pluralism. My own preference is to regard them as kinds of inclusive or sophisticated monism. Where Carter claims that Aristotle’s “phronimos,” or the person of “phronesis,” is implicitly making judgments against a background of incommensurable values (2005: 81), the sophisticated monist can claim with equal cogency that the “phronimos” makes judgments about which (sometimes) a plurality of values are at stake, but about which rational comparisons and appraisals are also achievable. Thus, sophisticated monism is capable of accounting for the phenomenon of moral judgment, and of particular instances of it being better or worse grounded. Just as importantly, it can cope with the full range of our values, and is thus immune from the objection that its monistic tendencies render it valuationally defective. Normative theorists do not need to resort to radical value-pluralism, and can better secure the rationality of moral judgment if they do not. Consequentialist theories are the most promising kind of theory in this connection, because through their appeal to value and disvalue they can account better for the role of what there is reason to want, and thus for reasons for action, than other theories. And it is the biocentric kinds of consequentialism that best reflect the full range of bearers of moral standing

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and relatedly of the multiple locations or of sources of intrinsic value. This is what makes biocentric consequentialism preferable among sophisticated monistic theories of ethics.

NOTES 1. Some significant passages of the current chapter appeared originally in Attfield (2003a); the author is grateful to Utilitas (journals.cambridge.org/uti) for permitting the use of this material. 2. Carter finds biocentric consequentialism to be most fully presented and defended in my earlier work (1995) and includes some of the themes of that work in his summary. 3. Carter at this point depicts biocentric consequentialism as “extremely impressive” (2001: 150). 4. Quoted in Carter (2001: 149–150). 5. Quoted in Carter (2001: 150). 6. This accounts for Carter’s choice of the phrase “Inegalitarian” in the title of his paper (Carter 2005). 7. For contrasting views on these matters (which cannot be discussed further here), see Thompson (1990: 147–60), O’Neill (1993: 19–25), and Cooper (1995: 137–148). 8. Problems for value pluralism are discussed in greater detail in Attfield (2005; 2013).

WORKS CITED Attfield, Robin. “Toward a Defence of Teleology.” Ethics 85.2 (1974–1975): 123–135. ———. “Racialism, Justice and Teleology.” Ethics 87.2 (1977): 186–188. ———. Value, Obligation, and Meta-Ethics. Amsterdam: Éditions Rodopi, 1995. ———. The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburgh, UK, and West LaFayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999. ———. “Biocentric Consequentialism, Pluralism and ‘The Minimax Implication’: A Reply to Alan Carter.” Utilitas 15.1 (2003a): 76–91. ———. Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twentieth-First Century. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003b. ———. “Biocentric Consequentialism and Value-Pluralism: A Response to Alan Carter.” Utilitas 17.1 (2005): 85–92. ———. “Beyond Anthropocentrism.” Philosophy and the Environment. Ed. Anthony O’Hear. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 29–46. ———. “Reconciling Individualist and Deeper Environmentalist Theories? An Exploration.” The Structural Links Between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle. Ed. Donato Bergandi. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 296. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2013. 127–139 Carter, Alan. “Moral Theory and Global Population.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. New Series XCIX (1998–1999): 289–313. ———. “Review of Robin Attfield, The Ethics of the Global Environment.” Mind 110.437 (2001): 149–153. ———. “Value-Pluralist Egalitarianism.” Journal of Philosophy 99.11 (2002): 577–599.

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———. “Inegalitarian Biocentric Consequentialism, the Minimax Implication, and Multidimensional Value Theory: A Brief Proposal for a New Direction in Environmental Ethics.” Utilitas 17.1 (2005): 62–84. Cooper, David E. “Other Species and Moral Reason.” Just Environments: Intergenerational, International and Interspecies Issues. Eds. David E. Cooper and Joy A. Palmer. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. 137–48. Driver, Julia. “Introduction.” Utilitas 13.2 (2001): 137–151. ———. Consequentialism. London: Routledge, 2012. Goodpaster, Kenneth. “On Being Morally Considerable.” Journal of Philosophy 75.6 (1978): 308–325. Mason, Elinor. “Consequentialism and the Principle of Indifference.” Utilitas 16.3 (2004): 316–321. O’Neill. John. Ecology, Policy and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural World. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. 19–25. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. ———. “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life.” Applied Ethics. Ed. Peter Singer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986. 145–164. Railton, Peter. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13.2 (1984): 134–171. Taylor, Paul. Respect for Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Thompson, Janna. “A Refutation of Environmental Ethics.” Environmental Ethics 12.2 (1990): 147–60. Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Utilitarianism: For and Against. Ed. J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 77–150. Wilson, Edward O. “The Little Things that Run the World.” Conservation Biology 1.4 (1987): 344–346.

3

System Consequentialism Avram Hiller

It should be indisputable that some forms of act consequentialism can allow that actions have noninstrumental goodness/badness, which I shall call axiological valence. For example, an act consequentialist may have a theory of the good according to which dancing is the only good and acts are right insofar as they promote the greatest amount of dancing. Such a dance consequentialist might at times be faced with a choice of how to act: Should I now work to build a community center at which dancing will occur, or should I just dance? The former promotes the good since its consequence is the future existence of goods whereas the latter promotes the good because the act itself is a good; the right answer will turn on which of the two acts has the highest overall (expected1) dance utility. For dance consequentialism, dancing is not always the right action even though dancing is always a good. The axiological valence of the act itself is just one of the values in the calculus. So it is possible to be an act consequentialist and believe that some acts have axiological valence.2 All that an act consequentialist must deny is that the rightness or wrongness of an act is independent of the value of the full range of the state or states of affairs that will ensue if the agent performs the act (relative to the values of the states of affairs that would be produced if the agent acts otherwise). This chapter gives reasons to believe that virtually all human acts are such that they have axiological valence. To conclusively prove that thesis would require a full theory of value; it is one thing to assume in a thought experiment that dancing has axiological valence but quite another to give adequate reasons why other human acts, both common and uncommon, are valenced.3 Thus, the main goal of this chapter is to set out the framework of an argument for the view that acts have axiological valence in the hope that the argument can be fleshed out more completely elsewhere. The approach in this chapter is somewhat circuitous. First, I argue against the view known as Mooreanism. Then I show how this anti-Moorean argument may lead to a deep puzzle for consequentialism. Next, I respond to the puzzle by claiming that consequentialists should make use of an account of the value of systems; I call the resulting view system consequentialism. Then, I generalize the argument to show how it applies to most or all human acts.

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The core assumptions used in the final step of the development of the view are taken from environmental ethics. There are two ways in which systems should play a role in consequentialist thinking. First, I assume, following Aldo Leopold (1980) and others, that systems on their own are valuable. Second, I claim that there are dependence relations between humans and the environment. I assume, following Holmes Rolston (1994) and J. Baird Callicott (1989, 1999), that humans are parts of biotic (and other) systems. So in arguing for system consequentialism, I am attempting to bring system-based environmental thinking into a consequentialist framework. 1.

A COUNTEREXAMPLE TO MOOREANISM

A common assumption in ethical theory is what is called Mooreanism: the view that the intrinsic value of an object or state of affairs supervenes on the object’s or the state of affairs’ intrinsic properties.4 According to Moore, we should employ the isolation test, whereby the value of the thing is determined based on its value when in isolation of everything else. The following is a counterexample to Mooreanism. Consider an athletic competition where an athlete has an opportunity to use a performanceenhancing substance in her training. Assume the following: (1) There is no specific rule prohibiting that particular performanceenhancing drug, but it is clear that taking such a drug is against the spirit of the competition. (The drug can cause harm to one who ingests it, no other competitor is using it, and similar drugs have perpetually been frowned on and subsequently banned.) (2) The way the drug works is that it makes training for the competition much easier; one who takes the drug will grow muscles much more quickly than one who doesn’t take the drug. However, by the time of the start of the competition, there is no trace of the drug left in the athlete’s body. (3) The athlete’s reason for competing is to enjoy the “thrill of victory,” and not because of the prize money or other future consequences of the victory. I take it as a given that, normally, the state of affairs of an athlete winning a competition (or the pleasure or the prize an athlete gets upon winning a competition) has positive intrinsic value. However, if the athlete has taken a performance-enhancing drug to win the competition, the intrinsic value of the victory is less than if the athlete had not taken the drug—even if all the intrinsic properties of the competition are the same. By a commonsensical assumption, if the athlete uses the drug, the means used to achieve the victory are inappropriate and the victory itself thereby is not a good. If we

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imagine two possible worlds, in one the athlete trains diligently to win and, in the other, the athlete trains much less diligently but inappropriately uses a drug to achieve the same victory (i.e., one in which the non-axiological intrinsic properties of the competition are the same), the victory in the former world is more of a good than the victory in the latter world. Because the intrinsic value of a victory is affected by what occurred prior to the victory, this is thus a counterexample to Mooreanism. 2. THE ANTI-MOOREAN PUZZLE FOR CONSEQUENTIALISM Since the reason why the victory is not good seems to be that using the drug is an inappropriate way to train for the competition, the lesson of this example is that in certain cases, an end which is normally a good end may not be a good end if the means used to achieve the end are inappropriate. But if so, there is a deep puzzle for consequentialism. According to standard forms of consequentialism, the appropriateness of a means to an end depends only on the value of the end (relative to other available ends), and so the value of an end must be independent of any prior assessment of the appropriateness of the means. But this is precisely what one cannot do, if the preceding antiMoorean argument is correct—the value of the end (the victory) depends on whether the means (taking the drug/training hard) are appropriate. If this is the case, then consequentialists’ analysis of appropriateness is ungrounded. This is a significant puzzle for any standard consequentialist who agrees with the intuitions in the athlete case. However, I’d like to argue that there is a way around the puzzle that is consistent with consequentialism. To see this, I suggest viewing the situation from the perspective of the athlete herself. How should she decide whether to use a drug? I propose as follows: I want to win the competition, and taking the drug will help me do so. However: (A1) [First-order axiological premise:] If I take the drug in order to win, it will undermine the goodness of the competition. (A2) [Metaphysical premise about the relation between victories and competitions:] A victory in the competition is only intelligible in regard to the whole competition (i.e., victories don’t stand apart, metaphysically, from the competitions in which they occur). (A3) [Main axiological premise:] Since a victory in the competition is only intelligible in terms of the competition, if the goodness of the competition is undermined, the goodness of the victory is undermined. (A4) Thus, if I take the drug, the goodness of the victory will be undermined. (A5) [Conclusion:] Since I only entered the competition to enjoy the goodness of the victory, I shouldn’t take the drug since doing so would not allow for the victory to be any good.

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This argument does not involve any prior analysis of whether the means to achieve the end are inappropriate, as the premises of the argument are phrased purely in axiological terms and not in terms of right and wrong. In this way, the consequentialist can solve the anti-Moorean puzzle. We don’t need an antecedent account of appropriateness of means in order to determine whether an end is a good end; rather, we need an antecedent account of the value of the broader systems of which ends and means are parts. However, this immediately puts the strain on premise (A1). My argument thus far does not establish much for the consequentialist, since it now requires us to account for why two possible competitions, rather than simply victories, can be better or worse even when their other intrinsic properties are the same. And it seems like a non-consequentialist will have a good explanation that is seemingly unavailable to the consequentialist: the competition is corrupted simply because, prior to the competition, the athlete acted inappropriately in training for the competition. Taking a drug to win a competition is unfair to the other athletes, and thus is wrong, and the wrongness of the act taints the whole competition. So the consequentialist needs to show that the reason why the competition itself becomes corrupted is not because of the antecedent wrongness of taking the drug. However, such an account is indeed available. Consider the following modification of the case. Instead of the athlete facing a choice in taking the drug, let’s assume that the she has unknowingly ingested the drug due to its accidental presence in some food she has eaten. Everything else about the case is the same: the athlete wins the competition due to the drug, and not because of exceptionally rigorous training. Had she not ingested the drug, she would not have won. But there is another possible world in which the athlete did not ingest the drug but did train much harder and won the competition in an identical manner. It seems that the competition in that other possible world is a better competition than the competition in the given world. This example exhibits the same properties as the original example even though the athlete has not done anything wrong; we should still regard the competition as tainted despite no wrongdoing. We do have an intuitive understanding of the goodness of competitions in which the goodness of a competition varies in accord with its adherence to a principle of “may the best athlete win.”5 Competitions won not by the best and best-trained athlete but by an athlete who ingests drugs are not as good as are competitions in which the winner wins by training hard. And this is the case regardless of whether the athlete intentionally takes drugs or not. My main claim is the following: as long as one can give an antecedent account of the value of systems, cases similar to those that inspire the antiMoorean puzzle will not undermine consequentialism. In this way, consequentialists can account for intuitions that different means may lead to intrinsically identical ends (i.e., ends that have the same intrinsic nonaxiological properties) that have different intrinsic value.

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What is a system? For the purposes of this paper, a system is defined as a whole which has, as parts, interacting individuals which are tokens of types which have a necessary connection to each other. Two further refinements are needed. First, the generality of types must be restricted, since any two physical objects are tokens of the type physical object, and of course, types are necessarily related to themselves. Second, the way in which the token individuals interact must be an instance of the necessary connection between the types and not merely an accidental connection. Admittedly, this definition of system is vague; more first-order theorizing, beyond the scope of this chapter, must go into specifying the limits of the type-generality. Still, to give one illustration, consider the giant panda, a species that evolved to eat a certain kind of bamboo; bamboo composes 99% of the panda’s diet (Lumpkin and Seidensticker 2007). Furthermore, the panda has shaped the evolution of bamboo. Thus when the panda eats bamboo, there is a properly functioning system between them. A panda in confinement who gets sustenance from other types of food (say, from consuming trash left by people) may be said to lead a lesser life even if that food satisfies the panda’s nutritional needs.6 I shall say more about systems later. In the preceding example, I assume that the athlete wants to win the competition for the pure end of enjoying the victory. But what if, instead, the athlete has a goal of winning prize money to support a luxury vacation? Taking a performance-enhancing drug to win the prize money from a competition to promote that goal would still be wrong, of course, but there is a difference in the rationality behind it when compared to the original case. The previous idea is that it is self-defeating to take a drug to win a competition when one’s goal is the pure enjoyment of victory. But there seems to be nothing self-defeating about using illicit means to earn money to go on a vacation. The best explanation of why this is so is that there is no necessary systemic connection between the end of going on a luxury vacation and the means of using a drug to win a competition. Thus, the value of the vacation would not be compromised in the way that the value of the pure end of winning the competition is compromised were the athlete to use a drug to win. If this is correct, then it is not simply the inappropriateness of a means to an end that spoils the value of the end (as perhaps a deontologist would hold); rather, it is only when a means is inappropriate in a way relevant to a means-end system that the value of the end is spoiled. I take this as some evidence favoring the system-based view I advocate over a deontological explanation of the case. The account given here concerning the axiological valence of actions is different from the example with which I began, that of dancing. In the original example, dancing is an act with intrinsic value. My claim in this section is that taking a drug has a different axiological valence than diligent training, but the differing axiological valences are not necessarily based on their intrinsic values. The difference in axiological valence is due to the way in which the two acts are parts of different systems that have different intrinsic values. The upshot is that a consequentialist may claim that one act is right

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and the other is wrong due not to any differences in the non-axiological properties of the future ends that the two acts produce but because of how the acts themselves are relevant in determining the total value of the ensuing state of affairs. In that way, the athlete example is similar to the dancing example. There are two prominent views that employ considerations similar to the ones just discussed. G.E. Moore famously believes in the principle of organic unities: the intrinsic value of a thing is not reducible to the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts.7 A Moorean may say that the value of the organic unity of the competition is less than the value of its parts when the competition is corrupted due to drug use. However, the view presented here is doubly anti-Moorean. First, as earlier, I reject the view known as Mooreanism about intrinsic value. But it also rejects the principle of organic unities. In these types of cases, the total value of the state of affairs can still be determined by adding the values of the components; it is merely that the components’ intrinsic values are not determined purely based on their intrinsic properties. This view has the benefit of preserving a highly intuitive principle of value-addition which Mooreans are forced to deny. It also preserves the intuition that the victory in the athlete case really is not a good. I will say more about organic unities below. Another view that grapples with similar types of cases is particularism, as expressed by Jonathan Dancy.8 On Dancy’s view, intrinsic value is nonMoorean and can vary depending on extrinsic factors. However, Dancy goes much further in claiming that all cases are like this. Although I do not wish to argue either for or against particularism here, it should suffice that the present view need not be committed to the bold thesis of particularism. It can, for example, still maintain that even though there is no general principle that indicates the intrinsic value of a victory when decontextualized, there are still general principles that determine the intrinsic value of victories when contextualized. We may still say, for example, that drug-fueled victories are not good even if we cannot say whether a victory, considered on its own, is good.

3.

SYSTEMICISM AND SYSTEM CONSEQUENTIALISM

In this section, I provide an argument for the view that most or all cases of human action are similar to the case of the athletic competition in that the goodness of human ends depends (at least to some extent) on the goodness of the broad system of which the end is a part. I call this claim the systemic dependency thesis, or systemicism for short. To see the reasons for holding systemicism, consider a generalized version of the reasoning I proposed earlier that the athlete employ: (G1) I may wish to do action A because A is a way to produce end E and E is (normally) good. (G2) However, doing A to achieve E corrupts system S.

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(G3) E depends essentially on S. (G4) For any x and y where x depends essentially on y, if y is corrupted, so is x. (G5) Thus (from [G3] and [G4]) if S is corrupted, E is corrupted, too. (G6) Thus (from [G2] and [G5]) doing A to achieve E corrupts E. (G7) Thus, my reason for doing A may be undermined, since the only reason I have for doing it is that it promotes E, which was supposed to be a good but in this case would be corrupted. In other words, when one has an end in mind and a means to promote the end, one should make sure that using such means doesn’t create a corrupt system that undermines the reasons for pursuing the end in the first place. The systemicist idea is that if one harms one’s environment or to other people to promote one’s ends, one thereby undermines the proper connection one has to the environment or other people. Humans are necessarily dependent on the environment and other people and thus form a system. This dependency is not a mere physical dependency—people can physically live in isolation from others (although it is impossible for a human to live in complete isolation from air and food). Rather, given that people are evolved and embodied organisms, it is a necessary part of human nature we are connected to other people and to nature. So people’s ends can only be understood as parts of that system. Here is the formal argument for systemicism: (S1) [Metaphysical premise about human nature, instantiating (G3):] We are evolved, embodied, social beings essentially connected to other people and to the natural world. At least most if not all of our interactions with the natural world and with other people occur in the context of participating in a system. We, and a fortiori our ends, can only be understood as parts of the system. (S2) [Main axiological premise, as in (G4):] When an end cannot be understood except as part of a larger system, and is essentially part of it, the goodness of the end depends on the goodness of the system. (S3) [Premise about better and worse systems, as in (G2):] There are better and worse human/human and human/nature systems, depending on the ways humans use other humans or the natural world to promote ends. Some ways in which humans use other humans or nature corrupts the system between them. (S4) [Conclusion:] There are better and worse human ends depending on the goodness of the systems of which the ends are parts. If this reasoning is sound, then there will likely be pairs of actions whereby, even on act-consequentialist grounds, one is right and another is wrong even though the intrinsic, non-axiological properties of the ends they produce are identical. It does not follow that the value of an end will always be negative

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if there is a problem with the system; I am only arguing for the weaker point that two ends that are parts of different systems may have different intrinsic values even if the ends are intrinsically identical. The view that results from combining systemicism with a broad consequentialist framework is what I call system consequentialism. Like ordinary consequentialism, it is the view that an act is right insofar as the state of affairs that ensues from it is the best state of affairs. But the system consequentialist adds the proviso: the action itself may be part of a system whose value may depend on the nature of the action itself, and thus, the utility of the end of the action is not independent of the action. Thus, whether an action produces the best state of affairs cannot be determined independent of consideration of the nature of the action itself. A second way in which system consequentialism differs from previous forms of consequentialism is that it accepts that ecosystems that are almost entirely independent of humans (and potentially even independent of all sentient beings) are valuable and thus are to be included in the calculus for determining right actions. However, I do not explore this facet of system consequentialism in detail in this chapter, except to note that the systemicist view holds that systems have value, and thus, it follows immediately that a system consequentialist agent should promote, or at least not reduce, systemic good, even for systems in which the agent is not a member.

4.

HOLISM IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Although mainstream ethical theory has little or nothing to say about systems, my focus on systems is a familiar one within environmental ethics. Aldo Leopold (1980), Arne Naess (1989, 1995, 1995), Holmes Rolston (1994), J. Baird Callicott (1989, 1999), and Freya Mathews (1991), among others, argue for moral considerability of ecological systems or wholes, though they each have different conceptions of what a system is and different reasons for valuing systems. Despite the fact that the initial statement of Leopold’s famous “Land Ethic” is seemingly made in consequentialist terms,9 within environmental ethics, the move from a traditional utilitarian perspective to a holist perspective has been accompanied by an abandonment of consequentialism more generally; none of the authors mentioned develop a holistic ethic in the context of consequentialist theory. One of the goals of this chapter is to show that one need not abandon consequentialist normative theory while at the same time maintaining a holistic environmental ethical orientation. Although my main goal for this paper is just to provide the framework of the systemicist argument and not to give a full defense of its premises, I should say some things to demonstrate their plausibility. A defense of premise (S1) would require a lengthy discussion of the metaphysics of personhood, and I do not wish to become bogged down in such an effort here. Rather than

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arguing for it directly, I’d like to suggest that the fact that it is not generally accepted may be due to certain outdated aspects of the history of ethical theory. Utilitarianism originated at a time when metaphysical individualism— either in a Cartesian dualist or in a Hobbesian materialist form—was prevalent.10 However, after Darwin, we now view humans as being non-accidentally connected to each other and, notably, to the non-human world. Indeed, the revolutions in environmental thinking over the last fifty years have led to a more holistic account of human nature and human ecology.11 The metaphysical view this chapter presupposes is not nearly as extreme as a deep ecological view according to which humans are literally one with the rest of the world.12 Rather, the view here is just a denial of what is called Hume’s Dictum, the view that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences.13 Contrary to the deep ecological framework, there are distinct individuals, yet, contrary to thoroughgoing individualism, there are essentiality conditions for individuals that depend on properties external to the individuals.14 Utilitarianism has been famously been said to suffer from a failure to respect the separateness of persons.15 In perhaps an ironic twist, my claim is that the problem with classical utilitarianism is not that it fails to respect the separateness of persons, but that it fails to respect the non-separateness of persons, for it operates with an outdated, overly individualist conception of the human person and the human good. One hope underlying this chapter is that non-consequentialists who believe that utilitarians have an overly simplistic conception of the good will be amenable to the systemicist account and, if so, will not be so tempted to reject consequentialism as a whole. As I note in the following, adding considerations of systems may help consequentialists respond to certain thought experiments that have long led people to prefer deontology. My approach in supporting (S2) and (S3) is to point out that most cases of human activities are relevantly similar to the athletic competition. It is not obvious that they are. For one might argue that the only reason why an athletic competition has a telos is that people have given it one; and we have constructed the telos such that it may be undermined by competitors behaving in certain ways. However, for systems involving regular human actions, there is no constructed telos (and no non-constructed telos) and thus no general standards of better and worse systems. The problem with this is that it leaves us with the mystery of why we create athletic competitions in the first place and instill them with a telos. There is a (normatively) good reason: we have athletic competitions because we have a larger conception of human good—a conception that includes human excellence and, for many competitions, teamwork and cooperation (Simon, 2003: chap. 2). This is why we have a “may the best person/team win” view of competitions. Athletic competitions are simply instances of human interaction in which people work together (in a sense of togetherness that includes people functioning as adversarial competitors) to achieve broader

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human excellence. So, rather than the athletic example being a special case, or being a mere illustrative analogy, it is in fact an instance of the exact general phenomenon for which I am trying to argue. One who accepts the intuitions in the preceding athlete case likely already operates under a view of the human good, which is represented by (S2) and (S3). However, this admittedly is not a full defense of the teleology implicit in the systemicist metaphysics; one may wish to regard the conclusion of this chapter as conditional on (S2) and (S3). Nevertheless, upholding systemic value is common in environmental ethics—Rolston (1994) and McShane (2004) provide further defenses.

5.

SOME EXAMPLES OF SYSTEMICISM

In this section, I give some examples that illustrate the systemicist view. First, it has been claimed that consequentialists cannot account for the full reasons for keeping a promise (Ross 1930: 34–35). It is supposed that the only reason under consequentialism for why a person should keep a promise is if doing so has the best future consequences; that a person has made a promise provides no reason, in itself, for her to abide by it. One thing to note is that it seems that there will always be cases in which one ought to break a promise—for example, when maintaining a promise would lead someone to be unable to prevent something extremely bad from happening. Thus, the issue of promising may be no more troubling for a standard consequentialist than for a deontologist.16 Although the standard consequentialist gives no respect for the sanctity of the promise, the deontologist, on the other hand, needs some principled ground to account for the cases when one ought to break one’s promise. However, the system consequentialist provides a middle ground position which shows why there is some negative axiological valence in breaking a promise while allowing that, in some cases, the negative valence may be outweighed by some other good. When a person makes a promise to another, they create a system. If the promisor breaks the promise, the system becomes corrupted, and there is a loss in axiological valence. Even if the promise breaker’s ends are otherwise equal to the ends for which the promise is made, the fact that the ends are accomplished by a broken promise make the goodness of that end less than if the end were accomplished through maintaining a promise (or through not having made a promise in the first place). Another example is of a commercial product that is produced by slave labor. The enjoyment that a consumer gets from it is, on the present view, less of a good than the same level of enjoyment a consumer gets from an intrinsically identical item without the inappropriate origin. This is true even if the two consumers in question are fully unaware of the origins of the items. Some consumer items, such as wood products, are made from unsustainable tree-harvesting practices, which often involve clear-cutting forests. Other

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wood products are produced using more sustainable tree-farming practices that better respect the forest and the animals living in the forest. As with the slave labor example, the enjoyment that a consumer gets from a wood product from the former type of production is, on the present view, less of a good than the enjoyment a consumer gets from an intrinsically identical item whose origins are from the latter type of production. Again, this is true even if the two consumers in question are unaware of the origins of the items. Many farm products are produced using methods of industrial agriculture that are very far removed from traditional means of food production and that serve to sever the close connection individuals once had to the sources of their food. On the present view, the enjoyment and nourishment a person gets from eating vegetables farmed seasonally in a local garden is a greater intrinsic good than the identical nourishment and enjoyment a person gets from eating mass-produced vegetables produced out of season and shipped across the world to the consumer. There are also concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. In a CAFO, animals are raised for slaughter in ways that cause tremendous suffering and fail to respect their natural tendencies. The systemicist claim is that the enjoyment a person gets from eating meat produced by a CAFO is less of a good than is the enjoyment a person gets from eating otherwise identical meat that was killed through subsistence hunting. The latter is, arguably, a better system than the former. These are just a few examples of how systemicism may be applied. In all of the examples, there are already good reasons not to support the worse practice—all else being equal, one should refrain from purchasing products whose production harms people, animals, or ecosystems. My point here is that systemicism gives a further reason why these types of products are to be avoided. 6.

OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES

To further explicate the system consequentialist view, I consider a number of objections and replies as follows: O1. The systemicist account says that two qualitatively identical human experiences may have different values. But this is implausible. R1. Many people already believe that there are goods outside of felt experience. Aristotle argues that how good one’s life is can be affected by things that occur after death (Nicomachean Ethics: 1101b5–9). Robert Nozick’s (1974: 42–45) experience machine example is also a famous (though controversial) argument for this point. One of the upshots of this chapter is that these two points, which might easily be taken to be anti-consequentialist, are in fact consistent with consequentialism.

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O2. Claims about better and worse systems (such as those made in this chapter) are ad hoc and are based more in subjective judgments made by contingently placed individuals than on any objective facts. R2. It is true that the notion of a system used in this paper requires considerable further development. It is also true that the preceding judgments about better and worse systems must be defended in much more detail than I have provided. However, the system consequentialist may make use of insights from environmental philosophers I mentioned earlier, as well as ecologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, about the nature and value of systems. O3. How broadly should we construe systems? An organic farm requires the sun, the solar system is part of the Milky Way, and so on. Do Earthly systems go all the way back to the Big Bang? R3. There are many different levels of analysis of systems. While it is true, for example, that most every system on Earth depends on sunlight, and the sun is connected to the rest of the universe, and so on, this is not a reductio of systemicism. We can appreciate the ways in which life on Earth is a small piece of the universe while at the same time still valuing Earthly systems. Also, given that we are at least at present unable to have significant effects outside our solar system, the value of the extra-solar world should have virtually no effect on the deliberative process. O4. How do we calculate the goods of systems in relation to the individual goods that are parts of the systems? In particular, we should not double count. That is to say that, in doing our utility calculations, we should not count both the good of an end as well as the good of the system of which the end is a part.17 But how else can we account for the good of both the system and of the individuals within the system? R4. A proper view of this issue demonstrates the benefit of the doubly anti-Moorean position in this chapter, as this objection is more troublesome for a Moorean view. The Moorean has to answer first why an organic unity has the value that it has, contrary to an intuitive principle that the value of any combination of things is simply the sum of the values of the things. Second, the Moorean must claim that it is the value of the organic unity and not the individual things within the unit that counts. But then in what way can the individual things be said to have value at all? In the system consequentialist view, the value of any system is simply the sum of its parts. There is no concern that there will be double counting; by counting the goodness of the system just once we are at the same time counting the goodness of its parts. But this is not to say that the value of the system is determined solely by analyzing the value of its parts; my argument has been that parts have the specific values that they have

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Avram Hiller due in part to the roles they play in systems. The determination of the values of all the parts is simply made holistically with regard to the system.

O5. System consequentialism will lead to “environmental fascism.”18 It will advocate sacrificing individuals for what it takes to be the greater good. R5. First, I should note that objections of this sort are commonly made against consequentialism; the system consequentialist view is not unique in facing it. Furthermore, I should make clear that although this paper has emphasized the value of systems, it still upholds the view that individuals have intrinsic value. In fact, it is consistent with there being a large plurality of values. To say that biotic systems are good does not entail that typical human pleasures are not good at all, even if they are caused by and are part of an unnatural system. Since there are many different kinds of goods,19 the systemicist need not hold that that our current technologized lives are all things considered bad. And the system consequentialist will most likely reject actions that cause great harm to individual humans or to other sentient beings, since that would most likely cause a large amount of negative value. Furthermore, unlike Deep Ecology (Naess 1995: 4), the systemicist is not committed to an egalitarianism among the values of all living things and systems. 7.

CONCLUSION

There are four points I’d like to make in conclusion. First, system consequentialism is a rather hopeful and positive view to adopt. As I note earlier, Aristotle claims that our lives can be made better by events that occur after our deaths. He had in mind projects that succeed after the originator of the project has died. In the systemicist view, given that we are essentially connected to the natural world, the ways in which our lives can be made better after our deaths are many. Although there is a significant amount of environmental destruction that is taking place, there is still reason to believe that over the very long term, the natural world will continue to thrive at least in some ways. If systemicism is correct, this thriving means that our own quite limited lives are made better—much better—in virtue of being connected to the wider world.20 Second, it should go without saying, but systemicism runs quite contrary to ethical anthropocentrism. One of the main themes of this chapter is that what is best for a person depends on the connection the person has to good systems external to the person. Anthropocentrism cannot be true on this account because one cannot make sense of the good of any individual without having some prior conception of the good of the environment in

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which the person lives and acts. If we are ethical egoists, we must thereby be environmentalists if systemicism is correct.21 Third, system consequentialism may be used to resolve certain puzzles facing standard consequentialism. As I argue earlier, the system consequentialist may be able to account for the special obligation to maintain promises. More generally, system consequentialism may allow for a morally significant doing/allowing distinction. A human action that leads to an outcome is a different event than if the same outcome occurred without a human action, because a system in which one acts is different from a system in which one fails to act, even if the outcome is the same. Thus, the appropriateness of the action may differ from the appropriateness of the inaction. More needs to be said to flesh this idea out, but it is a potentially promising path. Fourth, system consequentialism may help resolve Derek Parfit’s (1984: Part IV) repugnant conclusion, the claim that for any amount of highly satisfied, flourishing people, there is some larger number of barely worth living lives that, together, would be better to have. The system consequentialist may claim that the kind of repugnant distribution of lives envisioned by Parfit would be a bad system.22 In sum, this chapter has introduced a substantially new and promising normative theory, system consequentialism. The view accords with certain judgments within environmental ethics and can build on the long-standing consequentialist tradition. Of course, much work remains to be done in explicating and defending the view; my hope for this paper has simply been to lay the groundwork for its development.23 NOTES 1. In this chapter, I do not take a position as to whether consequentialists should focus on expected utility or actual utility. Additionally, I will often omit the act prefix from act consequentialism; still, all instances of “consequentialism” in this chapter denote act consequentialism. Furthermore, I only consider an agent-neutral, maximizing form of consequentialism. However, those who accept alternative forms of consequentialism may still accept the argument presented. 2. Bernard Williams makes this point in (1973: 84–85). 3. See Hooker (2005) for this concern about consequentialist views which accept that acts have axiological valence. 4. See G.E. Moore (1959: chap. 1). I should note that here, and throughout the paper, I use the notion of intrinsic value in the way that Christine Korsgaard (1983) uses the notion of final value—value as an end. If intrinsic value simply meant value that is (locally) supervenient on intrinsic properties, then Mooreanism would be true by definition and would not be a substantive view. I should also note that Shelly Kagan (1998) argues against Mooreanism. For reasons outside the scope of this chapter, I reject most of Kagan’s examples. Nevertheless, even if they do work, they do not have the substantive ramifications that my own example has. 5. See Robert Simon (2003: chap. 2) for a similar account. 6. See Mathews (1991: 124) for a similar point.

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7. See Moore (1959: 27–31). 8. For discussion relevant to theses points, see Dancy (2003). 9. “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold 1980: 262). 10. There is a long tradition in environmental ethics to specifically reject the Cartesian approach of placing what is essential to a person outside the natural environment; to my knowledge Schweitzer (2008 [1923]) was the first. 11. See Mathews (1991: chap. 1) for a deeper analysis of the history of individualism, though I do not accept all aspects of her account. 12. See Naess (1989) and Alrøe and Kristensen (2003). 13. See Wilson (2010). However, Wilson adds a restriction on the definition of Hume’s Dictum, such that it only applies to what she calls “intrinsically typed” objects. Whether the metaphysical view of persons espoused in (S1) violates the letter of Hume’s Dictum is not of import here; what matters is the metaphysics. 14. I argue for this metaphysical position in more detail in Hiller (2013). 15. As argued by Rawls (1971: 27). However, I am sympathetic with Alastair Norcross’s (2008) rejection of the “separateness of persons” argument. 16. A similar point is made in defense of consequentialism in Pettit (1997: 152). 17. See Robin Attfield (1999: 40) for this concern. 18. Tom Regan (1983: 361–362) makes this objection against Leopold’s land ethic. 19. See Carter (2011, this volume) for a defense of a multidimensional axiology which differs from the present view but which could be used in defense of systemicism from the charge of environmental fascism. 20. The view in this paragraph is analogous to that in Naess (1995 [1987]: 25–28). 21. This too is shared with the deep ecological view as in Naess (1995 [1987]). 22. See Carter (this volume) for a somewhat related solution to the repugnant conclusion. 23. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at Lewis and Clark College, the 2010 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, and the 2009 Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, and I wish to thank audiences on all three occasions as well as Arthur Ward, my commentator at the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress. Thanks also to Ramona Ilea for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

WORKS CITED Alrøe, Hugo Fjelsted and Erik Steen Kristensen. “Toward a Systemic Ethic: In Search of an Ethical Basis for Sustainability and Precaution.” Environmental Ethics 25.1 (2003): 59–78. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Attfield, Robin. The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburg, UK, and West LaFayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999. Callicott, J. Baird. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989. ———. Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999. Carter, Alan. “Towards a Multidimensional, Environmentalist Ethic.” Environmental Values 20 (2011): 347–374. Dancy, Jonathan. “Are There Organic Unities?” Ethics 113 (2003): 629–650.

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Hiller, Avram. “Object-Dependence.” Essays in Philosophy 14.1 (2013): 33–55. Hooker, Brad. “Consequentialism.” Oxford Companion to Philosophy. 2nd edition. Ed. Ted Honderich. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Kagan, Shelly. “Rethinking Intrinsic Value.” The Journal of Ethics 2 (1998): 277–297. Korsgaard, Christine. “Two Distinctions in Goodness.” The Philosophical Review 92.2 (1983): 169–195. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980. Lumpkin, Susan, and John Seidensticker. Giant Pandas. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Mathews, Freya. The Ecological Self. London: Routledge, 1991. McShane, Katie. “Ecosystem Health.” Environmental Ethics 26 (2004): 227–245. Moore, G.E. Principia Ethica. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1959. Naess, Arne. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Trans. David Rothenberg, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ———. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary.” The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology. Eds. Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995. 3–9. ———. “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World.” The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology. Eds. Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995. 13–30. Norcross, Alastair. “Two Dogmas of Deontology: Aggregation, Rights, and the Separateness of Persons.” Social Philosophy and Policy 26.1 (2009): 76–95. Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1984. Pettit, Philip. “The Consequentialist Perspective.” Three Methods of Ethics. Eds. Marcia Baron, Philip Pettit, and Michael Slote. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997. 92–174. Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983. Rolston, Holmes. “Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World.” Reflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental Philosophy. Eds. Lori Gruen and Dale Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 65–84. Ross, W. D. The Right and the Good. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1930. Schweitzer, Albert. “Reverence for Life.” Environmental Ethics. 5th edition. Eds. Pojman and Pojman. Belmont: Cengage, 2008. 131–138. Simon, Robert. Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport. 2nd edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003. Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Utilitarianism: For and Against. Eds. J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 77–150. Wilson, Jessica. “What Is Hume’s Dictum, and Why Believe It?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80.3 (2010): 595–637.

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Indirect, Multidimensional Consequentialism Alan Carter

1. Consequentialist normative theories once dominated moral philosophy and once provided the often-unquestioned background to debates within the domain of public policy. Today, however, consequentialism seems to be in full retreat. But the fundamental reason for its relative demise may be less to do with any inherent flaw within consequentialism per se and more to do with the one-dimensional axiologies at the heart of popular versions of consequentialism. Hence, if consequentialism is to regain its formerly ascendant position, then it may well require a far richer axiology. Now, there can be little doubt that John Stuart Mill bequeathed to the world the most famous version of consequentialism. But there is reason to think that his normative theory is both more complex and more interesting than is generally realized. And, as others have pointed out,1 the key to understanding his theory may well in lie in book VI, chapter XII of his A System of Logic, where he insists that “the imperative mood is the characteristic of art, as distinguished from science. Whatever speaks in rules or precepts, not in assertions respecting matters of fact, is art, and ethics or morality is properly a portion of the art corresponding to the sciences of human nature and society” (CW VIII: 943).2 This dense passage has proven to be a goldmine for those seeking to revise and improve our understanding of Mill. One striking feature of Mill’s utilitarianism that this passage and the rest of the last chapter of the last book of his System of Logic seems to reveal is that morality is only a portion of what he calls “the Art of Life” (CW VIII: 949). This portion corresponds to a particular science, which for Mill was “ethology” (the science of how people are socialized). And it goes without saying that limitations on the ability to socialize individuals will have a bearing on what a workable morality will realistically demand of them. Not surprisingly, then, Mill had hoped to make greater headway in, what he took to be, the crucial empirical science of ethology than he succeeded in attaining. But what is this Art of Life to which he refers? For Mill, it is that “body of doctrine” comprising three “departments,” which consist of “Morality,

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Table 4.1 The Principle of Utility serves as the First Principle of The Art of Life (which deals in rules or precepts)

{

Aesthetics Prudence or Policy Morality (which is obligatory, for infractions of its rules are liable to incur punishment)

{

corresponds to a particular science— ethology (which provides the relevant empirical information)

Prudence or Policy, and Aesthetics.” Or put in other terms, the Art of Life comprises “the Right, the Expedient, and the Beautiful or Noble, in human conduct and works” (CW VIII: 949). Moreover, art, as Mill has informed us, “speaks in rules or precepts,” which appears to imply that all of the Art of Life is rule or precept governed, and, he adds, “the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient beings: in other words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate principle of Teleology” (CW VIII: 951). The principle of utility, then, applies not merely to one department—morality—as we might have expected; rather, it applies to the whole of the Art of Life.3 (See Table 4.1.) But this leads to what is perhaps the most striking feature of Mill’s normative theory, as apparently revealed by his System of Logic: for, as Alan Ryan and John Gray have both noticed, all of this seems to entail that, for Mill, the greatest happiness principle is not a moral principle, contrary to what is popularly assumed. Why can the principle of utility not be a moral principle? Because, as it governs the whole of the Art of Life, all three of its departments would fall within the bounds of morality if the greatest happiness principle were a moral principle. But Mill is explicit in claiming that morality is only a portion of the Art of Life. Hence, the principle of utility cannot be a moral principle. What, then, are moral principles? According to Mill, moral rules or precepts, unlike the rules that apply to policy or aesthetics, are distinctive in being obligatory: in short, one is liable to face certain forms of sanction if one does not abide by them. As he writes in his famous essay “Utilitarianism,” We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This seems the real turning point of the distinction between morality and simple expediency. It is a part of the notion of Duty in every one of its forms, that a person may rightfully be compelled to fulfill it. Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a person, as one exacts a debt. Unless we think that it may be exacted from him, we do not call it his duty. (CW X: 246)

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So, actions that are morally wrong render one liable to certain forms of sanction. But breaking prudential or aesthetic rules does not have this implication. Yet they, too, are governed by the principle of utility. And as surprising as this will no doubt appear to those who are only familiar with traditional interpretations of utilitarianism, what all of this seems to imply is that the failure to maximize utility is not always morally wrong. To make this clearer, consider the following example: if a composer, for example, were to spoil her musical composition by breaking an aesthetic rule, say a rule of harmony, she would thereby have failed to maximize utility, for in breaking that rule she would have composed a piece of music that gave everyone far less pleasure than they would have enjoyed had that rule not been infringed. But a composer is not morally required to adhere to the rules governing aesthetics. She is, however, obliged to obey moral rules. Now, it is true that our admiration for a composer may diminish if she keeps breaking aesthetic rules, and she might feel shame in having damaged her reputation within the world of music. But she would not be blamed for violating an aesthetic rule, and nor would we expect her to feel guilt for so doing. But if she breaks a moral rule, instead, then we would expect her to feel guilt, and she would be blamed for infringing on it. What is the explanation for this key difference between morality and the other two departments of the Art of Life? The answer is to be found in the importance of obedience to moral rules for the advancement of utility. Deterring violations of certain rules—such as the rule against killing innocent persons—can be argued to be expedient for increasing the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Moreover, it is widely assumed that violations can be deterred by the threat of punishment, even if the punishment for breaking a rule is only the reproaches of one’s own conscience. So, it can be argued that the greatest happiness is advanced by the threat of punishment for violations of certain rules. But the greatest happiness is not advanced by the threat of punishment for violations of aesthetic or prudential rules. It is for this reason that only moral rules are obligatory, while aesthetic and prudential rules are not. In other words, as Gray explains, “[t]hat an act is maximally expedient is not, according to Mill, sufficient to show that it would be morally right or obligatory to do it: it must also be true that it is maximally expedient to punish that act’s non-performance” (1996: 28). And recall that an action is morally wrong only if that action is liable to incur some form of punishment. This is why it is not always immoral to fail to maximize utility. Composers do not act immorally simply by failing to produce the best piece of music they are capable of composing, even though their failing to do so deprives the world of great enjoyment. And this is because utility is not maximized by inculcating within composers a tendency to feel guilty whenever they break aesthetic rules. Nor is utility maximized by making composers liable to be blamed or to receive other forms of punishment whenever they violate an aesthetic rule. There are rewards enough for those successful within the arts

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to spur on composers to write sublime music. And in any case, composing music offers its own intrinsic delights. But as obedience to moral rules is far more important for the maximization of utility than is obedience to aesthetic rules, other means are often deemed necessary to ensure their compliance. Clearly, we will not make the world a happier place if all composers live in fear of their failing to produce the perfect symphony, say. But it can be argued that the world will be a happier place if potential murderers, for example, so fear the consequences of committing murders that they refrain from murderous acts. So, we deter potential murderers with the threat of punishment. When one breaks a rule that is such that breaking that rule makes one liable to incur some form of punishment one acts immorally. Thus, acts of murder are immoral, while producing a flawed symphony is not, even though there would be more happiness in the world if the musical composition had been less flawed, and thus capable of giving more pleasure to its listeners. Consequently, as Gray summarizes, “[n]ot its maximal expediency alone, but only its maximal expediency plus the maximal expediency of making the failure to do it punishable shows an act to be morally right” (1996: 29). But if the greatest happiness principle is not actually a moral principle, for we are not always liable to be punished whenever we fail to act in conformity with it, then what, precisely, is it? Rather than being a principle of right action, which is how it is usually construed, it is, instead, a principle of general evaluation. In other words, the greatest happiness principle is not a deontic principle, for it does not tell us what to do;4 rather, it is an axiological principle: it only tells us what is good.5 Consequently, as Gray observes, “[b]ecause utility does not of itself impose moral requirements upon action, it is mistaken to think that a man must do wrong when he fails to maximize it” (1996: 27). Now, while Gray maintains that Mill is therefore an indirect utilitarian, he denies that Mill is a rule utilitarian (1996: 28–41). Mill is an indirect utilitarian because the direct pursuit of happiness is self-defeating, in his view. However, because morality is a portion of the Art of Life, and because the Art of Life “speaks in rules or precepts,” then it seems mistaken to think that Mill is not, at the very least, some kind of rule utilitarian. In fact, Mill appears to be both an indirect utilitarian in Gray’s sense and a rule utilitarian. He is the former given that he holds the greatest happiness to be most effectively advanced by not prescribing or proscribing purely self-regarding actions.6 But he is also the latter given that he holds certain forms of other-regarding actions to be subject to moral rules. As Mill writes in a passage that deserves to be far more widely known than it is, First, [the general happiness] requires that each shall consider it his special business to look after himself. . . . The good of all can only be pursued with any success by each person’s taking as his particular department the good of the only individual whose requirements he

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Alan Carter can thoroughly know; with due precautions to prevent these different persons, each cultivating a particular strip of the field, from hindering one another. Secondly, human happiness, even one’s own, is in general more successfully pursued by acting on general rules, than by measuring the consequences of each act; and this is still more the case with general happiness, since any other plan would not only leave everybody uncertain what to accept, but would involve perpetual quarreling and hence general rules must be laid down for people’s conduct to one another, or in other words, rights and obligations must . . . be recognized; and people must, on the one hand, not be required to sacrifice even their own less good to another’s greater, where no general rule has given the other a right to the sacrifice; while, when a right has been recognized, they must, in most cases, yield to that right even at the sacrifice, in the particular case, of their own greater good to another’s less.7

In short, an action is only morally wrong for Mill when (a) it adversely affects another person and (b) it violates a certain sort of rule—namely, one where utility is maximized by punishing its infractions (Carter 2009). So, the principle of utility, as an axiological principle, tells us which is the best world: namely, in Mill’s view, that world containing the greatest balance of pleasure over pain—or the greatest total quantity of happiness. But the principle of utility does not tell us to bring about that world directly.8 What tells us directly what to do are the moral rules. And following those rules is necessary if the best world is to be brought about. Importantly, utilitarianism thus construed sidesteps many of the standard objections leveled against it (Carter 2009).

2. While this form of consequentialism certainly constitutes an impressive normative theory, it contains at its heart an inadequate axiology. And its axiology is inadequate in two ways: (1) it fails to acknowledge important values, and (2) it fails to recognize that utility does not contribute value invariably. In order to appreciate why the axiology at the heart of utilitarianism is inadequate, consider several possible worlds. The first of these—W1—has within it an extremely large number of people all with worthwhile lives, though at a very low level of average utility.9 Clearly, this possible world would be better if, ceteris paribus, the level of average utility were to be raised. The level of average utility would, therefore, appear to be something that contributes to the value of a world. But now consider a second possible world: W2. This has within it an extremely small number of people all with worthwhile lives at a very high

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level of average utility. Surely, this possible world would be better if, ceteris paribus, the number of worthwhile lives were to be increased. The number of worthwhile lives would, therefore, appear to be something that contributes to the value of a world. However, many resist the claim that increasing the number of worthwhile lives positively affects the value of the world. But this may be due to an implicit association of population growth with overcrowding. However, an increase in the number of worthwhile lives can occur over time by humanity surviving longer. Every worthwhile life does not have to be crammed into a world at the same time. Indeed, if, like our world, W2 is subject to environmental constraints, then as more people can live over time than at any one time, trying to cram too many worthwhile lives into W2 at the same time could so damage its ecosystems that no generations follow the overcrowded one, and fewer worthwhile lives would then be enjoyed overall (Attfield 1991: 127–128). Hence, the number of worthwhile lives should be measured diachronically and not just synchronically. Moreover, it is not the small total quantity of utility that seems to be the only reason for the “perception” of disvalue in W2, for were there only one person—an unimaginably happy one—living within that world, there would be both a very high level of average utility and a very large total quantity of utility. But it would, surely, still be the case that W2 would be a better world if more people came to live within it, and, surely, this would be so even if each person were less happy than the one unimaginably happy person so that the total quantity of utility remained the same. In short, there is reason enough to think that the number of worthwhile lives contributes to the value of a world (Carter 2013). Now consider a third possible world: W3. Within W3 is an extremely large number of people all with worthwhile lives at a very high level of average utility (factors which together entail a very large total quantity of utility), but where the utility is distributed very unequally. So, there is within this possible world both a very high level of average utility and a very large total quantity of utility. But, surely, W3 would be a better place if, ceteris paribus, the inequality were to be reduced. Equality would, therefore, appear to be something that contributes to the value of a world. So, we have reason to hold that three different things, at least, contribute to the value of a world: the level of average utility, the number of worthwhile lives, and equality. But the predominant versions of hedonistic utilitarianism—including varieties of sophisticated indirect, rule utilitarianism, such as Mill’s—mistakenly hold that only one thing contributes to the value of a world: either the total quantity or the average level of utility. But this completely fails to explain our considered response to W3. Moreover, surely it is more important to raise the level of average utility when it is at a very low level than when it is at a very high level. And surely it is more important to increase the number of worthwhile lives when there are very few people than when there are very many. In addition, surely it is

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more important to reduce inequality when distributions are very unequal than when they are not. But this seems to imply that an increase in the level of average utility contributes more value to a world when it is at a low level than when it is at a high level, that an increase in the number of worthwhile lives contributes more value to a world when that number is small than when it is already large, and that an increase in equality contributes more value to a world when there is great inequality than when there is not (Carter 2011a). How might we combine all of this together into a coherent axiology? Begin by calling the level of average utility, the number of worthwhile lives and equality “contributory values.” And call the kind of value, all things considered, that they contribute towards “overall value.” As contributory values seem to contribute more additional overall value the less they are already realized, such values appear at first glance to contribute diminishing marginal overall value.10 Hence, we may postulate that what they contribute is variable; they are variable values. (Contrast this with predominant versions of utilitarianism, which mistakenly hold not only that one thing alone—either the total quantity or average level of utility—contributes to the value of a world but also that the value of a world invariably increases in direct proportion to increases in that value.) If contributory values are indeed variable, then what if we were unable to raise the level of average utility in W1 with so many people living there? And what if we could choose, without killing anyone, to bring into existence either W1 or a possible world with a higher level of average utility than W1 but with fewer people living within it? We would need to know which would be the better world. In other words, once we recognize that there are a plurality of contributory values (and it is difficult to see how can we make sense of our considered responses to W1, W2, and W3 if there are not),11 we immediately face the problem of trading off those values.12 To gain a better purchase on what this involves, imagine that we could plot the graph in Figure 4.1.13 The horizontal x-axis measures the number of worthwhile lives, while the vertical y-axis measures the level of average utility. Because each contributory value contributes diminishing marginal overall value, then the isovalue curve AB, where all of the possible worlds represented by points falling upon that curve possess the same overall value, is convex when viewed from the origin O.14 The isovalue curve DE, where all of the possible worlds represented by points falling on DE also possess the same overall value, is similarly convex when viewed from the origin. But each possible world represented by a point falling on DE possesses more overall value than any world represented by a point falling on AB, for DE is farther to the northeast from the origin than is AB.15 How could we identify the best world that it is within our power to bring about—namely, the one containing the most overall value? Figure 4.1 merely tells us how valuable possible worlds would be if they existed. It tells us nothing whatsoever about which worlds we could bring into being. So,

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Figure 4.1

imagine that we could plot the graph in Figure 4.2, where, as in Figure 4.1, the x-axis measures the number of worthwhile lives, while the y-axis measures the level of average utility. The curve PQ is the frontier of the points representing all of the worlds that we could practicably bring about. Call PQ “the practicability frontier.” All of the worlds we could practicably bring about, then, are represented by points falling on the area PQO. We can now identify the best practicable world by superimposing Figure 4.2 onto Figure 4.1. In so doing, we thereby obtain Figure 4.3. Point T in Figure 4.3 falls on the practicability frontier PQ. But it also falls upon an isovalue curve—namely, DE—that is farther to the northeast from the origin O than any isovalue curve (either drawn, such as AB, or not drawn) on which falls any other point also falling on the area PQO. In other words, of all the worlds that we could practicably bring about, the world represented by T contains the most overall value. It is, therefore, the best practicable world. Moreover, point R, in falling on the isovalue curve AB, which is an isovalue curve closer to the origin O than is the isovalue curve DE, represents a suboptimal world given that point T, which falls on DE, represents a

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Figure 4.2

practicable world. Equally, point S, in also falling on the isovalue curve AB, represents a suboptimal world given that T represents a practicable world. S represents W1, which has within it an extremely large number of people all with worthwhile lives, though at a very low level of average utility, while R represents W2, which has within it an extremely small number of people all with worthwhile lives at a very high level of average utility. We can thus understand why we might feel that both of these possible worlds could be improved, even if that involved bringing about a world with fewer worthwhile lives than are currently found within W1 or with a lower level of average utility than is currently found within W2. Such a world is represented by point T. But what about W3, within which, recall, is to be found an extremely large number of people all with worthwhile lives at a very high level of average utility, but where the utility is very unequally distributed? If, in Figure 4.3, instead of the x-axis measuring the number of worthwhile lives and the y-axis measuring the level of average utility, we were to measure the total quantity of utility—the product of the level of average utility and the number of worthwhile lives—along the y-axis and equality along the x-axis, then

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Figure 4.3

W3 would be represented by point R. But in falling on the isovalue curve AB, R represents a suboptimal world given that point T, which falls on the isovalue curve DE, represents a practicable world. We can thus understand why we might feel that this possible world, too, could be improved, even if that involved bringing about a world with fewer worthwhile lives and/or a lower level of average utility than are currently found within W3. But now consider W4, which has within it an extremely large number of people all with worthwhile lives at a very high level of average utility, and where the utility is distributed equally, but where there is very little freedom. Because there is, within this possible world, a very high level of average utility enjoyed by an extremely large number of people all with worthwhile lives, there is a very large total quantity of utility within it, and this utility is distributed equally. But W4 would be a better place if, ceteris paribus, freedom were to be increased. Freedom would, therefore, appear to be something that contributes to the overall value of a world. In order to accommodate this case, imagine that we could plot the graph in Figure 4.4.16 The horizontal x-axis measures the degree of equality, and the

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Figure 4.4

vertical y-axis measures the total quantity of utility, while the z-axis, which should be viewed as coming out of the page, measures the degree of freedom. Because each contributory value contributes diminishing marginal overall value, the isovalue plane DEF, where all of the possible worlds represented by points falling on that plane possess the same overall value, is convex when viewed from the origin O. The plane PQR is the frontier of the points representing all of the worlds that we could practicably bring about. Hence,

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PQR is the practicability frontier within Figure 4.4. All the worlds we could practicably bring about, then, are represented by points falling within the volume PQRO. Point T falls on the practicability frontier PQR. But it also falls on an isovalue plane—namely, DEF—that is farther to the northeast and out of the page from the origin than any imaginable isovalue plane (such as ABC in Figure 4.5) on which falls any other point falling within PQRO.

Figure 4.5

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In other words, of all the worlds that we could practicably bring about, the world represented by T in Figure 4.4 contains the most overall value.17 It is the best practicable world.18 But T does not represent W4, for W4 has very little freedom (as measured along the z-axis), while freedom is not lacking in the world represented by T. W4 is, therefore, a suboptimal world, even though it performs well in terms of the number of worthwhile lives, the level of average utility, and equality. Indeed, we can now see that this possible world could be improved, even if that involved bringing about a state of affairs within that world containing fewer worthwhile lives, a lower level of average utility and/or less equality than is currently found within W4. If we put all of this together, then we have reason for holding that the best practicable world will be deficient neither in freedom, nor in equality, nor in the level of average utility nor in the number of worthwhile lives. And this means that a multidimensional axiology can be fully compatible with our intuitive responses to W1, W2, W3, and W4 if it recognizes as variable contributory values the number of worthwhile lives, the level of average utility, equality, and freedom.

3. So, there is reason to think that the multidimensional axiology here outlined constitutes a superior axiology to that at the heart of Mill’s indirect, rule utilitarianism, for it explains what is bad about W1, W2, W3, and W4, which seems beyond the capacity of any (one-dimensional) utilitarian axiology. Of course, it also explains why the best practicable world will not be deficient in the number of worthwhile lives, in the level of average utility, or in equality or in freedom. But this is not to say that we must abandon everything in Mill. Rather, if his indirect, rule consequentialism is preferable to direct forms of consequentialism, when both have at their core the same utilitarian axiology, then even more preferable might be an indirect, rule consequentialism that has at its core a multidimensional axiology. Moreover, for the same reasons that support Mill’s indirect, rule utilitarianism in preference to direct forms of utilitarianism, an indirect, rule consequentialism that has at its heart a multidimensional axiology might well be preferable to a direct consequentialism that has at its heart the same axiology. What are some of the reasons for preferring an indirect form of consequentialism? For one thing, obeying moral rules rather than directly trying to bring about the greatest good seems closer to our commonsense intuitions regarding the nature of morality, which appears to regard moral behavior primarily as the avoidance of rule breaking. For another, this explains the seeming plausibility in deontological approaches. For a third, one’s obeying agreed rules rather than trying to work out for oneself what to do makes it far more likely that everyone’s actions will be coordinated rather than each person accidentally frustrating each other’s well-intentioned efforts. And for

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a fourth, working out the consequences of every possible action is far less efficient than is obeying rules that experience has shown work well with respect to bringing about the greatest good. Indeed, very little good will result from each person having to spend most of his or her time trying to calculate what to do. And all of this is so regardless of whether the greatest good is thought to consist only in the maximization of utility or in the maximization of a balance of plural contributory values. In what remains of this concluding section, allow me to make some preliminary remarks regarding the moral rules that a multidimensional axiology of the sort adumbrated here might ground. First, one might object that if a multidimensional axiology succeeds in identifying the best practicable world, then, surely, we ought directly to try to bring it about. But arguably, for the third and fourth reasons just mentioned for preferring an indirect form of consequentialism, no axiology at the core of any respectable consequentialist theory would actually ground a direct form of consequentialism, and that is because a direct consequentialism would, almost certainly, fail in practice to bring about the greatest overall value. Moreover, the deontic sense of ought, as used in this objection, assumes that morality requires us to bring about the greatest good. But, as we saw in Section 1, what we ought to do in this sense is obey the rules of morality. With respect to the greatest good, it will be found in the world where the degree of realization and the balance of contributory values contribute the greatest overall value, as illustrated by point T in Figure 4.4. It can be argued that if we are fully rational, then we will desire to live in the world containing the greatest overall value. If that requires that we are all subject to moral rules, then, if we are fully rational, we will desire that we all be subject to those rules—rules that are such that the greatest overall value will result from infractions of those rules being liable to some form of sanction (even if that sanction is merely a bad conscience). Obeying such rules is what we morally ought to do. We would not be morally required to try to bring about the greatest overall value directly. However, there might be rules that, ideally, if everyone were to obey them would result in a world with greater overall value than the world represented by point T in Figure 4.4, but which are, for example, too demanding for many people to obey. Hence, such a world would not be a practicable one. Call such rules “the best ideal rules.” If many more people would obey slightly less demanding rules, say, then a world containing more overall value might well result from their promulgation than from the promulgation of the best ideal rules that, as a matter of fact, few would obey. Call the rules that many more people would obey and whose promulgation would, in fact, bring about the best practicable world “the best practicable rules” (Carter 2009). It is the best practicable rules rather than the best ideal rules that the multidimensional axiology here outlined would ground, for they are the rules that would bring about the world represented by point T in Figure 4.4— that practicable world which contains more overall value than any other

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practicable world. In short, there is reason for advocating “practicable rule consequentialism” in preference “ideal rule consequentialism.”19 But those who are sufficiently motivated to do more than is required by the best practicable rules may legitimately try to bring about more overall value than would result from their doing no more than the moral rules require. For one would surely expect the best practicable rules to allow one to bring about more good than they prescribe, if one were so inclined. An indirect, multidimensional consequentialism can, therefore, easily make sense of supererogatory actions. Second, we saw in section 1 that Mill seems to consider an action to be morally wrong (a) only when it adversely affects another person and (b) only when it violates a certain sort of rule—namely, one where the greatest happiness is advanced by punishing its infractions. Limitation (a) appears to be justified in Mill’s eye because a measure of personal freedom seems necessary in order to maximize utility. An indirect, multidimensional consequentialism that acknowledges that total utility is a contributory value, or that it resolves into two different contributory values (namely, the number of worthwhile lives and the level of average utility), can easily agree with Mill, here. But an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism that also acknowledges that freedom is a contributory value in its own right has even stronger grounds for choosing moral rules that leave space for personal projects. The best practicable rules grounded by such an axiology can thus be expected to include something like agent-centered prerogatives (Scheffler 1994), which offer one answer to famous objections concerning the supposed inherently alienating aspects of consequentialism.20 And this further enables an indirect, multidimensional consequentialist to make sense of supererogation. Third, an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism that acknowledges equality as a contributory value21 is unlikely to ground rules that are applied unequally. For if people are to be treated equally as far as is practicable, and as far as is consistent with the other contributory values, then it seems that moral rules will have to apply to everyone unless there is some consideration that would justify a difference in their application. The independent contributory value of equality thus suggests that the best practicable rules would be imperatives that were universalizable in form.22 Fourth, if an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism acknowledges that the number of worthwhile lives is an independent contributory value, then that seems to imply that each life that is worthwhile is valuable. This also seems to suggest that each worthwhile life merits respect. But if so, the best practicable rules grounded by a multidimensional axiology that included the number of worthwhile lives within the plurality of independent contributory values that it recognized are unlikely to sanction the sacrifice of a worthwhile life for a trivial gain in the level of average utility. The moral rules that the multidimensional axiology here adumbrated would ground would be unlikely, therefore, to allow a person to be tortured to death in order that millions may avoid having to suffer a mild headache, say. The

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moral rules grounded on such an axiology are therefore more likely to be closer to commonsense morality than critics of consequentialism presume could ever be justified by a consequentialist approach. Fifth, if an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism acknowledges that the level of average utility is also an independent contributory value, then, within the constraints set by paying due deference to the other contributory values (freedom, equality, and the number of worthwhile lives), the best practicable rules will be such as to help make people’s lives, on average, happier. Much of what indirect utilitarians have cogently argued will thus be readily co-optable by an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism that recognizes the level of average utility as a contributory value. However, with the exception of disaster-avoidance clauses exclusively with respect to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, utilitarianism does not seem to explain all of the exceptions that reasonable moral rules might incorporate. But these exceptions do make sense from the standpoint of a rich, multidimensional axiology, for they serve to prevent the contributory values of freedom, equality and the number of worthwhile lives from being rode roughshod by those who single-mindedly pursue the maximization of utility. Sixth, when one is equipped with a multidimensional axiology that recognizes as contributory values freedom, equality, the number of worthwhile lives, and the level of average utility, both the plausibility and limitations of other normative theories are readily apparent. “Libertarianism” perhaps has something going for it, given that it recognizes the value of freedom. But it is deficient in failing to recognize as contributory values equality,23 average utility, and worthwhile lives. Kantianism has something going for it, given that, depending on the variety in question, it recognizes either the value of worthwhile lives or the value of freedom. But it is deficient in failing to recognize as contributory values equality and average utility. Pure egalitarianism (Parfit 1995) also has something going for it, given that it recognizes the value of equality. But it is deficient in failing to recognize as contributory values freedom, average utility, and worthwhile lives. Utilitarianism, too, has something going for it, given that it recognizes the value of utility. But it is deficient in failing to recognize as contributory values freedom and equality. Prioritarianism (Parfit 1995) has something going for it, given that it recognizes the greater value of helping the worst off. But it is deficient in failing to recognize as a contributory value equality, which it tends to dismiss because of the disvalue in an equal, but impoverished, world. A multidimensional axiology that recognizes as contributory values both equality and the level of average utility will agree that there is disvalue in such a world, but the reason for that disvalue is that world’s low level of average utility. And a multidimensional axiology that regards contributory values as variable values agrees that the worst off should be prioritized, but that is because greater overall value is added by improving greater rather than smaller deficiencies in a contributory value: a feature of diminishing marginal value. This also suggests that there might be something going for a

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sufficiency theory.24 But sufficientarianism is deficient in failing to recognize equality as a contributory value. And some varieties of sufficiency theory may also be deficient to the extent that they are content with low levels of a contributory value when more overall value would be gained by increasing in degree any contributory value when that is not at the expense of another.25 Seventh, it should also be noted that an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism does not need to be confined to the promulgation of rules. There are dispositions that, were they cultivated, would help bring about the practicable world that contains the greatest overall value. And the cultivation of one disposition, amongst others, that a multidimensional axiology could be expected to ground is adherence to moral rules: those rules that are such that the greatest overall value would be advanced by their violators being liable to incur punishment, to incite in others blame, and to arouse in themselves feelings of guilt. And just as there is reason for choosing the best practicable rules over the best ideal ones, it might be argued that there is reason for expecting only the best practicable dispositions to be generally displayed. The best ideal dispositions—which perhaps only the strong-willed and highly motivated could manifest—might, however, provide the exemplars for the weak-willed to aim for, although, for them, the best practicable dispositions would suffice. A multidimensional axiology can, therefore, ground its own form of virtue ethics. Finally, there are a number of other contributory values that would need to be recognized if an indirect, multidimensional consequentialism were to constitute an adequate normative theory in today’s world. Thus far, I have been arguing as if it were the case that only human beings are morally considerable. But there is reason to think that (at least some) non-human animals are morally considerable, too.26 Moreover, a world that was devoid of natural environments would be a worse world than ours, even if all the humans living within such a world were extremely happy, say. So, amalgamate all contributory values that pertain primarily to humans under the rubric “anthropocentric contributory value,”27 and measure it along the x-axis of Figure 4.4. Amalgamate all contributory values that pertain primarily to morally considerable sentient nonhumans under the rubric “zoocentric contributory value,” and measure it along the y-axis. Finally, amalgamate all contributory values that pertain primarily to ecosystems and other non-sentient natural entities under the rubric “ecocentric contributory value,” and measure it along the z-axis.28 The world represented by point T is the world containing the greatest overall value. But it is not the world that exclusively anthropocentric, zoocentric, or ecocentric normative theories would succeed in identifying as the best practicable world. In other words, a multidimensional axiology can also ground an environmental ethic that is different to, and less partial than, any proposed by anthropocentrists, zoocentrists, or ecocentrists.29 Such an environmental ethic would affect which moral rules are best promulgated. This means that the multidimensional axiology at its heart could well require some revision to our moral rules. It would also ground environmental virtues. Indeed, the

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multidimensional axiology at the heart of such an environmental ethic could well require considerable revision to what we currently regard as virtuous behavior. But it would also provide the yardstick for judging which public policies are best. And the multidimensional axiology at its heart could well require very different public policies or political activities30 to those that are now commonly espoused.

NOTES 1. See, in particular, Ryan (1974) and Gray (1996). 2. All parenthetical references to the writings of John Stuart Mill are to his Collected Works. 3. Ryan claims that “the principle of utility is supposed to serve as the first principle not just of morality but also of the rest of the Art of Life” (1974: 104). 4. As D.G. Brown observes, “We can at least agree that the Principle of Utility is not a principle about what actions are wrong” (1972: 157). 5. Thus, at the very end of “Utilitarianism,” Mill insists that a distinction must be drawn between “the milder feeling which attaches to the mere idea of promoting human pleasure or convenience” and justice, which is “more absolute and imperative” (CW X: 259). 6. See Mill’s “On Liberty” (CW XVIII: 213–310). 7. John Stuart Mill, letter to George Grote, January 10, 1862, quoted in Skorupski (1989: 318). 8. Moreover, as Henry Sidgwick remarks, “[T]he doctrine that Universal Happiness is the ultimate standard must not be understood to imply that Universal Benevolence is the only right or always best motive of action. For . . . it is not necessary that the end which gives the criterion of rightness should always be the end at which we consciously aim: and if experience shows that the general happiness will be more satisfactorily attained if men frequently act from other motives than pure universal philanthropy, it is obvious that these other motives are reasonably to be preferred on Utilitarian principles” (1981: 413). 9. This is, of course, the famous Repugnant Conclusion (Parfit 1986). Also see Carter (1999). 10. For an important refinement, see Carter (2013). 11. See Carter (2013). 12. “Here I set aside the question of how we are able to trade off one value against another, for one’s answer will, at least in part, depend on one’s meta-ethic, and our task here lies purely within normative ethics. This notwithstanding, the lack of an answer to the question of how we are able to trade off values should not be allowed to stand in the way of our developing a normative theory, for it is a simple fact that we are prepared to trade off values when deciding which would be the best world to bring about. . . . Once it is granted that we do engage in such trade-offs, then there is nothing preventing us from incorporating that feature into our axiology; and we should certainly not exclude it merely because, as yet, we lack an agreed answer to the puzzle of how we manage to trade off values” (Carter 2011b). For critiques of arguments against the comparability or, alternatively, commensurability of values, see Chang (2001) and Donald Regan (1997). 13. I am not assuming that Figure 4.1 could ever be plotted. What follows in the remainder of this section forms a kind of thought experiment. 14. For a full explanation of why the isovalue curve AB is convex when viewed from the origin, see Carter (2011).

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15. If it is not immediately apparent why this is so, see Carter (2013). 16. Again, note that I am not assuming that Figure 4.4 could ever be plotted. 17. However, bear in mind that it would not be if the large total quantity of utility resulted from an enormous population at a low level of average utility, as in the Repugnant Conclusion. Recall that when, in Figure 4.3, the horizontal x-axis measures the number of worthwhile lives and the vertical y-axis measures the level of average utility, point S represents a suboptimal world. But that is precisely a world in which the large total quantity of utility results from an enormous population at a low level of average utility. Consequently, while treating the product of the number of worthwhile lives and the level of average utility— namely, the total quantity of utility—as if it were a single contributory value can be expedient in illustrating certain evaluations, the failure to resolve the total quantity of utility into its component contributory values can be highly problematic at times. Perhaps total utility could best be described as a second-order contributory value that resolves into first-order contributory values—namely, the number of worthwhile lives and the level of average utility. If so, then second-order contributory values should always be treated with caution. 18. Interestingly, Mark Timmons argues that certain seemingly monistic theories are considerably more plausible when interpreted as pluralistic. See Timmons (2002). However, he concludes from this that the most plausible normative theories will therefore necessarily display a measure of indeterminacy. The normative technology mooted here implies that this need not necessarily be the case, for the point where the practicability frontier is tangential to an isovalue plane (as with point T in Figure 4.4) represents a determinate answer to the question of which is the best world to bring into existence. 19. And Sidgwick seems to have drawn a parallel distinction within utilitarianism, for he observes that “any particular existing moral rule, though not the ideally best even for such beings as existing men under the existing circumstances, may yet be the best that they can be got to obey . . .” (1981: 469). 20. See Williams (1973). But also see Railton (1984). Williams famously objects that utilitarianism would undermine our integrity as persons, while also charging Kantianism with the same defect. He also famously objects that the utilitarian has “one thought too many” in choosing to save his or her spouse, rather than another person, in accordance with utilitarian injunctions (Williams 1981). However, Barbara Herman has provided Kantianism with a compelling defense against both charges (Herman 1993). Interestingly, Herman’s defense of Kantianism seems eminently co-optable by a rule consequentialist—especially a practicable rule consequentialist, who is more likely than is an ideal rule consequentialist to construe an agent’s usual motive of duty as a limiting condition. 21. Just as total utility can be argued to resolve into more than one contributory value, so can equality. See Carter (2002). It, too, can therefore be viewed as a second-order contributory value. (See note 18.) 22. For the claim that moral rules are imperatives that possess the property of universalizability, see Hare (1952). 23. “Left libertarians” value equality, but like all so-called libertarians, they are insufficiently critical of rights in private property. For a critique of justifications of such mooted rights, see Carter (1989). 24. For one form of sufficiency theory, see Slote (1984), and for another, see Frankfurt (1987). 25. Were there a limit, at least in principle, to the amount of moral value that the world could ever contain, then that might initially seem to add support to sufficientarianism. For a rejoinder, see Carter (2013). 26. See Singer (1995) and Tom Regan (1983). For a summary, see Carter (2010).

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27. The anthropocentric contributory value would resolve into second-order contributory values, such as the total utility enjoyed by humans. We might, therefore, think of it as a third-order contributory value. But just as treating second-order contributory values as if they were first order, while often being expedient, could at times be highly problematic, treating third-order contributory values as if they were either second order or first order could be highly problematic, too, and for the same reason. Third-order contributory values should, therefore, also be treated with caution. (Again, see note 18.) 28. Note that the terms anthropocentric contributory value, zoocentric contributory value, and ecocentric contributory value do not imply anthropocentrism, zoocentrism, and ecocentrism, respectively, as Robin Attfield appears to have argued, thereby ostensibly generating a contradictory axiology. See Attfield (2013, especially 130). Attfield even quotes me as stating that any “fully adequate environmental ethic would need to incorporate what is of value in [anthropocentrism, zoocentrism and ecocentrism]—namely the values each prioritizes—and successfully combine them” (Attfield 2013: 133). Clearly, incorporating under, say, the rubric “ecocentric contributory value” the environmental values that many ecocentrists have prioritized does not entail that the human values that many anthropocentrists have prioritized actually contribute nothing of value. To assume as such is to confuse ecocentric contributory value with ecocentrism. Attfield also claims that “none of the verdicts that generate the planes that form [Carter’s] indifference curves seem to involve any basis of comparison . . .” (Attfield 2013: 138). In the present chapter, the relevant planes are isovalue planes, not indifference planes, and what it is that points falling on the same isovalue plane have in common is the same quantity of overall value. But to Attfield, I suspect, this response would be inadequate, for he seems to hold that “[s]ome ground or basis must be available on demand to justify any rational comparison” (Attfield 2013: 138). Now, if one already believes that one has identified such a ground, then this will appear self-evident. But it is far from certain that this is the case if Aristotle is correct to insist that “We must not expect more precision than the subject-matter admits of.” See his Nicomachean Ethics, book I, chapter III (1094b). Attfield appears to fall within that tradition which assumes that two states of affairs cannot possess the same quantity of value unless there is some common factor or set of factors (other than some form or forms of value that the states of affairs possess) to which “value” is in some sense reducible. Moreover, Attfield rules out in advance as bona fide values (because of the axiology he has already settled on) the environmental values that many ecocentrists have prioritized, thereby prejudicing the (mistaken) search for the “common factor.” But this whole approach, in closely paralleling Marx’s supposed identification of labor power as the common factor that explains price, was decisively criticized as far back as 1896 by von Böhm-Bawerk (2011). 29. See Carter (2011b) and Carter (2005). 30. For some indication of just how radical those activities might need to be, see Carter (1999b).

WORKS CITED Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, Vol. 2. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. Attfield, Robin. The Ethics of Environmental Concern. 2nd Edition. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991.

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———. “Reconciling Individualist and Deeper Environmentalist Theories? An Exploration.” The Structural Links between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle. Ed. Donato Bergandi. Dortrecht, Heidelberg, New York, and London: Springer, 2013. 127–140. Brown, D.G. “Mill on Liberty and Morality.” The Philosophical Review 81.2 (1972): 133–158. Carter, Alan. The Philosophical Foundations of Property Rights. Hemel Hempstead, Harlow, Essex, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989. ———. “Moral Theory and Global Population.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99.3 (1999): 289–313. ———. A Radical Green Political Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. ———. “Value-Pluralist Egalitarianism.” Journal of Philosophy 99.11 (2002): 577–599. ———. “Inegalitarian Biocentric Consequentialism, the Minimax Implication, and Multidimensional Value Theory: A Brief Proposal for a New Direction in Environmental Ethics.” Utilitas 17.1 (2005): 62–84. ———. “Is Utilitarian Morality Necessarily Too Demanding?” The Problem of Moral Demandingness: New Philosophical Essays. Ed. Timothy Chappell. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 163–184. ———. “Animals.” The Routledge Companion to Ethics. Ed. John Skorupski. London: Routledge, 2010. 742–753. ———. “Some Groundwork for a Multidimensional Axiology.” Philosophical Studies 153.3 (2011a): 389–408. ———. “Towards a Multidimensional, Environmentalist Ethic.” Environmental Values 20 (2011b): 347–374. ———. “A Plurality of Values.” Unpublished manuscript, 2013. ———. “A Pre-Emptive Response to Some Possible Objections to a Multidimensional Axiology with Variable Contributory Values.” Unpublished manuscript, 2013. . Chang, Ruth. “Against Constitutive Incommensurability or Buying and Selling Friends.” Philosophical Issues 11.1 (2001): 33–60. Frankfurt, Harry. “Equality as a Moral Ideal.” Ethics 98.1 (1987): 21–43. Gray, John. Mill on Liberty: A Defense. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 1996. Hare, R.M. The Language of Morals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1952. Herman, Barbara. “Integrity and Impartiality.” The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. 23–44. Mill, John Stuart. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Ed. John M. Robson. 33 vols. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1963–1991. Parfit, Derek. “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life.” Applied Ethics. Ed. Peter Singer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986: 148–50. ———. Equality or Priority?: The Lindley Lecture. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas, 1995. Railton, Peter. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13.2. (1984): 134–171. Regan, Donald. “Value, Comparability, and Choice.” Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Ed. Ruth Chang. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997: 129–150. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Ryan, Alan. J. S. Mill. London: Routledge, 1974. Scheffler, Samuel. The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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Sidgwick, Henry. The Methods of Ethics. 7th Edition. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1981. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. 2nd Edition. London: Pimlico, 1995. Slote, Michael. “Satisficing Consequentialism.” Proceeding of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 58 (1984): 139–163. Skorupski, John. John Stuart Mill. London: Routledge, 1989. Timmons, Mark. Moral Theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. von Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen. Karl Marx and the Close of His System. New York: Prism Key Press, 2011. Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Utilitarianism: For and Against. Eds. J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 77–150. ———. “Persons, Character and Morality.” Moral Luck. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 1–19.

5

Why Leave Nature Alone? Ben Bradley

It is commonly held that there are a great many situations in which human beings ought to “butt out” of nature and let things run their course. For example, we ought not “police the jungle”: we should not save a poor antelope from being eaten by a lion, or even save starving, drowning or diseased animals facing painful deaths; we should set aside large areas of wilderness and not allow mining, clear-cutting, or other similarly destructive practices; we shouldn’t introduce alien species into a flourishing ecosystem; we shouldn’t put out forest fires caused by lightning strikes.1 There are good reasons for these judgments. We can’t save prey from predators without removing the predators from their environment, which is not only bad for the predators but also causes other problems as the prey multiply. Even saving a drowning animal removes a potential food source from other animals in the ecosystem. Clear-cutting forests takes away habitats for many creatures, leaves an ugly landscape, and contributes to climate change. Introducing alien species can wreak havoc in an ecosystem and bring about many undesirable consequences for native species. Forest fires serve an important function in regenerating ecosystems, so putting them out can be harmful to those ecosystems. These are all good reasons, even if not always overriding reasons, to leave nature alone. But they are all contingent, extrinsic reasons for butting out. They appeal to the bad consequences for other animals or for ecosystems that would result from interfering. Thus, they are also philosophically boring reasons; the work of justifying noninterference lies largely with scientists. Environmental philosophers may prefer a more direct justification for noninterference. In what follows, I discuss two theoretical attempts to justify noninterference: one consequentialist, one non-consequentialist. A consequentialist may justify noninterference by appealing to the intrinsic value of wildness or naturalness itself (Elliot 2008; Hettinger and Throop 2008). When determining the consequences of a course of action, we must take into account not only such things as the effects on the beauty of the landscape, health hazards to people and animals, and global warming, but also the effects on the degree of wildness in the affected area. A non-consequentialist, on the other hand, can argue against interference on the grounds that there is a general principle providing moral pressure against interference in an ongoing process—there is “moral inertia” (Sartorio 2008).

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These views may sometimes yield different results. The following grossly oversimplified example illustrates how this might happen. Suppose that some people are determined to enter some wild area and cut down some trees. I can prevent their actions only by building an electrified fence around the wild area. This will be, let’s say, somewhat bad for the living things in the wild area. It will, for example, prevent the wild animals in that area from roaming freely, and I would have to kill some plant life in order to build the fence. But building the fence will prevent even more destruction of plant life by others. Furthermore, while building the fence will decrease the amount of wildness in the area, it will prevent a greater decrease in wildness that would result from others’ interferences. Should I build the fence? This is a case in which the non-consequentialist defender of moral inertia and the consequentialist defender of the intrinsic value of wildness might reach different conclusions. The non-consequentialist might, depending on the details of the case, argue that I should not build the fence, because building the fence is interfering in an ongoing process, bringing about a change that makes some nonhumans otherwise worse off. The consequentialist might argue that I should build the fence, because even though I would be decreasing the amount of wildness present from what it was, I have no alternative that would result in a greater amount of wildness. For the consequentialist, what matters is the net reduction in wildness that would result from my action; for the non-consequentialist, what matters is that I not interfere, even if one of the consequences of my own failure to interfere is that others interfere more. The notion that wildness has intrinsic value has received some attention in environmental philosophy. I add my voice to those who find it implausible that wildness could have intrinsic value. On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the notion of moral inertia has not been explicitly utilized in philosophical discussions of environmental issues. I raise what I take to be important questions about this non-consequentialist strategy. Ultimately I think moral inertia will not give the environmentalist what she wants; thus, environmentalists should be satisfied with appealing to the bad causal consequences of interfering with nature, and not worry about more direct justifications involving wildness or inertia.

1.

WHAT WILDNESS IS AND WHY IT HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE

As a first pass, to say that an organism, or a species, or an ecosystem is wild (or natural) is to say that humans have not interfered with it. “As we use the term, something is wild in a certain respect to the extent that it is not humanized in that respect. An entity is humanized in the degree to which it is influenced, altered, or controlled by humans” (Hettinger and Throop 2008: 191). “For present purposes I shall take it that ‘natural’ means something like ‘unmodified by human activity’” (Elliot 2008: 292). “The natural is defined as being independent of the actions of humanity” (Katz 1997: 103).

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Wildness comes in degrees. Some things are more affected by humans than are others. An unexplored section of jungle or tundra and its plant and animal inhabitants have a very high degree of wildness. The interior of my office, and many of the things in it (my computer, my cell phone, the furniture), have a very low degree of wildness. Many things are wild to an intermediate degree. Genetically modified plants are wild to some degree but not as wild as unmodified plants. Domesticated dogs are wilder than robot dogs but not as wild as wolves. The exhibits at the San Diego wild animal park are more wild than a playground but less wild than an African game preserve. These are just examples. It is difficult to give a very precise account of the degree of wildness an ecosystem possesses that would determine, for example, whether the Rockies are more wild than Appalachia. This is because it is hard to say what makes one human interference more significant than another. I rely on my intuitive judgments here and hope that the reader shares them, but if not, it is not important, because my arguments do not hinge on any particular judgments about wildness. Attributing intrinsic value to wildness could explain many moral judgments. It would provide a reason not to “police the jungle,” even if by doing so we might be able to prevent some animal suffering. It would partially explain why we think it is important to reintroduce species into the wild, rather than keeping them in zoos, and why we think plastic trees are a poor substitute for trees. The wildness defender may also argue that the fact that there are cases in which it is unclear what we ought to do concerning the environment can be partially explained by the fact that wildness comes in degrees, and our uncertainty about what to do tracks our uncertainty about the degree of wildness present. Despite all this, I think the claim that wildness has intrinsic value is untenable. First, wildness is a “negative” property. To be wild is to be not interfered with by humans. In general, it is unlikely that negative properties could have or be a basis for intrinsic value, for they do not mark a real similarity between things. Among the things that have this property are random scattered atoms on the far side of the universe, distant suns, and underground Antarctic lakes. These things have really nothing in common beyond being physical objects. It seems very unlikely that all these things could have intrinsic value.2 To believe that this negative property has intrinsic value is to believe that when humans came into existence, things thereby got worse in an important way. Now, to be sure, humans have made the universe worse in many ways. But that’s because of particular bad things they did and do, destroying things and making things worse in specific ways. Surely it is not just in virtue of coming into existence that they made things worse. The view that wildness has intrinsic value sets humans apart from the rest of the universe in an implausible way; it is chauvinistic. For suppose there is another species out there that is a lot like humans in relevant ways. Members of that species have a great impact on their environment. They are intelligent and destructive. It would be chauvinistic to say that something’s interaction with humans

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decreases its value, but its interactions with that other species do not decrease its value. Why the focus on human interaction? Hettinger and Throop give some reasons: “only human activities are fully morally assessable. Also, human activities can affect nature on a scale and speed much greater than the activities of other individual species. . . . As a group, humans have become too powerful and too populous to be simply “plain members and citizens” of biotic communities” (2008: 195). Let us take these claims in turn. First, there is the claim that only human activities are morally assessable. The relevance of this fact is unclear. It is relevant to how we ought to react when we learn that some valuable thing has been destroyed by a human rather than by a boulder; we might punish the person but not the boulder and might attribute moral wrongness to the action of the person but not to the motion of the boulder. But the distinction holds no obvious relevance when determining the value of something. Second is the claim that humans are powerful and have a greater impact on the environment than do other beings. Here, again, it does not seem to matter to something’s value whether it was affected by something powerful or something powerless; and if it does matter, it is not clear why being affected by something powerful makes something less valuable rather than more. We find the grand canyon amazing, in part, because it demonstrates the great power of water to destroy and shape the earth; we do not think that the great power of the water detracts from the value of the canyon, or that it would have been more valuable if it had come about as a result of some less powerful process (also see Ereshefsky 2007: 62). Perhaps the problem is that the definition of wild, as meaning unaltered by humans, is defective. We might want to count some human actions, but not all, as unwild. For example, consider the “uncontacted tribes” of South America and New Guinea. We might want to say two things regarding the people in these tribes: first, that we should not interfere with their ways of life and, second, that their interactions with the non-human world do not diminish the wildness of their surroundings. Their hunting activities, for example, should not be lumped in with the objectionable interventions in nature discussed at the beginning of this chapter. One thought might be that we could define what is wild or natural by appeal to technology. Here is a suggestion from Eric Katz: “human actions can also be judged to be natural—these are the human actions that exist as evolutionary adaptations, free of the control and alteration of technological processes” (1997: 104). Relatedly, Holmes Rolston III suggests that what is important is not to eliminate human interaction with the nonhuman, but rather to follow the “rules” of an ecosystem: “Eating animals is not an event between persons but a human-to-animal event; and the rules for this act come from the ecosystems in which humans evolved and have no duty to remake” (1994: 69). What is problematic, according to Rolston, is imposing “culture” on nature, which involves treating wild nature as something other than what it really is (68). The hunting behaviors of the uncontacted tribespeople do not

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alter nature by technology, nor do they violate the rules of the ecosystem or impose culture on the uncultured. Unfortunately these proposals are not promising. Marc Ereshefsky has pointed out that Katz’s distinction between natural and unnatural actions in terms of evolutionary adaptations is unsupported by evolutionary biology (2007: 59–61). Furthermore, Ereshefsky points out, even though human culture is importantly different from the culture of non-humans, there is no reason to think this difference is important when considering what we should preserve (70)—nor, I think, is there any reason to believe that imposing human culture on something non-human decreases its value except insofar as it negatively affects its other qualities, such as by diminishing its beauty, causing it pain, or killing it. And in fact, Rolston’s explanation for why we should not impose human culture on wild animals boils down to the claim that doing so harms the animals, or harms the species (1994: 68)—not just because human cultural interference with nature is bad in itself. To think that human culture, in particular, has value-decreasing effect just because it is distinctively human, over and above the negative instrumental effects intervening might have on the welfare of animals or species, is to reanimate the concern about chauvinism. Perhaps we can avoid the accusation of chauvinism by endorsing a subjectivist view of value. Suppose we think that to be valuable is just to be valued by someone. Then the claim that wildness has intrinsic value amounts merely to the claim that wildness is valued intrinsically by someone. And it seems clear that wildness is, in fact, valued intrinsically, by many people. On this view, there would be no deep mystery about why things that have been interfered with by humans have less value than things that have been interfered with by non-humans, or at least there would be no mystery about how it could be that humans speak truly when they say that wild things are more valuable, for they would merely be asserting that they value wild things more. But endorsing this sort of subjectivism leaves the environmentalist with no recourse when the anti-environmentalist fails to value wild things more than to non-wild things. Given subjectivism, the anti-environmentalist makes no mistake in her valuing; she just values different things. We may modify our subjectivism to be less permissive. We may say that not all valuings are equal. Perhaps there are rational valuings and irrational valuings; perhaps those who value wildness value rationally, and those who don’t, don’t. But given the problems already noted, there seems no reason to think that it is more rational to value wild things than non-wild things. So this more sophisticated subjectivism offers no advantages to defenders of the view that wildness is valuable. J. Baird Callicott defends a form of subjectivism that might be thought to offer some help here (though his concern is not to argue for the value of wildness in particular, but rather to give a broad defense of the environmentalist’s values). According to Callicott, although values are subjective, it is still possible to value things wrongly:

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If you care about yourself, wish others well, and delight in social prosperity, you have the “right” values, but not because your values correspond to any moral facts. Rather, one may be said to have the right values in the same sense that one may be said to have the right number of fingers if one has five on each hand. Values, like physical features, have been normalized, standardized by natural selection. (1999: 87) We may wish to question Callicott’s claims about the effects of natural selection on what we value. And we may wonder about why we should care about the sense of “rightness” that is tied up with normalcy in this way— why should I care about valuing normally?3 But even if we accept Callicott’s claims, we do not quite have what we need, since it is obvious that a great many people do not in fact value wildness; in virtue of this fact it would be hard to maintain that valuing wildness is “normal.” Callicott attempts to solve the problem of disagreement (again, about environmental values generally, not just wildness) by showing that those who, for example, do not care about pollution, are making factual errors about the effects of their actions: “the apparent conflicts of value that confront us at every turn are differences of opinion about ‘matters of fact,’ ‘cause and effect,’ i.e., about the best proximate means to achieve our ultimate ends” (1999: 96, emphasis in original). Once people learn the effects of pollution of certain sorts, they cease to think that such pollution is justifiable, according to Callicott. But even if Callicott is right about this, it does not help the defender of the intrinsic value of wildness. Suppose everyone would agree that we should butt out of nature when interfering would have some significant negative impact on human lives. This would not show that humans value wildness for itself; it would show at most that they value it instrumentally. We can all agree that there are good instrumental reasons not to interfere with nature. The question at issue here is whether we would be making a mistake by not intrinsically valuing wildness. If this is right, then consequentialism is in tension with the notion that we should butt out of nature, except insofar as interference makes things worse in ways beyond decreasing the extent of wildness. 2. MORAL INERTIA Let us now consider a non-consequentialist alternative. We may account for the obligation to refrain from interfering with nature by appealing to a notion of moral inertia. Here is Carolina Sartorio’s gloss of the notion: Sometimes how things are (or were bound to be) determines what we can permissibly do. In particular, the preexistence of a threat—or, more generally, of a causal process of some sort—makes intervening impermissible, if other things are equal . . . Moral inertia, then, is a kind of pressure to leave things unchanged. (2008: 120–121)

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Moral inertia arises for a specific class of interventions: those in which an agent interferes with a process that can clearly be seen as already “in motion” and one in which there is a path that can clearly be seen as the “preset” path (Sartorio 2008: 131). Sartorio illustrates the principle with the following example. Two sick people are sitting on a beach in different spots. Each requires a health pebble to become well. There is a health pebble floating in the water toward one of the sick people. You are in a boat near the pebble. You could redirect the health pebble so that it floats toward the other sick person instead. You have no connection to either person, each is equally deserving of the health pebble, and so on. Is it permissible to redirect the pebble? Sartorio says no. If she is right, then the principle of moral inertia is true. What makes it impermissible to redirect the pebble is that this would involve interfering with an ongoing process. It is plausible that the principle of moral inertia underlies another, more well-known principle: the doctrine of doing and allowing, according to which it is worse to do harm than to allow harm. If doing involves interfering, as seems plausible, then the doctrine of doing and allowing is merely an application of the principle of moral inertia. The thought, then, is that the environmentalist’s view is also an application of the principle of moral inertia. We have reason not to transform or destroy nature, not because of special wildness value contained there, but because this involves interfering in an ongoing process. There is a non-consequentialist reason against such interference, just as (many believe) there is a non-consequentialist reason against violating a person’s rights; just as one typically may not violate rights merely to bring about some increase in some person’s well-being, one typically may not interfere in natural processes even in order to improve the well-being of an antelope. If this is so, then there is an interesting and perhaps surprising tension between consequentialism and (a certain sort of) environmentalism. Of course, to say that there is this reason is not to say that it must be overriding; other factors may well outweigh considerations of inertia. But this is only a rough starting point. Consider Sartorio’s more careful statement of the principle of moral inertia: Moral Inertia (Non-intervention): Given any two moral agents (or two equinumerous groups of moral agents) X and Y, if X is originally under P’s scope and Y isn’t, and if you could intervene so that P is deflected from X to Y, then, other things being equal, you ought not intervene. (2008: 128) Moral Inertia (Non-intervention), or MINI, concerns a very limited range of cases: cases of deflection of harm, or threats of harm, from exactly one person or group to another. And it has implications only for cases in which “other things are equal”—which they never are. We can see how MINI might be extended to apply to some cases that involve non-humans. For example, if a lion is about to attack antelope A1, and we could somehow intervene to get it to attack antelope A2 instead, MINI would tell us not to,

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other things equal. But this is hardly the sort of case in which environmentalists are typically interested. Consider the thought that we ought not to go and clear-cut a forest even if we could replace the cut trees with new ones that are just as beautiful. How would MINI apply here? This is not a case of deflection of harm. There is no existing threat to the forest (or anyone) that the clear-cutting deflects. In order for us to draw any conclusions about the clear-cutting, and to have something useful for the environmentalist, we must have a more general principle of inertia. It will not be sufficient merely to say that cutting down the trees is interfering with a causal process or changing things from the way they were or were bound to be otherwise. Moving my arm into the air would displace some molecules in the air. This is a way of changing things. But that does not constitute a reason not to move my arm. It’s not as if I need some sufficiently strong counterbalancing reason to do so. So the question is, Supposing moral inertia exists, what are its limits? Does moral inertia extend to cases in which there is a threat to non-human and non-sentient welfare, such as cases of cutting down trees? Does it extend to cases in which nobody’s welfare is at stake? What sorts of causal processes are the ones that we have a strong moral reason not to interfere with? Maybe the difference between displacing some air molecules and cutting down a forest is that only in one case does the action make a difference that matters morally. The thought, then, is that there is pressure to leave things unchanged only when making a change makes a difference that matters morally. We might say something more specific about what sorts of changes make a difference that matters. For example, we might say that the only differences that matter are differences in distributions of welfare.4 But, of course, bringing about a change that is an unmitigated benefit is not the sort of thing that there is any reason at all not to do. If Ann is asleep on the train tracks and I can wake her up before the train runs her over, the fact that this would be interfering with an ongoing process gives me absolutely no reason to refrain. It’s not as if on the one hand I could save her life, but on the other, I’d have to interfere in this ongoing process, and the life-saving reason outweighs the nonintervention reason. There is no pressure to leave a process unchanged rather than do a purely beneficial act. There is pressure to leave a process unchanged only when interference would make some affected party worse off than if there had been no interference.5 This suggests the following principle of moral inertia: Moral Inertia (Negative Difference [MIND]): If there is a causal process underway that you could interfere with, and your interference would make a negative difference to the well-being of some affected party, then you have, in addition to the reason generated by the loss in well-being itself, a defeasible reason not to intervene.6 MIND would give the environmentalist more of the results she wants. Unlike MINI, it covers the case of clear-cutting a forest. It also seems to

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cover some cases of geo-engineering to combat climate change. For example, it would seem to entail that there is extra reason not to inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere even if this might have some beneficial cooling effect, so long as the intervention would negatively impact some individual’s wellbeing (or perhaps the well-being of some ecosystem; Gardiner 2010: 342). MIND is vague in ways similar to the way attributions of value to wildness are vague. There is vagueness concerning what counts as a causal process, and what counts as interfering. This again provides some reason to think it might be true; after all, there are cases in which we are not sure whether to intervene, and at least some of these will be cases in which we are not sure what would count as intervening, or what counts as an ongoing causal process. MIND runs into problems, however, when we think about cases in which a mistake has already been made. For example, suppose humans have introduced a destructive alien species into an ecosystem. MIND entails that there was reason for them not to have done that, but we’re supposing it has already been done, and we have to figure out what to do next. On the face of it, MIND entails that we shouldn’t do anything. After all, there is now a causal process underway consisting of these alien creatures killing off some native species and altering the ecosystem. But this would mean that MIND commits us to a strange sort of refusal to correct our moral mistakes. Surely if it was wrong to introduce the alien species, and we can undo what we did, we ought to do so, even if that involves an intervention into an ongoing process. Furthermore, it does not seem to matter whether the person who introduced the species is the same person who eradicates it; it is permissible to clean up someone else’s mistake. If this is right, then perhaps we would need to add more complexity to MIND: MIND*: If there is a causal process underway that you could interfere with, and your interference would make a negative difference to the well-being of some affected party, and the process was not itself the result of some person’s interference in a causal process that made a difference to the well-being of some affected party, then you have, in addition to the reason generated by the loss in well-being itself, a defeasible reason not to intervene. MIND* removes the unwanted implication that there would be reason not to correct one’s mistakes. But it reintroduces a problem that plagued the view that wildness is intrinsically valuable: the problem of human chauvinism. Consider these scenarios: Bad Human: A bad human brings an alien insect into an ecosystem and releases it with the intention of destroying the native plants, which it begins to do.

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Elephant: An alien insect hitches a ride on an elephant and gets into an ecosystem, where it begins to destroy the native plants. In Bad Human, it seems clear we have good reason to undo the wrongdoing of the bad human if possible; this is consistent with MIND*. In Elephant, we have reason not to interfere in the ecosystem; the insect invasion was the result of a natural process, not the result of any intervention by people. If we could intervene in Elephant, we could intervene everywhere. But what is the relevant difference here? There might be several possibilities, but two are salient. We might think the difference is just that in Bad Human, it’s a human that interferes, while in Elephant, it is a non-human, and we have reason to undo the interference of humans but not of nonhumans. Or we might think the difference is that in Bad Human there is wrongdoing, but there isn’t any wrongdoing in Elephant, and we have reason to undo wrongdoing when we can. So let us consider a third scenario: Unaware Human: An alien insect hitches a ride on an unsuspecting person’s clothes and gets into an ecosystem, where it begins to destroy the native plants. In Unaware Human, there is no wrongdoing. (Unless we suppose that the person ought to have been more careful, but we can just imagine that the person was careful and took great pains to ensure that no alien species hitched a ride on her clothes, but that she failed to detect the sneaky insect.) But now I think we are pulled in two directions, each of them uncomfortable. On one hand, it seems that whether there was wrongdoing involved is irrelevant to whether we should undo the consequences of the act. If a human introduces a destructive alien species into an environment, surely we can try to reverse that, whether it was on purpose or not. We can’t take moral inertia as a reason not to interfere to solve some problem, when our interference, even if unintentional, was responsible for the problem. On the other hand, the only difference between Unaware Human and Elephant is the species of the animal on which the insect hitched a ride. To say that this makes a difference to what we ought to do is to reintroduce the sort of objectionable chauvinism that plagued the view that wildness is intrinsically valuable. How can the mere species of the carrier of the invading insect make a difference to our moral obligation to interfere with the destruction?

3.

CONCLUSION

We have seen that both the consequentialist and the non-consequentialist approach fail to justify the thought that there are non-contingent, intrinsic reasons not to interfere with nature. I have not exhausted all the possibilities.

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For example, one might formulate a hybrid view according to which (1) there are acts of interference that there are non-consequentialist reasons not to perform, but (2) one has an obligation to minimize the occurrence or the impact of such acts (the consequentialist component). This could justify the correction of prior mistakes. But it would not help provide an adequate account of what is going on in Bad Human, Unaware Human, and Elephant. This, of course, does not mean that there are no reasons at all to refrain from interfering. It just means that, unless some other reason can be given, we will have to be content with philosophically boring reasons to refrain from interference.7 NOTES 1. Some argue that, at least in principle, interfering in nature to reduce the amount of predation would be morally justifiable on the grounds that it would reduce animal suffering; see McMahan (2010). See Fink (2005) for a good discussion of issues relating to human interference in predator-prey relations. 2. But see Davison (2010) for a heroic defense of this unlikely claim. 3. For criticisms along these lines see, for example, Shrader-Frechette (1990: 189). 4. There will be room for disagreement over what sorts of beings genuinely have welfare. People do, and lions and antelopes certainly seem to, but do trees and other non-sentient organisms have welfare in a non-derivative sense? Can a nonliving thing be genuinely well off? I don’t attempt to answer such questions here. 5. There are cases that seem like cases of pure beneficence but where some would say intervention would be wrong. Rolston discusses a case in which some whales stranded on the ice were rescued by humans; on first blush this might seem like a case of pure beneficence (1994: 66). But saving the whales is bad for the creatures that would have eaten them had they died, and this seems to be a main reason not to intervene. 6. Sartorio notes that in moving from MINI to MIND, we have taken what was an all-things-considered reason not to intervene in certain specific circumstances when other things are equal, and converted it to a defeasible reason not to intervene in a wide range of circumstances; it is not clear that what motivated the principle in the specific case would motivate the more general principle that applies even when things are not equal. 7. Thanks to Avram Hiller and Carolina Sartorio for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

WORKS CITED Callicott, J. Baird. “Just the Facts, Ma’am.” Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1999. 79–97. Davison, Scott. On the Intrinsic Value of Everything. New York: Continuum, 2012. Elliot, Robert. “Faking Nature.” Environmental Ethics. 5th edition. Eds. Louis Pojman and Paul Pojman. Belmont, CA: Cengage, 2008. Ereshefsky, Marc. “Where the Wild Things Are: Environmental Preservation and Human Nature.” Biology and Philosophy 22 (2007): 57–72. Fink, Charles. “The Predation Argument.” Between the Species 13(5).

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Gardiner, Stephen. A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010. Hettinger, Ned and Bill Throop. “Refocusing Ecocentrism: De-emphasizing Stability and Defending Wildness.” Environmental Ethics. Eds. Louis Pojman and Paul Pojman. 5th edition. Belmont, CA: Cengage, 2008. Katz, Eric. “The Big Lie: Human Restoration of Nature.” Nature as Subject: Human Obligation and Natural Community. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997. 93–107. McMahan, Jeff. “The Meat Eaters.” Opinionator column, New York Times Online, September 19, 2010. Rolston, Holmes. “Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World.” Reflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental Philosophy. Eds. Lori Gruen and Dale Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 65–84. Sartorio, Carolina. “Moral Inertia.” Philosophical Studies 140 (2008): 117–133. Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. “Biological Holism and the Evolution of Ethics.” Between the Species 6 (1990): 185–192.

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Part II

Consequentialism and Environmental Decision Making

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6

On Some Limitations of Consequentialism in the Sphere of Environmental Ethics Alan Holland

1.

INTRODUCTION

Consequentialism has come to be almost the default position in theories of decision-making, and no more so than in theories of environmental decision-making. Many critiques of consequentialism are directed at showing that the actions and/or policies that consequentialism recommends are, for this reason or that, unacceptable from a normative point of view. It is claimed, for example, that they permit too much or that they demand too much (O’Neill et al. 32–44), where “too much” is typically measured against the tenets of so-called commonsense morality. After a brief review of consequentialist responses to some of the specific critiques, a general objection is aired, which we can term the “instrumentalizing objection.” We then note a common feature of these critiques, which is the assumption that consequentialism is capable of generating clear recommendations in the first place. In what follows, a number of considerations are advanced as to why we might have reason to doubt this assumption, considerations whose force is amplified when we consider the attempt to apply consequentialist reasoning in the environmental sphere.1 Finally, it is suggested that, if these considerations have any force, we can draw further inferences from the discussion regarding the possible bases of environmental commitment, insofar as these may be thought to have consequentialist foundations. In his classic article “Whatever the Consequences,” Jonathan Bennett (1966) argued, persuasively, that we could never be justified in taking action “whatever the consequences,” that is, no matter what the consequences might be. Accepting his point entails accepting that consequences always matter in determining what we should do. However, his argument falls short of justifying full-blooded consequentialism. This is because full-blooded consequentialism entails the view that consequences should determine the actions that we take, and there is a clear distinction between saying that consequences always matter—or are always relevant to our actions and policies—and saying that they should determine them. Nevertheless, within government departments in the United Kingdom, for example, the decision-making procedure of choice has for many years

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been that of “cost-benefit analysis,” which we assume here to be a form of consequentialism. Thus, in a booklet published by the then Department of Environment as a guide to other government departments on how to address environmental issues, both in their actions and their policies, we read that “[a]lthough appraisal and evaluation happen at different times, they both use the same analytical framework, notably cost-benefit analysis.”2 At the theoretical level, consequentialism has faced more of an uphill struggle.3 That said, it has also been stoutly defended and, in the process, considerably refined. Our first task, then, is to identify the main characteristics of this “refined” consequentialism, which we refer to as “reflective consequentialism.”

2.

REFLECTIVE CONSEQUENTIALISM

We take the core tenet of consequentialism to be that all action should be directed at producing the best outcome, where the best outcome is some state of the world realizable by the action in question. Broadly speaking, the refinements that have been introduced constitute attempts to respond to the most frequently occurring criticisms. Since these criticisms are diverse, the process has resulted in some considerable fragmentation of the consequentialist position. First, perhaps the most longstanding refinement has been the development of two versions of consequentialism—act and rule, respectively. For if act consequentialism is found too anarchic and open to abuse, then rule versions are available, such as the one defended by Tyler Cowen—a version which, it is claimed, “makes it easier to justify strict moralities and strict policy prescriptions and to make a much tighter, more consistent case for our preferred vision of a liberal order” (2011: 212). Second, some critics have found the apparent requirements of consequentialism overly demanding. One response has been to insist that this is not in itself a problem since morality does, and indeed should, place demands on us. Another, different and incompatible response is to try to show that consequentialism, properly understood, is much more in line with common or garden morality than at first appears, and considerable efforts have been expended to make the deliverances of consequentialism conform to our preexisting intuitions. Third, other critics object to the maximizing objective apparently contained in the injunction to pursue the “best outcome.” But now, it seems, satisficing consequentialism is an option (as originally proposed by Michael Slote [1985: chap. 3]). The proposal has engendered lively debate, with recent contributions from Ben Bradley (2006) and Jason Rogers (2010), offering a critique and a defense, respectively. Fourth, although it is open to the advocates of consequentialism to adopt widely differing views on what counts as “the good,” it has seemed

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that each particular version must understand the good in a monistic fashion. But Peter Railton, for one, disagrees, advocating a pluralist approach “in which several goods are viewed as intrinsically non-morally valuable— such as happiness, knowledge, purposeful activity, autonomy, solidarity, respect and beauty” (1988: 109–110). All that is needed, he argues, for such an approach to be assimilated into consequentialism is for each good to be attributed a weight such that “the criterion of rightness for an act would be that it most contribute to the weighted sum of these values in the long run” (110). It is an approach that Robin Attfield, among others, has endorsed (2005: 92) Fifth, objections have been raised (by Bernard Williams [1973], among others) to the impersonal, even alienating quality of consequentialist thinking. A contributory cause is thought to be the exclusion from pure consequentialist thinking of what are called “agent-relative” considerations—the significance of personal relationships and the like. But Railton, again, after his extended discussion of the issue, feels able to conclude that “the argument of this article, if successful, shows there to be a firm place in moral practice for [agent-centered] prerogatives . . . even if one accepts a fully consequentialist fundamental moral theory” (1988: 125). Thanks to these “shape-shifting” tactics, it has become increasingly difficult to breach the defenses of consequentialism. And this may be one source of its continued resilience. For almost every objection to consequentialism, avenues of escape have opened up that are compatible with remaining within the umbrella position: almost everyone may find a home there. In the process, however, it is possible that consequentialism has lost some of its original appeal. Many look to consequentialism for its bracing quality and its capacity to challenge complacency. Others value its promise of objectivity and its transparent decision procedure. For others, again, it affords a distinctive position, one that can act as a counterpoint for moral positions framed in terms of virtues and principles. But from the very brief descriptions given, we can see that many of the more “refined” forms of consequentialism sacrifice one or more of these attractions. Nor is it quite sufficient to respond that “bracing” forms of consequentialism are just as open for adoption as they ever were, because the fragmentation necessarily creates a lack of clarity about what exactly it is that consequentialism in itself commits you to. Perhaps the most persuasive defense, and one that can be used as a defense of consequentialism in all its forms, is simply that, at the end of the day, of all the available approaches to the question of how we should act, consequentialism is the only one left with something to say: it always has to pick up the pieces. Or so, I think, its advocates will claim. Recommendations to virtue are all very well, but how are we to decide in any given case which of the actions open to us is the brave, kind, or prudent thing to do unless we pay some attention to the consequences of what we do? Or when our principles finally land us in an impasse, how are we to extricate ourselves other than by resort to consequentialist considerations?

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Alan Holland INSTRUMENTALIZING THE AGENT

Although it is true that both normative and meta-ethical objections to consequentialism are becoming extremely difficult to “clinch,” it might nevertheless be argued that, answering to the simple and general defense, there is at least one simple and general ground for concern: that consequentialism essentially involves the instrumentalizing of the agent. The assiduous deployment of instrumental rationality, it might be argued, makes us into instruments of rationality. One way of broaching this concern is to begin with the thought that the real problem with, for example, satisficing consequentialism is not the satisficing element but the consequentialist element. True, satisficing consequentialism avoids what we might call, by extension, “pleonectic” discomfort—discomfort at the idea of there being an obligation to acquire more than enough of some good.4 But it retains another discomforting feature that is arguably common to all forms of consequentialism: it still involves agents viewing themselves essentially as instruments, not admittedly for the achieving of as much of the desired outcome as possible (the maximizing option) but at any rate for achieving enough of it—however “enough” is to be specified. It should be noted that the concern differs from that discussed by Railton (1988: 110 n. 21), which involves the worry that consequentialists might be accused of taking an instrumental view of others—their friends, for instance. To take an example, much has been written about the dilemma facing an agent who can save five innocent victims by killing one. Samuel Scheffler, for one, has argued forcefully that to refrain from killing the one seems tantamount to a betrayal of the consequentialist mission: “How”, he asks, “can it be rational to forbid the performance of a morally objectionable action that will have the effect of minimising the total number of comparably objectionable actions that are performed” (1988: 249–250). Or so it must seem, from a consequentialist perspective. Now it might be, as Scheffler in fact implies (252) that killing the one would only be enjoined by a maximizing agenda. But little comfort can be derived from supposing that a satisficing agenda would enjoin us to refrain from the killing. For then we would need to know what moralizing mathematics dictates that saving the one is “enough” and how such mathematics could be anything other than arbitrary. The deeper problem, I argue, stems from the fact that we are invited to see our role as agents to be that of “promoters of the good,” whether this good be maximal or merely sufficient.5 Fictional villains are sometimes depicted as seeing themselves as vehicles or instruments of evil. And this is partly what makes them unnerving. But something of the same unnerving quality, I suggest, translates across to agents who see themselves as vehicles or instruments of anything, even as “promoters of the good.”6 For the question is whether this is how we should perceive our role as agents, or, more broadly, whether this is how we should live our lives. And

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here it is pertinent to observe that there are frameworks for understanding the structure of human lives that are somewhat less congenial to the consequentialist outlook. One might argue, for example, that it is the living of individual lives that is, or should be, the central focus of (human) morality, rather than the achieving of “goals.” And these lives have as central elements a structure, shape, direction, history, and meaning that are all of them relevant to the question of how we should act, and none of which in any obvious way points us toward the promotion of best outcomes. Further, these are lives constituted by ongoing projects rather than punctuated by outcomes. Nor should such projects necessarily be conceived as driven by “goals.” True we have “goals” from time to time, but sometimes we do things for no reason—read a book or go for a walk, waiting perhaps for a goal to come along. We do such things intentionally, but this is not to say that we have some specific motive or intention for doing them. It is only under an “Aristotelian” metaphysics, one that is teleological through and through, that we need to see goals everywhere—and not just in human action. It is a metaphysic that apparently is still exerting its influence.7 In mitigation, it might be observed that the point only has full force at the level of individual decision making. When we are representing others, or performing a role in some larger organization, for example, then we are indeed obliged to see ourselves to a greater or lesser degree as both agents and instruments. Further to this point it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that the aim of Bentham’s original and devastating consequentialist critique was “to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law” (1948 [1789]: chap. I, sec. I) and was in general directed at the sclerosis of institutions rather than the turpitude of individuals, in which he showed little or no interest (Warnock 1962: 23).That said, it might also be observed, however, that even at the state level, from the time of the Crusades to the modern war in Iraq, and no matter how “righteous” the cause is supposed to be, there has to be a deep concern about agents who see themselves as instruments in the service of some larger cause. A more promising response to the criticism is to appeal to the distinction between consequentialism as a decision procedure and consequentialism as a criterion of right action. In light of this distinction it is open to consequentialists to claim that it is not the fact that we follow a particular decision procedure that makes an action right, but how things actually turn out. The move is prompted, in large measure, by the realization that aiming at certain sorts of “target” (pleasure, happiness) is often a sure way of failing to achieve them. So, if there is no distinctively consequentialist way of ensuring that a particular outcome occurs, then consequentialists can hardly be accused of inviting agents to view themselves as instruments for the achieving of such outcomes. But this response is unsatisfactory, for three reasons. First, adopting the view that right actions are determined by outcomes in no way entails abandoning the view that acting in light of means–end reasoning remains the best

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way of achieving such outcomes. Second, the attempt to put some distance between consequentialism as a decision procedure and consequentialism as a criterion of right action must meet the case bluntly put by Philip Pettit as follows: “The consequentialist holds that the proper way for an agent to respond to any values recognised is to promote them: that is, in every choice to select the option with prognoses that mean it is the best gamble with those values” (1990: 233). Given his further remark that “prognosis picks up one version of the familiar notion of a consequence” (232), it seems clear that for Pettit, at least, promotion entails some form of consequentialist reasoning. Third, if, prior to some action, the consequentialist resorts to a principle, a rule, or a habit, in the expectation that this, rather than a specific calculation, will yield the best result, then she is simply using an alternative form of consequentialist reasoning. What are presented as reasons why we should abandon consequentialism as a decision procedure seem only to be recommendations that we deploy a more sophisticated consequentialist decision procedure, even though it is describable only as “whatever decision procedure will, or is likely to, secure the best outcome.” Indeed, if the achieving of outcomes is all-important, one has to wonder what “non-consequentialist” ways of securing them are available. The classic alternative strategy is the one attributed by Sextus Empiricus to the Skeptics who “in hopes of gaining quietude by means of a decision regarding the disparity of the objects of sense and of thought . . . being unable to effect this . . . suspended judgement; and they found that quietude, as if by chance, followed upon their suspense” (book 1, sec. XII). The experience is illustrated by the example of the painter Apelles who, frustrated at his inability to capture the foam at a horse’s mouth, flung his sponge at the canvas and, in doing so, achieved the very effect he was after. But it is hardly credible to suppose that, in face of the realization that aiming at some target is often a sure way of failing to achieve it, consequentialists are suggesting that we do the equivalent of flinging our sponge at the canvas.

4.

GENERAL PROBLEMS OF REFLECTIVE CONSEQUENTIALISM

Much of the discussion of consequentialism has been conducted under the assumption that the concepts of “outcome” (or its equivalent) and “best outcome” (or its equivalent) are robust enough to bear the weight that is put on them in consequentialist theorizing. In what follows, we shall see reason to question this assumption. Beginning, first, with the concept of “outcome” itself, it is surely the case that only under very circumscribed conditions can we safely speak of “the” outcome. Just as action can be described in an indefinite number of ways (a person may be moving their arm up and down, pumping water, casting a shadow on the rockery and so forth, as in the well-known example from Anscombe (1957: 37), so too can outcomes (the horse was lost, the rider was

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lost, the battle was lost, and so forth, as in the well-known nursery rhyme). But if the identification of some state of affairs as “the outcome” is doubtful, then so too must be the identification of some state of affairs as “the best outcome.” At the very least it might be best under one description but not under another.8 An additional problem concerns the questions of which outcomes are relevant and of where and when we have come to an end of the outcomes that we should consider. Football manager Gary selects his team each week to achieve the best result, and a string of good results mean that his team gains promotion. The best outcome perhaps. But suppose that as a “further” consequence, his two key players perform so well that they are “poached” by another team, with the result that his team is promptly relegated again the following season.9 It might be replied that problems of this kind are capable of solution by recognizing the contextual nature of all such actions. In any given context, the relevant outcomes will be understood, or if they are unclear, they can in principle be specified. But it is unclear whether this response is satisfactory. Winter is long drawn out, and Sally buys daffodils as cut flowers to help cheer herself up while she waits for spring to arrive. They do indeed have this effect, though they soon wilt and she has to repeat the purchase a number of times. On each occasion, let us suppose, it was the best thing she could have done with her spare money. When spring eventually arrives, she calculates that a better outcome might have been achieved if she had saved the flower money and used it to pay for a slap-up meal out for herself and her friend. The best outcome is relative to context, but which context is to be given precedence? How ought Sally to have acted? Two things seem clear. One is that the answer cannot be arrived at by direct resort to consequentialist calculation. The other is that consequentialism does not here have the last word, which is rather to be looked for in a number of non-outcome considerations such as the structure, shape, direction, history, and meaning of Sally’s life. A further complication is that the Sally who decides that she might have done better to save for a slap-up meal is a Sally buoyed by the earlier purchase of daffodils. But if we are attempting to decide (retrospectively) between the daffodil purchases and the slap-up meal, a comparison would have to be made between the daffodil purchases and a slap-up meal involving a hypothetical Sally who had not previously enjoyed the daffodils. Perhaps, bereft of daffodils, she would have been depressed, resentful—who knows?—and unable to relish the meal. But the crucial point to observe here is that the problem is not (merely) epistemological but is ontological. The point is not that we can’t know the psychological state of this alternative Sally; the point is that that there is no such alternative being for us to know.10 An obvious retort is that we are not here describing any special set of circumstances but circumstances that pertain to almost every decision we make. But that is exactly the point. Almost everything we do is judged against alternatives that are never realized. True, in some cases we can be

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pretty certain what the alternative would have been: had you not stood on your brakes, you would have crashed into the wall. But Harry, who takes glucosamine tablets for his joints, has no idea whether this is “for the best,” because he has no idea how he would feel if he were not taking them. Perhaps he takes them because his wife “nags” him about it. In fact, like most drugs, glucosamine tablets have been subject to extensive tests, involving both humans and animals and (importantly) designed to replicate, as far as possible, Harry’s situation. There is at least some likelihood, therefore, that Harry is acting for the best. But the testing of drugs is exceptional, and few of our everyday problems, including Sally’s daffodil dilemma, will have been or are likely to be replicated in this way. The countless unrealized alternatives to what we in fact do are thus, to varying degrees, indeterminate.11 Nor is this the end of the difficulties, if we adopt the view that consequentialism should be viewed not as a decision procedure but as a (retrospective) criterion of right action. Effectively this means that the answer to the question, “Are we doing the right thing?” waits on the answer to the question, “Did we do the right thing?” But in so many cases of individual decision making, and in some cases of collective decision making, this question is simply inappropriate. For in so many cases, the answer is simply “up to us”: we can here and now decide, or at any rate help to determine, what the “outcome” will be. Rather than bemoaning the absence of her slap-up meal, Sally can here and now make the daffodil decision “the right one” by seeking cost-free alternatives to the slap-up meal that will make her feel just as good about the world. In general terms, the notion of “best outcome” is no more than an idealized abstraction. For whether a state of the world constitutes the best outcome so often depends, wholly or in part, on the actions, behaviors, and attitudes of the various “players” in that state of the world. In that event, it is wholly inaccurate to construe outcomes as sequences of events destined to play themselves out, in the manner of Aristotle’s stone, once it is released from the hand of the person who throws it (Aristotle 1984: 1114a20). Once again, there is no such determinate entity as “the outcome” and, a fortiori, no such determinate entity as “the best outcome.”

5. SPECIFIC RESERVATIONS RELATING TO ENVIRONMENT: THE HORIZON PROBLEM It was claimed earlier that the best outcome, if it can be determined at all, can only be determined relative to a given context; and where the same action might be framed against different contextual backgrounds, the question arose of which context was to be given precedence. In “local” contexts, such as the context of a certain period of a person’s life, the problem might be solvable (though not necessarily through outcome driven considerations) by reference to some larger context, such as some more extended period of that same person’s life. However, when it comes to considering how we

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should act in relation to the many environmental problems that increasingly demand our attention, a solution is not so readily available. The nub of the problem lies in the fact that the environment is an arena where contexts have become what we call “horizons.” Accordingly, we refer to it as “the horizon problem.” The term horizon is chosen because, unlike the vaguer term context, it connotes the idea of inherent limits. It is used to denote what we can broadly think of as cultural, ecological, and evolutionary horizons, respectively. The first difficulty for an outcome-oriented approach is how we are to track outcomes and their causes across different horizons. To further explore this difficulty, let us first note a key feature of some of the more pressing of our environmental problems, taking as our examples climate change, pollution of an order that threatens to overwhelm the capacity of planetary-wide “sinks” to absorb, and species extinction of an order that rivals the “great extinctions.” The point to note is that none of these is the intended consequence of any human action: they are all in some sense or other “side effects.”12 The explanation is that while the outcomes have far-reaching ecological and evolutionary significance, the huge majority of the human actions that have served to bring them about were constrained by cultural horizons of one sort or another, feeding the family, helping friends, serving the community, and so forth. Given the major significance of outcomes such as climate change, then if outcome-driven approaches are to have application in the environmental sphere, they have to be capable of taking side effects into account. But with respect to climate change, in particular, Stephen Gardiner has described with some eloquence the complexity of the causal nexus involved. For present purposes, we note just four elements of this complexity. First is the dispersion of agency which makes it next to impossible to identify which agents and which actions are responsible for which effects: “climate change is not caused by a single agent, but by a vast number of individuals and institutions not unified by a comprehensive structure of agency” (Gardiner 2006: 399). Second is the dispersion of effects, which makes it next to impossible to identify which outcomes flow from which actions: “emissions of greenhouse gases from any geographical location on the earth’s surface travel to the upper atmosphere and then play a role in affecting climate globally” (399). Third is the phenomenon of “temporal dispersion,” by which is indicated the time lag between the actions that collectively and cumulatively bring about climate change and the changes themselves that incidentally have no obvious terminal point. Fourth is the fact that the causes of climate change are embedded deeply in the social fabric, so deeply that the opportunity costs of failing to do those actions that have brought about climate change are next to impossible to compute. Yet they would have to be computed if the implicitly comparative concept of “best” outcome is to have any traction. True, we regard climate change as a problem. But could it be that our current situation, with all the environmental problems that we face, is in

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fact the best for which we could have hoped? If some previous generation had opted for zero growth, for example, perhaps the resulting discontent would have led to the mayhem of a third world war. There simply is no telling how far, or near, our current situation is to being the best outcome of all the choices that our predecessors faced. Or, looking at the problem “from the other end” so to speak, there has been much discussion recently of the problem of collective harm13—the problem posed by the fact that though some harm has come about (climate change, let us suppose) each of the individual actions that are collectively responsible for the harm has made no perceptible difference to that outcome. Kagan contends that “imperceptible differences won’t pose a problem for the consequentialist as long as they constitute real harms, even if imperceptible ones” (2011: 129). But the problem we are attempting to draw attention to here is not our inability to say that each individual action makes the outcome worse, but our inability to say, in the first place, what difference each individual action makes. For this is what we must be able to do, it seems, if we continue to hold that the rightness of an action is determined by its outcome. In sum, the concept of best outcome might have application in severely circumscribed contexts where spatial and temporal factors can be strictly delimited. But in the causally complex context of climate change, it is difficult to see how it can have any application at all. The second difficulty is how we are to commensurate the very different demands laid on us by, say, our cultural and ecological horizons, respectively. For the choice of horizon clearly makes some difference to the kinds of questions it is appropriate to ask and the kinds of action we might contemplate. The limiting case perhaps is the horizon delineated by the phrase “sub specie aeternitatis.” Finite humans though we are, we are certainly capable of contemplating such a horizon and, in doing so, put our own endeavors into some kind of perspective. But there is probably no answer to the question, How should we act in relation to such a horizon? With respect to the ecological horizon, however, by which I mean, roughly, the horizon formed by our biosphere, we can certainly formulate questions and contemplate actions. The question is how we can commensurate those questions and those actions with those we face on a daily basis regarding ourselves, our family and friends, and our communities. Our situation is nicely illustrated by Paul Wood’s (1997) discussion of the value that we should place on biodiversity. Wood argues that a sharp distinction should be drawn between biological resources (in our terms, a concern set largely within our cultural horizons) and biodiversity itself (a concern, again in our terms, to be set clearly within our ecological and evolutionary horizons). For Wood, the distinction is of sufficient importance to license two key inferences. One is that increments of biodiversity should not be traded off against biological resources since biodiversity is “a necessary precondition for the long term maintenance of biological resources” (262). Hence, “an entirely different decision making paradigm” is required (262). The second

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is that the conservation of biodiversity should be seen as a constraint on the public interest rather than a goal that is in the public interest to pursue. In no way is it my intention to challenge Railton’s observation that “[i]n thought and action we shuttle back and forth from more personal to less personal standpoints, and both play an important role in the process whereby purpose, meaning and identity are generated and sustained” (1998: 126). My claim is simply that, in view of the horizon problem, it is difficult to see how the shuttling process can be conducted through outcome-guided considerations. The question is how we are to compare outcomes across horizons and how we are to identify best outcomes in a sense that is supposed to command both horizons simultaneously. My contention is that this cannot be done. An obvious move is to resort to lexical ordering. But as soon as we do this, it seems to me, we are abandoning the consequentialist faith: we are no better than deontologists who, of course, can lexically order their principles. A third difficulty14 is posed by the asymmetry between human and a properly “biocentric” morality. On one hand, nature is notoriously careless of the individual. As E.O. Wilson observes, “Each species was sculpted and burnished by an astronomical number of events in natural selection, which killed off or otherwise blocked from reproduction the vast majority of its member organisms before they completed their life-spans” (1992: 329). Human morality, on the other hand, sets great store by the individual and insists on the moral considerability of each individual human being. Indeed there is a case for saying that it is partly because of this insistence that humans make such huge demands on the natural world. But, in terms of the general trends to be observed in nature, these are hugely unnatural demands, and hardly consistent with the frequently voiced injunction that we should see ourselves as “part of, rather than apart from, nature.”15 On the analysis being offered here, such a stark distinction is understandable if we bear in mind the radically different horizons that underpin it. Once again, the difficulty is simply this: How could there possibly be such a thing as a best outcome for any decision that is called on to embrace two such different moral horizons? The extinction of a subspecies of insect has ramifications with respect to both ecological and, it may be, evolutionary horizons. The death of a child has no such ramifications. In the highly unlikely but logically possible scenario calling for a choice between the two, reasons for the choice may well be found. My contention is that those reasons could never be reconstructed to show that in light of some given criterion the action taken constituted “the better outcome.”

6.

THE BASIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

If the foregoing remarks have any substance, then it may be appropriate to draw certain inferences from them concerning the basis of our, or any, commitment to nature. In particular, they would seem to suggest that we

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should not look to what we have termed the human horizon for an account of what the basis of this commitment might be. In particular, this would seem to rule out appeal to concepts that consequentialists tend to rely on such as “interests” or “flourishing,” or indeed any understanding of value— intrinsic or otherwise—that ultimately rests on concepts such as “interests” or “flourishing.” So far as interests are concerned, it would be difficult to improve on what Bernard Williams has written in this regard: The idea of ascribing interests to species, natural phenomena and so on, as a way of making sense of our concern for these things, is part of a project of trying to extend into nature our concerns for each other, by moralising our relations to nature. I suspect, however, that this is to look in exactly the wrong direction. If we are to understand these things, we need to look to our ideas of nature itself, and to ways in which it precisely lies outside the domestication of our relations to each other. (1995: 237) So far, as flourishing is concerned, and even before any point about horizons is raised, we already have more than enough reason to pause. To express the point in the briefest possible terms, we need to think long and hard about how minimal is the flourishing that nature permits before we pronounce that the value of nature lies in the flourishing of wild things. Forgoing the more colorful outpourings of Schopenhauer16 and J.S. Mill in his essay “Nature” (1961–1991: X, 373–402) on this matter, we need only remind ourselves of the sober observation of E.O. Wilson, quoted earlier, to illustrate the generally casual status that nature affords the individual. In a word, the flourishing of individuals is far and away the exception. For countless numbers of members of countless numbers of species their fate is, and always will be, failure to flourish. Nor can the point be evaded by stepping up to the level of ecosystems. True, ecosystems can flourish. But it then becomes a moot point whether we can, or should endorse such flourishing that in so many cases depends precisely on the discarding of countless individuals.

7.

CODA

Finally, it is worth reflecting for a moment on the implications of one of the perennial proposals urged on us by at least some environmental philosophers—the proposal that we should “let nature be.” Through processes of random mutation and natural selection, with an added mix of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes and cometary showers, nature has delivered us the biosphere as we know it. The proposal is that, so far as it lies within our power and willingness to do so, we should let nature continue in this way, however things may turn out. Thus, the proposal to “let nature be” is,

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precisely, a “whatever the consequences” proposal. For my money, it is none the worse for that. But it has not been the purpose here to defend such a proposal. The purpose has, rather, been the more modest one of attempting to show, contrary to the core consequentialist claim, that there are issues here that lie well beyond the scope of the “best outcome” approach to determine. It is true that any attempt to address environmental issues will involve envisaging some future or other. A consideration of consequences will always be relevant, therefore, to our actions and policies, but it can never determine them.17

NOTES 1. At a practical level, one might wonder what extra assumptions are being smuggled in to uphold the pretence that consequentialist decision making is actually taking place. 2. Department of the Environment (1994: 2). “Appraisal” is explained as “an analysis of the likely implications of a decision before it is taken,” and “evaluation” is explained as “an analysis of the effects of a decision after it has been taken and the consequences have had time to work themselves out.” Philosophers will notice how this distinction reflects, or is reflected by, the distinction between consequentialism as a decision procedure and consequentialism as a criterion of rightness. 3. As evidenced in Chang (1997). 4. From the Greek pleonectein, which refers, usually, to the acquisition of more than one’s fair share of something. Given our environmental predicament, it could be argued that having more than enough will very often amount to having more than one’s fair share. 5. An interestingly divergent analysis of this scenario is offered by Conrad D. Johnson, who suggests that the source of concern lies in the fact that the agent is viewed as exceeding their authority, and in this sense is “playing God” (1988: 265). 6. The capacity to unnerve is not necessarily restricted to consequentialists. Arguably, the same unnerving quality attaches to the sense of purpose and meaning (that Railton says seems to him “ubiquitous”) “that comes from seeing oneself as part of something larger and more enduring than oneself or one’s intimate circle” (Railton 1988: 112). One might think that the larger canvas should serve, rather, to remind one of one’s insignificance. (For an alternative perspective on meaning, see Holland 2009.) 7. See Holland (2002) for further reflections on this theme. 8. In his interesting essay “Consequentialism, Rationality and the Relevant Description of Outcomes,” Bruno Verbeek deploys the problem of the relevant description of outcomes to question the claim that consequentialism is a requirement of rationality (e.g., 2001: 182–183, 197, 203–204). 9. Or one might cite the example of rain dances that are ineffectual at producing rain, but highly efficacious for maintaining group solidarity (Fuller 1994: 17). 10. No doubt there is an epistemological problem (see, e.g., Lenman 2000). But the claim being made here is that the basis of the problem is ontological. 11. This accords with Lenman’s suspicion (2000: 352) that “perhaps there is no such thing as a determinate way things would have been in the future if he had not acted (or failed to act) as he did.” 12. Some discussion of side effects is to be found in Oatley (1994) and Siipi (2003), respectively.

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13. For example, see Kagan (2011), with Nefsky’s response (2012). 14. Though it could perhaps be presented as a particular expression of the second difficulty. 15. Viewed in this light, the position of “biocentric individualism,” which ascribes moral considerability to each individual living thing, has to be seen as something of an anomaly. But this is not an issue that can be pursued further here. 16. Quoted in Cottingham (2003: 50). 17. I would like to thank the editors for suggesting a number of improvements to the chapter and for their general encouragement and support.

WORKS CITED Anscombe, G.E.M. Intention. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1957. Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Vol. 2. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. Attfield, Robin. “Biocentric Consequentialism and Value-Pluralism: A Response to Alan Carter.” Utilitas 17 (2005): 85–92. Bennett, Jonathan. “Whatever the Consequences.” Analysis 26 (1966): 83–102. Bentham, Jeremy. The Principles of Morals and Legislation. Ed. Laurence Julien Lafleur. New York: Hafner, 1948. Bradley, Ben. “Against Satisficing Consequentialism.” Utilitas 18 (2006): 97–108. Chang, Ruth (ed.). Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Cottingham, John. On the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge, 2003. Cowen, Tyler. “Rule Consequentialism Makes Sense After All.” Social Philosophy and Policy 28, No. 2 (2011): 212–231. Department of the Environment (UK). Environmental Appraisal in Government Departments. London: HMSO, 1994. Fuller, Steve. “Is Consequentialism Better Regarded as a Form of Reasoning or as a Pattern of Behaviour?” Behavioural and Brain Sciences 17 (1994): 16–17. Gardiner, Stephen M. “A Perfect Moral Storm.” Environmental Values 15 (2006): 397–413. Holland, Alan. “Are Choices Trade-offs?” Economics, Ethics & Environmental Policy. Eds. D. Bromley & J. Paavola. Blackwell, UK: Oxford, 2002. 17–34. Holland, Alan. “Darwin and the Meaning in Life.” Environmental Values 18 (2009): 503–518. Johnson, Conrad D. “The Authority of the Moral Agent.” Journal of Philosophy 82, No. 8 (1985): 391–413; reprinted in: Consequentialism and Its Critics. Ed. Samuel Scheffler. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1988. 261–287. Kagan, Shelly. “Do I Make a Difference?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39 (2011): 105–141. Lenman, James. “Consequentialism and Cluelessness.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 (2000): 342–370. Mill, John Stuart. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Ed. John M. Robson. 33 vols. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1963–1991. Nefsky, Julia. “Consequentialism and the Problem of Collective Harm: A Reply to Kagan.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39 (2012): 364–395. Oatley, Keith. “Side Effects: Limitations of Human Rationality.” Behavioural and Brain Sciences 17 (1994): 24–25. O’Neill, John, Alan Holland, and Andrew Light. Environmental Values. London: Routledge, 2008.

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Pettit, Philip. “Consequentialism.” A Companion to Ethics. Ed. Peter Singer. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1990. 230–240. Railton, Peter. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13, No. 2 (1984): 134–171; reprinted in: Consequentialism and Its Critics. Ed. Samuel Scheffler. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1988. 93–133. Rogers, Jason. “In Defense of a Version of Satisficing Consequentialism.” Utilitas 22 (2010): 198–221. Scheffler, Samuel. “Agent-Centered Restrictions, Rationality and the Virtues.” Mind 94 (1985): 409–419; reprinted in: Consequentialism and Its Critics. Ed. Samuel Scheffler. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1988. 243–260. Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Ed. R.G. Bury. London: Heinemann, 1933. Siipi, Helena. “Artefacts and Living Artefacts.” Environmental Values 12 (2003): 415–425. Slote, Michael. Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985. Verbeek, Bruno. “Consequentialism, Rationality and the Relevant Description of Outcomes.” Economics and Philosophy 17 (2001): 181–205. Warnock, Mary. “Editor’s Introduction.” Utilitarianism: On Liberty, Essay on Bentham, Together with Selected Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. Ed. Mary Warnock. London: Collins, Fontana Library, 1962. 7–31. Williams, Bernard. “Consequentialism and Integrity.” Utilitarianism: For and Against. Eds. J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 77–150. Williams, Bernard. Making Sense of Humanity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Wilson, Edward O. The Diversity of Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1992. Wood, Paul. “Biodiversity as the Source of Biological Resources: A New Look at Biodiversity Values.” Environmental Values 6 (1997): 251–268.

7

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism Krister Bykvist

1.

INTRODUCTION

Many environmental issues are difficult because they involve empirical uncertainty. We lack knowledge of the actual outcomes of our actions, so we need to rely on judgments about probability. For example, since we cannot know the actual outcome of global warming, we need to rely on judgments about the probability of various future scenarios. There are some well-known consequentialist solutions to this problem. One of the most popular solutions is that we ought to maximize expected overall value, in which the expected value of an action is the average value of the possible outcomes of the action, weighted by the probabilities of these outcomes. What has received much less attention in the debate about environmental ethics and consequentialism is the problem of evaluative uncertainty: What should you do when you are not sure about your value judgments? For instance, what should you do if you think that both human and animal lives are valuable but not sure how valuable humans are as compared to animals? What should you do if you take seriously the risk of human extinction, but are not sure how bad this would be? Some philosophers have argued that the problem of evaluative uncertainty can only be solved if the consequentialist theory is radically revised so that it takes into account the agent’s evidence for various evaluative hypotheses. I argue that this is a mistake. There is a better solution to this problem that does not require any radical changes to the traditional consequentialist theory. We can stick to the idea that we should maximize actual value, or, if you prefer, expected value. First of all, I argue that cases of evaluative uncertainty should also be seen as cases of moral uncertainty, that is, cases where we are not certain about which action is morally right. Second, I argue that even if we are uncertain about which action is morally right, we can still identify the act that is rational, given the agents’ beliefs and preferences. This notion of rationality should be accepted by all sides. So, the traditional consequentialist need not invoke any notions that are alien to the revisionist consequentialist.

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 123 Before I begin my argument for traditional consequentialism, I shall try to convince you that the question about evaluative uncertainty is not a mere theoretical question without practical relevance. I show that evaluative uncertainty is at the core of the most pressing problems of contemporary environmental ethics: global warming and the moral status of non-human animals. 2. CLIMATE CHANGE AND EVALUATIVE UNCERTAINTY No doubt, one of the biggest challenges for environmental ethics today is global warming. IPCC (2007) suggests 5% probability of global warming greater than about 8˚C and perhaps 1% to 2% probability of warming greater than 10˚C during the next 100 years. These scenarios will have truly catastrophic effects. For example, a 10˚C warming is likely to melt Antarctica, which will raise the sea by 70 meters. This will in turn have the following effects: (1) Millions of species would be lost, and many ecosystems would collapse. (2) The human population would shrink by billions. (3) The human population might go extinct. (4) Billions of people would die early. (5) The existence of very many lives would be prevented (since very many people would decide to have fewer children, if any). You might think that these scenarios should not worry us too much since they are very unlikely. But a much more likely scenario is that there will be a global warming of fewer than 10˚C but more that 2 or 3 degrees, and this will have similar but less extensive effects. This global warming will still severely harm many ecosystems. For example, about 20% to 30%, and many more, of species will be put at risk if temperatures rise as far as 4 degrees. The effects on humans will also be very bad. For example, farming in the tropics will be damaged by any rise in temperature, farming elsewhere by any rise of more than a degree, and, as a consequence, it will become much harder to feed the world’s population. Since wet areas will become wetter and dry areas drier, there will be increased numbers of floods and droughts. As a consequence, the human population will shrink, if not by billions, then by millions, and many lives will be prevented, since many people would still decide to have fewer children. So, no matter whether we are considering a scenario with global warming greater than 2 or 3 degrees or one greater than 8 or 10 degrees, we need to try to assess the values of these effects. Even though we can be pretty certain that most of them are bad in some sense and to some extent, we would be fooling ourselves if we thought we knew exactly how bad these possible effects are.

124 3.

Krister Bykvist UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE VALUE OF EXISTENCE

We are especially puzzled about how to assess the disvalue of the prevention of the existence of lives. Indeed, you may think there is no disvalue here to assess, because you think it is not bad at all to prevent the existence of lives, not even if they would have been very good lives. More exactly, you may suggest that an extra good life does not make a difference in value; the world would be as good with as without this extra life. To remind you why this won’t work, consider the following schematic example, taken from the debate about population ethics (the numbers represent levels of well-being of two individuals; “−” represents the fact that the second individual does not exist in A): A = (6, −) B = (6, 2) C = (6, 6) If an extra life does not make a difference, then B is as good as A. Furthermore, C is better than B, since it is better for someone and not worse for anyone, and furthermore, there is perfect equality in C but not in B. C is better than A, since C is better than B, which in turn is as good as A. But if an extra life never makes a difference, C must be judged exactly as good as A. So, we end up with a contradiction: C is better than A, and C is not better than A. One way out is to claim that adding good lives does make the world better at least to some extent, but then we need to know how much better the world would be, and, again, most of us would not be sure about this. Of course, there are other replies to this problem, but it has been shown that the other replies are doomed to violate some very intuitive principles.1 Indeed, there are “impossibility theorems” that show, formally, that there is no theory that can satisfy all our pet principles.2 So, we need to give up some of these principles, but, again, we are not sure which principle we should give up.

4.

ANIMAL WELL-BEING AND EVALUATIVE UNCERTAINTY

Another question in environmental ethics about which there is pervasive evaluative uncertainty is the question of how to weigh human well-being against animal well-being. In particular, many of us are not sure whether impartialism (equal weight) or speciesism (more weight to humans) is true. And even if you are sure that speciesism is correct, you would not be sure about exactly how much extra weight should be given to humans. This question is, of course, crucial in discussion of the moral permissibility of meat eating, food farming, and animal experimentation, but it is also relevant to

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 125 the question of how to assess the probable effects of global warming, since some global warming policies will harm certain animals more than humans. To focus the discussion, I stick to the topic of human versus animal well-being in the following. But any of the other aspects of global warming could have been used as illustrations.

5.

VALUE VACILLATOR CONSEQUENTIALISM

How should the consequentialist deal with evaluative uncertainty? One option for the consequentialist is to redefine moral rightness so that it depends in part on the agent’s evidence about the intrinsic value of outcomes. According to this theory, which we may call Value Vacillator Consequentialism (VVC), an action is judged by the probable value of its probable outcomes. More exactly, the value of action is a function of (a) the probabilities of its possible outcomes, (b) the probabilities of evaluative hypotheses about the values of outcomes, and (c) the intrinsic values of outcomes proposed by these hypotheses. According to Michael Zimmerman’s version of VVC—which I focus on in the following since it is by far the most-worked-out theory to date—an action ought to be performed if it is has the greatest expectable value, and the expectable value of A = ∑i prob (Oi /A) × rj prob (Oi has Vj) × Vj, where Oi is a possible outcome of A, and Vj a possible value. Zimmerman assumes that the relevant probabilities are epistemic, which means that the higher epistemic probability of an outcome, the higher degree of belief is supported by the agent’s total available evidence. Here is Zimmerman’s own example of how his VVC will play out in a case of uncertainty about the importance of non-human versus animal well-being (See Table 7.1). Suppose that you are certain that giving a certain pill to John will cure him partially, and you are certain that giving this pill to Jane will cure her completely. You know that John is a human being and Jane is hamster, but you are not sure how much animal welfare matters in comparison to human welfare. Your evidential probability divides equally Table 7.1 Evaluative hypotheses Impartial (p = 0.5)

Speciesist (p = 0.5)

Give medicine to John (human)

100

100

100 (100 × 0.5) + (100 × 0.5)

Give medicine to Jane (animal)

120

20

70 (120 × 0.5) + (20 × 0.5)

Actions

Expectable value

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between impartialism, according to which the value of a partial cure of John is 100 and the value of a full cure of Jane is 120, and speciesism, according to which the value of a partial cure of John is 100 and the value of a full cure of Jane is 20. Zimmerman’s theory would thus tell us to give the medicine to John, since this has the greatest expectable value. By contrast, traditional consequentialism will say that we ought to give the pill to Jane, if the impartial hypothesis is true, and that we ought to give the pill to John, if the speciesist hypothesis is true. According to traditional consequentialism, evaluative uncertainty generates moral uncertainty, that is, uncertainty about what is morally right.

6.

OBJECTIONS TO VVC: “THE WRONG RIGHT-MAKERS”

Traditional consequentialism identifies the right-makers of actions with facts about the intrinsic value of outcomes, (or, more fundamentally, with facts about the value-makers of these outcomes, that is, the natural features that makes outcomes good or bad). In contrast, VVC identifies the right-makers of actions with facts about the agent’s evidence for outcomes and his evidence for their intrinsic value. But this means that facts about the actual intrinsic values of outcomes will never be right-makers (and facts about the natural features that make outcomes good will never be the more fundamental right-makers). Indeed, not even in a case of full knowledge of the intrinsic values of the outcomes will the actual intrinsic values of outcomes be the right-makers of actions. Suppose, for instance, that someone is kicking a cat for fun and that he knows that it is bad to harm cats for no good reason. We would like to say that it is the fact that it is bad (or, more fundamentally, that the cat is harmed for no good reason) that makes the action wrong. The proponent of VVC, however, has to say that even in this case what makes the action wrong is not that it is bad to kick cats (or that the cat is harmed for no good reason) but that the agent has evidence for the hypothesis that harming a cat for no good reason is bad. One could therefore object that VVC does not take actual intrinsic values (or actual intrinsic value-makers) seriously. Indeed, if one concedes that the actual values of outcomes never make an action right, how could one honestly claim to be a consequentialist? One reply is to say that all consequentialists, no matter of what stripe, must concede that others things than the value of outcomes matter for moral rightness, for they must all accepts that whether an action ought to be done depends on whether it can be done—“ought” implies “can.” The problem with this reply is that it is not especially plausible to say that the fact that an act can be done is itself a right-maker. Rather, the fact that an act can be done is better seen as something that enables it to be an act that can have right-making features, since all moral theories agree that rightness is only defined for performable actions.

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 127 Another reply that does not confuse enablers and right-makers is to say that any consequentialist who takes into account empirical uncertainty must also admit that the right-maker is not just the actual values of outcomes (or the actual value-makers), for, according to them, a right action is always made right in part by the agent’s probabilities of the possible outcomes of each alternative action. But a consequentialist who takes into account empirical uncertainty still claims that rightness is in part determined by actual intrinsic value. In contrast, proponents of VVC claim that rightness is not even in part determined by actual intrinsic value (or the value-makers).

7. OBJECTIONS TO VVC: MORALITY SANCTIONS SERIOUS EVILDOING Suppose that you are faced with the choice between torturing many innocent persons for the sheer fun of it or refraining from doing so, and suppose, not surprisingly, that it would actually be best to refrain from doing so, but that, due to serious deficiencies in your evaluative evidence, it would maximize expectable value to torture children for the sheer fun of it. Perhaps you take pleasure in causing pain and have been brought up in a community of extreme egoists and all your available evidence speaks strongly in favor of some form of extreme egoism. Is it not “grotesque,” to use Zimmerman’s own expression, to think that under such circumstances your overall moral obligation is to torture the children for the sheer fun of it? I say yes, but Zimmerman is willing to bite this bullet (2008: 75). He claims that traditional consequentialists are pretty much in the same boat, if they accept cases of blameless wrongdoing, which they typically do. For instance, if an agent’s evidence was seriously misleading, he might have been blameless in doing evil. It depends on whether he non-culpably believed that he was doing no wrong. I agree that whether an evildoer is blameworthy depends in part on whether the agent believed non-culpably that he was doing no wrong, but this does not mean that I am in the same boat as someone who things evildoers do no moral wrong. The extreme egoist is perhaps not blameworthy for torturing the children, if he believed non-culpably that he was doing no wrong, (which is not to say that he is not blameworthy for enjoying the torture), but to say that he did not even do anything morally wrong when he tortured the children for fun seems to let him off too many moral hooks. I should add that a theory that asks us to maximize expected actual value will have similar implications, since misleading empirical evidence might falsely suggest that only by torturing the innocent for fun will a great disaster be avoided. I think that this is a troubling implication and that it does in fact give some support for the more objective version of consequentialism that asks you to simply maximize actual value. But expected value

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consequentialism is at least better than VVC in this respect, since, on this version of consequentialism, rightness is determined by the true disvalue of torturing rather than the agent’s evidence for possibly massively mistaken claims about its disvalue.

8.

STICK TO TRADITIONAL CONSEQUENTIALISM, INVOKE THE NOTION OF RATIONALITY

If we reject Zimmerman’s (2008) solution to cases of evaluative uncertainty, what shall we do? I think we should stick to traditional consequentialism and say that cases of evaluative uncertainty are in fact also cases of moral uncertainty in which we risk doing wrong. This might not seem to be much of a solution, however, if Zimmerman is right that in cases of moral uncertainty the only thing we can say is that the agent morally ought to do what he morally ought to do. I agree that this is the only thing we can say about moral rightness, but if we introduce a distinct notion of rational preference and choice much more can be said.3 I first show that all sides need to accept a notion of rational preference that does not coincide with moral rightness. Consider the following abstract example, in which the agent is uncertain about whether M1 or M2 is the true moral theory about what makes actions right (See Table 7.2). Suppose that M1 and M2 are two versions of VVC or, alternatively, that M1 is Zimmerman’s VVC and M2 is traditional consequentialism. So, we have a case where the agent is not sure which version of VVC is true, or a case in which he is not sure whether VVC or traditional consequentialism is true. Proponents of VVC must acknowledge that there are such cases of fundamental moral uncertainty, unless they think, absurdly, that it is impossible to be less than fully certain about VVC or a version of it. Suppose M1 is true. Then both A and B are morally right. But B is not a rational choice for someone who cares about morality, for it is not rational to risk doing wrong without any possible gain when one knows how to avoid it. An agent who cares about morality will prefer right-doings to wrongdoings and be indifferent between different right-doings (at least when the rightdoings have the same moral value, which we can assume for simplicity). This means that the morally concerned agent will prefer the outcome (A, M2) to (B, M2) and will indifferent between (A, M1) and (B, M1). But then, given Table 7.2 Actions

Moral hypotheses M1

M2

A

Right

Right

B

Right

Wrong

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 129 Table 7.3 Actions

Moral hypotheses p = 0.5

p = 0.5

M1

M2

A

Minor wrong

Right

B

Right

Major wrong

the agent’s preferences and beliefs, the rational choice is A, not B, since A weakly dominates B in the sense that, no matter whether M1 or M2 is true, A will lead to an outcome that is weakly preferred (strictly preferred or seen as indifferent to) the outcome of B. So, we have a case where rational choice and moral rightness come apart: B is morally right (since we have assumed that M1 is true) but not the rational choice. I shall now show that this notion of rational choice is applicable to cases where no action dominates another. Consider the following case (See Table 7.3). In this case, the agent’s evidence is divided equally between the two moral theories M1 and M2. No matter what he does, he risks doing wrong, but he risks more if he does B, for doing A would be to risk a minor wrong and doing B would be to risk a major wrong. A morally conscientious agent must be sensitive to this difference. His preference for a right-doing over a major wrongdoing will thus be greater than his preference for a right-doing over a minor wrong-doing. This means that his preference for (A, M2) over (B, M2) is greater than his preference for (B, M1) over (A, M1). Given his beliefs and preferences, it is still rational for him to prefer A to B, since the possible gain, from minor wrong to right, does not compensate for the possible loss, from right to major wrong. More generally, as a rational person he prefers bringing about the prospect (x, 0.5, y) rather than (z, 0.5, u), if his preference for x over z is much stronger than his preference for u over y. Note that if we suppose that M1 is in fact the true moral theory, we have a case in which the rational choice is in fact morally wrong. Similar reasoning can be applied to the example about animal versus human well-being, since this case will now be a case of moral uncertainty, not just evaluative uncertainty. Here is how it will look (See Table 7.4). Table 7.4 Actions

Moral hypotheses Impartial (p = 0.5)

Speciesist (p = 0.5)

Give medicine to John (human)

Wrong (100)

Right (100)

Give medicine to Jane (animal)

Right (120)

Wrong (20)

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Since the speciesist value difference between the partial cure of John and the full cure of Jane (100–20) is greater than the impartialist value difference between the full cure and the partial cure (120–100), it seems plausible to say that giving the medicine to Jane, if speciesim is true, would constitute a more severe wrongdoing that giving the medicine to John, if impartialism is true. Hence, giving the medicine to Jane would risk more than giving the medicine to John, and a morally sensitive agent’s preference for the outcome (speciesism, giving the medicine to John) over the outcome (speciesim, giving the medicine to Jane) should be greater than his preference for (impartialism, giving the medicine to Jane) over (impartialism, giving the medicine to John). We can now apply exactly similar reasoning as in the previous example and conclude that the rational choice, given the agent’s preferences and beliefs, is to give the medicine to John. Assuming impartialism to be true, this would be a case in which you can’t choose rationally without doing something that is morally wrong. The obvious virtues of this approach are the following: (a) Our evidence for evaluative hypothesis is relevant for rational choice, not for moral rightness, so we can take intrinsic value seriously and maintain that moral rightness depends on actual intrinsic value. (b) We cannot be morally obligated to do evil just because we have misleading evidence for some absurd evaluative hypothesis. (c) We can say more than the triviality that you morally ought to do what you morally ought to do in cases of moral uncertainty; we can say that there will be a rational choice in cases of moral uncertainty. But there are problems too.

9.

MORAL FETISHISM?

I have described the morally conscientious person as caring about moral rightness and wrongness, for instance, as preferring minor wrongs to major wrongs. One could complain that this characterization makes him look like a moral fetishist.4 Shouldn’t the morally conscientious person care instead about what makes actions right? Shouldn’t he, for instance, care about helping the needy rather than just being concerned with doing the right thing? I agree that the morally conscientious person should also care about the right-makers when he knows that they are right-makers. But in the cases of fundamental moral uncertainty the agent lacks this knowledge. He cannot tell which feature is a right-maker, since he does not know what makes an action right. I don’t think it is fetishistic to care about right- and wrongdoings when you don’t know what makes your options right or wrong. Now, this is only a partial reply to the objection, since I have assumed that in the case of John, the human, and Jane, the hamster, it is still reasonable for the morally conscientious agent to care about degrees of wrongness.

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 131 But isn’t it fetishistic to care about degrees of wrongness when one knows the effects one’s action will have on humans and animals? Shouldn’t the agent care about the well-being of John and Jane? After all, it is facts about the well-being of John and Jane that explain what is morally right and what is morally wrong in this situation. In reply, I would say that the objection presupposes a false dichotomy: either you care about moral wrongness or you care about what makes actions wrong. But it is possible and, I would argue, morally commendable to care about both. An agent who cares intrinsically only about moral wrongness seems deficient: she should also care about what makes action wrong (where this is read de re). But, equally, an agent who cares intrinsically only about the well-being of individuals and not at all about whether her actions are wrong would also be deficient. The mark of a good moral agent is that she cares intrinsically not just about what makes her actions right or wrong but also about whether her actions are right or wrong. Indeed, it is this fundamental concern for rightness and wrongness that explains why a good moral agent is expected to change her motivation to act in the wake of a change in her fundamental moral principles.

10.

DEGREES OF RIGHTNESS?

One could complain that I have implicitly assumed that rightness comes in degrees and that is false since an action is either right or wrong, period. But I have not assumed that rightness comes in degrees. I have only assumed that the severity of wrongness comes in degrees, and this is common sense. Surely, there is a difference in degrees of the severity of wrongdoing between genocide and breaking a promise. Both are wrong, but genocide is serious wrongdoing, whereas promise breaking is typically a minor wrong. A moral theory that cannot make such distinctions is seriously flawed. In fact, I do not even need to assume that the severity of wrongness comes in degrees. It is enough that there is some comparative relation F on actions that satisfies the following conditions: (1) x is right if x is Fer than all alternatives. (2) The principle in (1) is not a substantive moral principle, but something different moral theories can accept. (3) The Fness comes in degrees and you can sometimes compare differences in Fness across different moral theories (at least when they are very similar). (4) This relation is something a morally sensible person should care about: he prefers x to y if x is Fer than y, and the greater the difference in Fness is between x and y, the stronger he prefers x to y. Possible candidates for Fness are “choice worthiness,” “having more reason to do,” and “betterness.”

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11.

INTER-THEORETICAL COMPARISONS OF VALUE?

I have assumed that it makes sense to compare both outcome values and severity of wrongness across different moral theories, but does it ever make sense? This is a pressing question since if these comparisons do not make sense, then we can no longer talk about the agent’s preferences being sensitive to the value differences in cases of fundamental moral uncertainty. The first thing to say is that Zimmerman is in exactly the same boat, since he also assumes it makes sense. So his revised version of consequentialism is in no better position in this regard. It should also be noted that for my theory to have some relevance to environmental issues I only need to assume that it is possible to compare value differences across some theories. I do not need to make the much stronger and controversial assumption that for any two theories, no matter how different, it makes sense to compare differences in moral value across these theories. The weaker assumption has some intuitive support. It is commonplace to say things such as “If impartialism is true, completely curing the animal is somewhat better than partially curing the human, whereas, if speciesism is true, partially curing the human is considerably better.” It is also commonplace to assess theories such as impartialism and speciesism by comparing their respective value judgments with our intuitive ones. Do we think, after careful reflection in a cool hour, that the complete cure of the animal is better or worse than the partial cure of the human, and if we think it is better (worse) how much better (worse) do we think it is? These comparative judgments would all be mistaken if we could never compare value differences across theories. As in the case of interpersonal comparisons of well-being, which is also a contested issue, there are many possible views on how to compare value differences across theories. In the recent literature on this problem, at least three different approaches have been defended. To adjudicate between these theories or to propose a different one would require a paper of its own.5

12.

RATIONAL UNCERTAINTY?

One could claim that by invoking the notion of rational choice, I have to face a new uncertainty problem: What is the rational thing to do when you don’t know what it is rational to do?6 I have argued that in cases of uncertainty about empirical or moral matters what it is rational to (prefer to) do need not coincide with what it is morally right to do. One could object that this move will only provoke the further question about what to do in cases of uncertainty about rational matters. Shouldn’t an agent’s preferences over actions somehow be sensitive to his uncertainty about what it is rational to prefer?

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 133 This is a tricky question, but we should first note that anyone who believes in the notion of rational preference has to confront it. It has nothing in particular to do with how we deal with moral uncertainty. Even if you reject my way of dealing with moral uncertainty, you still need to know what it is rational to prefer given doubts about what makes a preference rational. Rational preference has a life to live outside moral uncertainty. So, the only way to avoid this question altogether would be to simply refuse to accept that there is a genuine question about which action it is rational to prefer. Furthermore, it should be noted that it is not part of being rational that you aim at being rational. Being rational, in the sense I have in mind, has to do with the coherence between your preferences about simple outcomes, what you fundamentally care about, and your preferences about prospects constructed out of these simple outcomes. So, if you care about money, the fundamental preferences will be about monetary gains and losses, and the prospects will be lotteries with monetary rewards. For instance, if you prefer a monetary reward of 100£ to 50£, then you are rational if you also prefer the prospect (100£, 0.5, 100£) to the prospect (50£, 0.5, 50£). What you are aiming at is monetary rewards, not rationality. So, on this account of rationality, you are rational if you prefer the first prospect to the second even if, for some strange reason, you strongly doubt that it is rational to prefer the first prospect to the second. Rationality constraints of this kind impose strict liability, to use Broome’s apt phrase.7 On the other hand, there seems to be something irrational about this person since he is acting according to a standard in which he has very little confidence. In one respect, it seems more rational to act according to a standard in which one has great confidence. Rationality might thus also concern the fit between one’s actions/intentions/preferences and one’s own standards of rationality. However, even if this is conceded, being rational cannot be equated with being rational in one’s own lights. One reason is that this is simply incoherent, since the principle “Be rational in your own lights” is itself a principle that imposes strict liability; it tells you to be rational in your own lights even if you don’t believe that you should be rational in your own lights. A second reason is this: compare two individuals, A and B. Suppose A, but not B, satisfies the dominance principle mentioned earlier. Suppose further that A has full confidence in this principle whereas B has no confidence in it. Instead, B believes that it is rational to prefer (50£, 0.5, 50£) to (100£, 0.5, 100£). In one respect, both A and B are rational, since each is rational in his own lights. But, surely, in another important respect, A is more rational than B, since A, but not B, satisfies the dominance principle. So, my tentative conclusion is that in cases of uncertainty of rational matters there is an answer to the question of what it is rational to prefer which is not sensitive to your own views about rationality. Given that you do not change your preferences about simple outcomes—say, outcomes about money or right-doings and degrees of wrongdoings—which option it

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is rational for you to prefer is not affected by changes in your beliefs about what it is rational to prefer. However, it is still true that you are less than perfectly rational if your preferences do not fit with your own beliefs about what it is rational to prefer.

13.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I have argued that there is no need to revise traditional consequentialism in order to deal with cases of evaluative uncertainty. Cases of evaluative uncertainty should also be seen as cases of moral uncertainty. Even if we are uncertain about what to do, morally speaking, there will still be a rational choice to be made. Of course, much more needs to be said about the notion of rational preferences and choice. For instance, is the rational thing to do simply to maximize one’s expected utility? The rationality assumptions I have accepted are all entailed by this more general principle, but they do not mandate it. Furthermore, when we say that it is rational to prefer or choose a certain action, given one’s beliefs and preferences, does this imply that one ought to prefer or choose this action, given one’s beliefs and preferences? If so, how do these rational oughts interact with moral oughts? These are important questions, but they have to be dealt with no matter whether you think moral oughts are objective or subjective. As I have tried to argue, all sides must accept that in some cases of fundamental moral uncertainty what is rational to prefer or choose even for a morally and epistemically sensible agent is not what is morally right.

NOTES 1. See, for instance, Broome (2004: chap. 10 and 11). 2. See, for instance, Broome (2004) and Arrhenius (2013). 3. Oddie and Menzies (1992) argue for a similar conclusion. They think that what I call the rational choice is the “best guide” to objective moral rightness. But their argument does not take into account cases of fundamental moral uncertainty. Nor do they invoke the rational preferences of a morally and epistemically conscientious agent to motivate their solution. Smith (2006) and in press seems also to argue for a similar conclusion. What I call the rational choice he calls “the choice that I ought critically to make.” He spells out this notion of ought as one that underwrites rational criticism of what the agent does, where “rational” includes epistemic elements, that is, being sensitive to empirical and evidence about the goodness of outcomes. Smith talks about the preferences of a rational agent, but does not see them as preferences for right-doings over wrongdoings and for minor wrongdoings over major ones, as I do. Instead, he sees them preferences over actions derived from partial beliefs about the goodness of outcomes. 4. For a critical discussion of moral fetishism, see Smith (1995: 71–76). 5. Ross (2006: 762–765), Lockhardt (2000: 84–86), and Sepielli (2008). For my own tentative view, see Bykvist (2009).

Evaluative Uncertainty, Environmental Ethics, and Consequentialism 135 6. Michael Zimmerman, Wlodek Rabinowicz, and Anandi Hattiangadi have all pressed me on this point. 7. This argument is taken from Broome (2008: 101).

WORKS CITED Arrhenius, Gustaf. Population Ethics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. Bernstein, Lenny, et al. “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report.” IPCC Plenary XXVII. Valencia, Spain. Nov. 12–17, 2007. Broome, John. Weighing Lives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. ———. Rationality through Reasoning. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2003. Bykvist, Krister. “Objective versus Subjective Moral Oughts.” Logic, Ethics, and All That Jazz. Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel. Eds. Lars-Göran Johansson, Rysiek S´liwin´ski, and Jan Österberg. Uppsala, Norway: Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University, Uppsala Philosophical Studies, 2009. 39–65. Lockhart, Ted. Moral Uncertainty and Its Consequences. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000. Oddie, Graham, and Peter Menzies. “An Objectivist Guide to Subjective Value.” Ethics 102.3 (1992): 512–533. Ross, Jacob. “Rejecting Ethical Deflationism.” Ethics 116 (2006): 742–768. Sepielli, Andrew. “What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do.” Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. 5–28. Smith, Michael. The Moral Problem. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995. ———. “Moore on the Right, the Good, and Uncertainty.” Metaethics after Moore. Zimmerman, Michael. Living with Uncertainty. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

8

Future Generations and Resource Shares Allen Habib

1.

SUSTAINABILITY AND EXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCES

While environmental sustainability is notoriously a contested concept,1 there is some agreement among sustainability theorists regarding the general ethical framework on which the idea rests. The consensus I refer to is that sustainability is a demand of intergenerational environmental justice, of the just distribution of the natural resources of the earth between the generations of people who live on it. In this view, acting sustainably is acting so as to guarantee that future generations can receive their fair share of the earth’s resources. And for most of those resources, renewable ones like fish stocks and durable ones like aquifers, sustainability requires maintenance. It requires that each generation act to maintain the resources so that future generations can inherit their fair share. Exhaustible natural resources present a special difficulty for this picture. Unlike other components of the natural world, the finite and nonrenewable nature of such resources means that any exploitation by one generation permanently removes some of the total stock from all future generations. In other words, these resources cannot be maintained. This is the situation we face for carbon-based energy resources such as oil and coal, as well as certain types of rare earth minerals, and other things. So what does sustainability mean regarding these things? There is a consensus answer to this question in the literature as well. That answer is roughly that sustainability regarding exhaustible resources amounts to offsetting any depletion on the part of a generation by the payment of compensation to all future generations in some coin or other. This answer is quite widely accepted among environmental ethicists, environmental economists, and other sustainability theorists. And as witnessed by the dates of the following references, the basic question has been settled for decades. But I think that the offsetting view on exhaustible resources is badly mistaken. Moreover, I think that the way in which it is mistaken is instructive enough to merit an exhumation of the issue. The offsetting view is wrong because it rests on a mistaken view about the nature of a just distribution of resources between the generations. This

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is a mistake at the fundamental level of justification of the demands of justice, and it requires a little digging to unearth. Let me begin by outlining the offsetting view in greater detail.

2. OFFSETTING AND INTERGENERATIONAL DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE On one standard model employed by environmental economists, the bounty of the earth is like a portfolio of assets, an amount of capital to be shared between the generations. Natural resource and environmental economists call the notion of justice that governs this distribution “intergenerational equity.” And while there are some different views on this latter criterion in the literature, the most common understanding of intergenerational equity is that it requires what we might call the principle of non-diminishing, which is the principle that each generation should pass on an amount of capital as least as large as the one they inherited (cf. Figge 2005). Non-diminishing, combined with exhaustible nature of finite resources as a capital stock, leads to offsetting quite directly. Exploiting a finite resource is tantamount to running down a capital asset, and if one is charged with delivering at least as large a capital endowment as one receives, then any such consumption must be offset by the addition of extra capital. The amount of additional capital should also be closely related to the value of the capital stock it replaces. This is substantially what Hartwick (1977: 972) offers in his rule for exploiting finite resources justly: “Invest all profits or rents from exhaustible resources in reproducible capital such as machines.” That line, which opens Hartwick’s landmark paper “Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources,” continues directly: This injunction seems to solve the ethical problem of the current generation shortchanging future generations by “overconsuming” the current product, partly ascribable to current use of exhaustible resources. (1977: 972) That paragraph is in turn footnoted (in part) with the following addendum, with the emphasis included the original: “With exhaustible resources, one must be concerned with forestalling decumulation of society’s productive capital in order to achieve some notion of intergenerational equity” (1977: 972). In other words, depleting generations need to invest the revenues from the exhaustible resources into “reproducible” (i.e., “maintainable”) resources (“machines”) to pass the extra capital from that investment to future generations whom they deprive of the capital asset, to achieve intergenerational equity. But economists are not (at least professionally) concerned with the justification of the demand of intergenerational equity. Why does justice demand

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that we compensate the future for our use of exhaustible resources? This is more properly the domain of philosophers. And on this question the work of Brian Barry is perhaps the most complete and persuasive. Barry is also a proponent of offsetting, and he provides a rationale for thinking that distributive justice demands offsetting. The crux of Barry’s argument is that every generation has an equal claim to (all of) the bounty of the earth, thus any depletion of that bounty, as is inevitably the case with the exploitation of exhaustible resources, is an infringement of future generation’s just claims that must be compensated. As to why the generations have an equal claim to all resources, Barry offers the following: The basic argument for an equal claim on natural resources is that none of the usual justifications for an unequal claim—special relationships arising in virtue of past service, promises, etc., applies here. From an atemporal perspective, no one generation has a better or worse claim than any other to enjoy the earth’s resources. In the absence of any powerful argument to the contrary, there would seem to be a strong presumption in favour of arranging things so that, as far as possible, each generation faces the same range of opportunities with respect to natural resources. I must confess that I can see no further positive argument to be made at this point. All I can do is counter what may be arguments on the other side. Is there any way in which the present generation can claim that they are entitled to a larger share of the goods supplied by nature than its successors? If not, then equal shares is the only solution compatible with justice. (1983: 21) So in other words, since the resources of the earth are “windfall goods,” like manna from heaven, they are gifts of providence that come about without any regard to the effort or merit of the people who enjoy them, and since temporal order is irrelevant to what constitutes a generation’s fair share, the presumption must be that each generation has an equal claim on all of the resources. I take it that Barry’s argument for offsetting then is roughly the following: (1) Every generation has an equal claim to every resource (2) Any use of exhaustible resources by one generation infringes the claims of future generations by depriving them of the resource (3) Thus, any use of exhaustible resources by one generation needs to be compensated by an offsetting amount of value. My complaint is with premise (1)—the assumption that every generation is in the distribution pool for every resource. This assumption is what lies behind Barry’s (and Hartwick’s and others) claim that the offsetting debt must be paid in durable (“reproducible”) coin. Since every generation is

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owed the exhaustible resource, the offset must be capable of bring the equivalent value to every (future) generation. But this is mistaken, because it overlooks a condition on the just distribution of windfall goods, namely that only those who value a good should be in the distribution pool for it.

3. THE VALUE CONDITION: DISTRIBUTION POOLS AND WINDOW RESOURCES Call this the value condition on the distribution of windfall goods. It amounts to the following claim: in order for a candidate to be included in the distribution pool for a given windfall good, that good must have some value for the candidate. If a good is valueless to a candidate, then they have no claim to a share of it on grounds of justice, and thus shouldn’t be in the distribution pool. A windfall good, taking Barry’s lead, is defined negatively, as one that no potential candidate has a plausible special relationship with that would merit favored treatment, for example, the oil in the ground or the iron in the mountains The value condition is obviously incompatible with Barry’s inference from the equal situations of the generations to the claim that every generation is owed a share of every resource. The fact that no generation has a special claim to any particular resource is not enough to infer that every generation has an equal claim to every resource, if we grant the value condition, since those generations who don’t value a resource won’t be due any of it. I now turn to how and why a generation might not value a resource in a moment, but first let me argue for the value condition as a condition on a just distribution per se.

4.

DISTRIBUTION POOLS

The crucial claim that underlies the value condition is that the norms of distributive justice, at least in windfall cases, only apply to distributands that have value to the potential recipients. This claim is a specific instance of a more general truth—that justice makes no demands on the distribution of valueless things. In support of this claim, consider a toy case. Imagine I am given a set of small, unremarkable pebbles, and there are ten people in the room, each of whom has an equal claim to the pebbles in the same manner as before (i.e., none has a special relationship to the pebbles that would argue for an unequal distribution). But let us further stipulate that none of the people present has any use for, or any desire for, any of the pebbles. Now, what do the norms of justice have to say about the proper distribution of the pebbles? If I give them out unequally, or not at all, have I wronged or harmed anyone? I think the answer to these questions is no, and that’s

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because I don’t think that justice has anything at all to say about the distribution of valueless things. And this stands to reason, as distributive justice is about arbitrating between competing claims, on the understanding that such arbitration is necessary because people have something at stake in their claims, and if those claims aren’t vindicated, they stand to lose their stakes. If the things claimed are valueless, then people don’t have anything at stake, and we don’t feel the need to arbitrate to avoid unfair losses. And as evidence for the more specific claim that people who don’t value a windfall good should be excluded from distribution in cases where others do value it, consider the following case: imagine a group of castaways on an island. Suppose that some members of the group were diabetic, and suppose further that a medical chest containing some vials of insulin were to wash up on shore. How should that insulin be divided between them? In other words, who should be in the distribution pool for insulin? It seems obvious to me that all and only the diabetics should be in the pool, as the nondiabetics don’t value insulin and thus have no claim to it on grounds of distributive justice. It might be objected here that this is too quick—that the insulin might well be said to have value to the nondiabetics, insofar as it has value to their co-inhabitants on the island. This value might be realized in two ways. Nondiabetics might value insulin altruistically, as a means to the end of someone whose ends they take as their own. Or they might value it instrumentally, as something of value to others, who in turn have things of value that might be bartered for it. But neither of these possibilities is fatal to the value condition. Starting with the first one, altruistic value of this sort is real, but it’s not (without some special explanation) grounds for including the altruistic valuer in the distribution, particularly if those for whose sake the object is valued is already in the distribution. One can imagine including the (nondiabetic) father of a diabetic child in the distribution of insulin in a case in which the child herself is not included for some reason, as a sort of proxy recipient, but the presence of the daughter in the distribution pool would make that unnecessary. As for the second one, a supporter of the value condition in the intergenerational case might meet the charge by claiming that such instrumental value requires the possibility of mutual exchange between the pool members, where such a thing is forbidden by time’s arrow in the intergenerational case. This is true as far as it goes, although it should be remarked that generations do enter into a variety of value-based transactions with one another. We borrow from the future when we issue bonds, we lend or give to the future when we save, or convert exhaustible resources into renewable ones, and so on. Indeed, on the economist picture, offsetting the value of exhaustible resources consumed is already taken as an exchange of the resource for some other (set of) resource(s). Of course, we might insist that these sorts of exchanges aren’t the sort licensed by a proper understanding

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of the conditions of justice. However, I think a stronger defense of the condition is available here. I think that the sort of instrumental value that is the value of trade with those who value a good directly in the sort of “mixed” cases such as the diabetics on the island is not sufficient for inclusion in a distribution pool of a windfall good, at least in cases in which such instrumental value competes with the more direct value of the good for those who would consume it themselves rather than barter. Consider our castaways again: What would we think of those nondiabetics who would argue for their fair share of the insulin, since they could use it to barter with the diabetics? I don’t think we would give much weight to their claim. And I think the reason underlying this intuition is roughly the following: Justice in the distribution of windfall goods is primarily a matter of meeting needs (or at least, strong desires) with windfalls from fate. That something is a windfall good of distributive justice at all rests in part on this relationship between a candidate and that thing, as the example of the pebbles shows. As such instrumental valuation, valuing a good for the sake of its value to others, seems lexically inferior to direct valuation, something that should only be considered after all concerns of direct value have been addressed. One more thing needs to be said about this (admittedly sketchy) picture. The preceding should not be read as barring any consideration of instrumental value in the just distribution of windfall goods. Some things, such as money, have only instrumental value, and as such any and all potential recipients will be so on the basis of their instrumental valuation of it. If we find a bag of gold on our walk in the woods, all of us have a share of the gold based on its merely instrumental value to us. Rather, I think that the proper relationship between direct and instrumental value in the distribution of windfall goods is one of lexical priority. Before we begin to distribute the good to those who only value it for barter, we should first satisfy all demands from those who value it directly.2

5.

WINDOW RESOURCES

Given the value condition’s restriction on inclusion in distribution pools, generations who don’t value a given windfall good have no justice-based claim to it, and thus ought not be included in the distribution pool when we set out to distribute it between the generations. This condition might not sound relevant when we consider something such as oil, which not only has great value to us in the present but also seems like the sort of thing that will always have value, since it is a source of energy—which is of enduring value. But there are at least two reasons why a resource such as oil might be valueless to a generation. The first is because the generation lacks the technology necessary to exploit it. For example, oil was valueless to our Stone Age ancestors: they

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didn’t even know it was there, and even if they had known, they wouldn’t have been able to get to it, and even if they had been able to reach it they wouldn’t have known how to refine it, and even if they could have done all that, they didn’t need refined oil for any purpose, or at least for any purpose that couldn’t be served much better by other resources, such as wood. So in a straightforward way, the oil was valueless to them. But another way that a resource can be valueless for the purposes of distributive justice is for it to be displaced by a superior competitor. A competitor for a resource is just another resource (or set of resources) that has all the same uses as the first resource. So, for example, consider again our Stone Age ancestors. Let’s assume that Paleolithic people mastered the art of making fires and stone tools using flint rock. And further that these functions were absolutely vital to their survival. Given this picture, we can assume that flint rock was a very valuable resource to them, and as such, the distribution of flint rock among them was subject to the demands of distributive justice, both within and between their generations. But given all this, what does justice have to say about their distributing some of that flint rock to future generations, such as us? Do we have any claim to the flint rock? Put it another way, if they used up all of the flint rock before we came on the scene, would they have wronged us? The answer to all of these questions is, of course, no. They don’t owe us any flint rock, and they wouldn’t have harmed us if they had used it all. But this can’t be because flint rock isn’t useful to start fires or make stone tools in our time. Flint rock retains all of the properties that made it useful to the cave people. Rather, what happened was that we discovered vastly superior means of performing the sorts of tasks the cave people used flint rock to perform, and as such, it was displaced as a valuable resource to us, and we can no longer make claims on it from the grounds of distributive justice. In the preceding example, a resource is at first valueless, because the generations at that stage can’t exploit it, then it becomes valuable as the technology to exploit it comes on line, and then finally it loses its value as technology improves to allow the exploitation of superior competitor resources. The flint rock is something like this; we can imagine some time prior to figuring out how to chip flint rock into cutting tools, among other things, that the rock was valueless to the people living there. Then later, after the techniques were invented, the rocks were quite valuable to them. And finally, much later, the rocks return to being valueless, as new and better techniques and materials for starting fires and cutting material become available. We can call such resources “window” resources, because they have a window of value, which is the interval between the advent of the exploitation technology and the advent of superior competitors. And it seems to me that the window pattern applies quite well to exhaustible resources like oil. Prior to the technology that made the refining and combustion of oil possible (as well as the technologies that made such a powerful, compact energy source

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desirable) oil is valueless to the generations that occupy the earth. Once the exploitation of oil becomes possible, then oil becomes valuable, as it is now. But when other technologies come on line that will outcompete oil for what it does (as an energy source, I’m ignoring, for present purposes, other uses of oil), then oil will lose its value. In other words, oil is a window resource. And I assume that most, if not all, exhaustible resources, energy deposits, rare metals, and so on are similarly window resources. After all, all of these resources were at one time valueless. Of what use is cadmium to our Stone Age people, for example? And it doesn’t take too much imagination to see that energy sources, for example, can and have changed fairly regularly throughout our history and that past sources of energy, such as peat, manure, or animal oil, are simply no longer resources at all, or at least not resources because of their energy content. So what does the value condition mean for distributive justice in the case of window resources? If we take it that the demands of justice only apply when the potential recipient values the resource, then it would seem that shares of resources aren’t owed to generations for whom they have no value. So in cases of window resources this means that shares would only be owed to those inside the window of value. Those to the left of the window on time line, the cave dwellers and others, aren’t owed anything because the resource is valueless to them as they lack the ability to exploit it. Those to the right of the window on the time line, those in the fusion future, aren’t owed anything because they don’t need it, they have their fusion (or whatever), and thus, the oil is valueless to them. None of this, of course, is compatible with the offsetting view. In that view, every generation is due a share of every resource, and so any depletion must be remunerated in durable coin. So if the claims I’ve made here are true, the offsetting view is wrong. But this denial doesn’t yet tell us anything about what might take the place of the offsetting view, either conceptually or operationally, once we take the value condition on board. Let me briefly turn to these questions next.

6.

BRIDGES, GAPS, AND CONTEMPORARY GENERATIONS

What would the effects be on contemporary resource policy of accepting the value condition? At the conceptual level, the change would be quite far-reaching. Instead of conceiving the initial resource stock as a capital endowment to be preserved across time, we would think of it as a limited good to be distributed among a (relatively) small pool of generations. What seems fair in the division of a good between the members of a small (and temporally contiguous) group of generations might be different from that between all generations. Also the acceptance of the value condition, with its concomitant limitation of the distribution pool for window resources, alters the moral relationship

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between generations inside a value window. This is most evident when we think about the duties in those capable of affecting the distribution inside a value window, for example, those generations currently exploiting a finite window resource such as oil. Accepting the value condition, and thus limiting the oil-sharing generations to the next few rather than to the entire arc of the species, means that we are suddenly able to actually share out the oil itself, rather sharing merely the value of the oil. This shifts the focus from the value of the resources we currently use to our use of the resource directly and the amount we are allowed to use, given the shares of other, future generations. In other words the possibility of sharing the resource itself gives rise to a duty to not to take more than one’s share. This seems much more conducive to policies of conservation and preservation than the current paradigm. Of course, the exact shape of the duty to abstain from the shares of others is difficult to forecast for something as complex as international resource policy. It might be that calculations about individual shares inside the window are too subjective and noisy to be of much use in making policy. But we can make some guesses as to the scope of such duties. For example, we might suppose a specific duty on the part of contemporary generations to avoid harming those generations in the near-term future, their window cohort, by exhausting a resource prematurely. Given that the leading edge of the window of value is determined not by the availability of the resource at issue but rather by the state of the technology of a given generation, there exists the possibility of a gap between the exhaustion of a window resource and the closing of the value window. If a window resource is also an exhaustible resource, as oil is, then it’s possible for the early generations inside the window to overconsume the resource, such that it’s exhausted before a replacement resource is available. In that scenario, the generations between the exhaustion date and the arrival of the new technology have had a claim violated. So we have some good reasons to thin that every generation inside a window has a duty of justice to ensure that they do not cause some future generations to fall into the gap by overconsuming the resource. Given this, the practical upshot of respecting the value condition is that we should guide our decisions about exhaustible resource use and distribution by reference to our best guesses as to the following sorts of empirical facts: Is it (likely) a window resource? If so, how much of the resource remains? How long will it last at the projected rate of consumption? And when will the competitor resource technology likely appear? In other words, how many generations are in the window, and what are our duties to those after us regarding sharing the resource? And this is perfectly consonant with our intuitions about whether and why it would be bad, for example, use up all of the oil before another energy source is found: because the hardships faced by the immediately future generations would be our fault. But note that intuitively this sense of guilt

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doesn’t extend outward towards those in the distant future. If we exhausted all the oil in this century, the hardships of the next would be on our consciences, but not the worry about having cheated the denizens of the Star Trek universe of their share of oil. This duty contemporary generations have toward their window cohort is grounded in large part in the measure of control those generations have over both the time to depletion and the leading edge of the window. We (of the present) can move the exhaustion point nearer and farther by adjusting our consumption of the resource up and down. And we can (although more indirectly) move the arrival of the competitor technology back and forth, by investing more or less in the sorts of research endeavors that might bring it about. These two levers then give us some goodly measure of control over the creation of a gap. And this control, combined with the demands of justice towards those who might fall into the gap, gives us a duty of justice to insure that no gap is created. The metaphor that suggests itself is of a bridge—the exploitation of exhaustible window resources is like the building of a bridge, from one technology period to another. The near bank is the onset of exploitation of the resource; the far bank, its replacement by successor technology. What is needed is a bridge long enough to get safely to the other side. All of those who exploit the resource are engaged in building the bridge, and they will only have done so successfully if no crosser falls into the gap between the end of the bridge and the far bank. The metaphor extends to the harm in building a bridge halfway across a river. Those who attempt to cross over such a bridge have a special complaint against the builders for the harm they suffer, since it’s a harm that would have been entirely avoided if they hadn’t been tempted to attempt the crossing by the appearance of the bridge, and the implicit promise inherent in such a structure, that it will render one safely across. Those generations after us who live in a society that needs oil but lacks it due to our overconsumption are like our unfortunate crossers, they suffer harms that are particularly the fault of the bridge builders, because they wouldn’t have suffered them at all if it weren’t for the actions of those earlier generations that put them on that path. NOTES 1. For overviews of the literature across various disciplines, see Baumgartner and Quass (2010), Pezzey and Toman (2002) and Dobson, (1999). 2. It might seem like a lexical ordering would rule out instrumental value de facto if not de jure, at least whenever it was present, since if we only distribute a good to those who would barter it after we have dealt with those who want it for themselves, then it might not have any instrumental value, since those who might barter for it are satisfied already. But this assumes that the pool for sharing the windfall good will always contain the pool for bartering for it, which needn’t be the case. If a ship comes across a floating barrel of rum justice

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WORKS CITED Barry, Brian. “Intergenerational Justice in Energy Policy.” Energy and the Future. Eds. Douglas Maclean and Peter G. Brown. Totowa, NJ: Rowan and Littlefield, 1983. 15–30. Baumgartner, Stefan and Martin Quass. “Managing Increasing Environmental Risks through Agrobiodiversity and Agrienvironmental Policies.” Agricultural Economists 41.5 (2010): 483–496. Dobson, Andrew. Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Figge, Frank. “Capital Substitution and Weak Sustainability.” Environmental Values 14 (2005): 185–201. Hartwick, John. “Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources.” American Economic Review 66 (1977): 972–974. ––––. “Substitution among Exhaustible Resources and Intergenerational Equity.” The Review of Economic Studies 45.2 (1978): 347–354. Pezzey, John and Michael A. Toman. The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2002.

9

Can We Remediate Wrongs? Benjamin Hale

1.

INTRODUCTION

Of the 4.9 million barrels of crude oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico during and immediately after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, an impressive 41% of the oil was removed through human intervention. Such interventions included not only chemical dispersion (accounting for approximately 16% of the discharge), in situ burning (5%), and skimming (3%), but also a significant portion was captured directly from the well (17%). Researchers estimate that another 37% of the oil disappeared naturally, either through natural dispersion (13%) or through evaporation or dissolution (24%). As the remaining 22% of the oil continues to float in the gulf and threaten wildlife, the cost of the cleanup is expected to pass $41 billion (Hagerty and Ramseur 2010). Notwithstanding these economic costs, many lives, human and non-human, have been affected by the spill. Countless sea critters, including fish and marine mammals, died gruesome deaths or ended up with genetically abnormal offspring. Fish, shrimp, and oyster stocks were decimated (in the literal sense of the term). More than 3,000 miles of beach and wetland areas were bathed in oil. Recreation in the area took an incredible hit. The devastation is tremendous, and those responsible for the event—British oil giant BP, primarily—are on the hook to clean it all up. Many people want to say this: that pollution is wrong. Typically, they say this on harm grounds: Pollution is wrong because it is harmful to other people, to animals, or to nature more generally. This seems about right. Environmental damage is a serious consequence of polluting and it would seem wrong to impose it unjustifiably. These same people may have similar views about elephant poaching and rampant suburban expansion, to take just two examples, though such cases are not instances of pollution. That is, they may think that what makes poaching and rampant expansion wrong is also that it destroys the environment. In this way, pollution is just one of several forms of environmental wronging. In this chapter, I examine the relation between the assignment of moral responsibility and the technologies that aim to remediate pollution. I argue,

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contrary to the view that environmental wrongs consist primarily of harm caused, that remediation technologies are not alone sufficient to undo the environmental wrong of pollution. I argue instead that pollution is better understood as wrong on non-consequentialist grounds and that this wrong is irremediable. If my claim is accurate, then we can conclude (a) that the reason that we ought not to pollute is that it engenders a kind of trespass, (b) that we can be held accountable for doing wrong even if we prevent harm from coming to others by employing remediation technologies, and (c) that we ought to clean up our pollution through remediation programs on restitution grounds. I think this argument is in line with the common view, but that the argument from harms is not. I have argued a similar case before. In an article I coauthored with William Grundy, I suggested that the moral implications of remediation technologies are underdetermined by accounts of environmental wrongdoing that rely on consequentialist assessments of damages (Hale and Grundy 2009). There and elsewhere I suggested that pollution and environmental degradation is more aptly characterized as a kind of unwarranted disrespect or trespass (Hale and Dilling 2011; Hale 2013). That was a relatively broad position, suggesting primarily that wrongs from pollution cannot be limited to harm alone. The argument I offer in this chapter, by contrast, is considerably narrower and stronger than the earlier argument about the nature of the wrong. I ask here whether there are any conditions under which remediation can ever right the wrong of environmental degradation. Specifically, I want to know what it would take to right wrongs from environmental degradation if our only clear options are to return the world to its original state or to a saliently equivalent state. More recently, I have sought to flesh out this trespass argument in justificatory terms. That is, it is my position that what really constitutes environmental wrongdoing is unwarranted or unjustified trespass, where such trespass involves the neglect of acting parties to consider or respect the concerns or validity claims of affected parties. In rough contour, this view draws its conceptual basis from the justificatory liberalism of theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Rainer Forst, and T.M. Scanlon, among others (Forst 2012; Habermas 1991, 1994; Scanlon 1999). It places a heavy burden on the agent—and as such is an agent-centered account—to justify her actions, as opposed to other prominent patient-centered accounts that place a heavy burden on the patient to establish moral standing. In this chapter, I would like to return to a worry that one may have about environmental wrongdoing and demonstrate how environmental degradation maintains similarities to more familiar forms of trespass. To do so, I examine three cases of harmless wrongdoing, each of which is designed to call attention to an incidence of trespass. These cases, I hope to show, can be satisfactorily accounted for by appeal to the claims of justificatory liberalism, broadly construed. For reasons of space, I remain agnostic on the various instantiations of and internal disputes about justificatory liberalism. In the first section, I offer a few caveats regarding harms and

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wrongs. In the second section, I introduce the idea of trespass. In the third and fourth sections, I explore reversal cases in which harmed parties have their harm undone, examining in turn rights, preferences, and intentions. And in the fifth and sixth sections, I introduce the idea that trespass and disrespect can be characterized in justificatory terms.

2.

PRELIMINARY CAVEATS: HARMS AND WRONGS

The prevailing view about environmental wrongs is most obviously the consequentialist view. Roughly speaking the idea is the following: that the wrongmaking feature of pollution rests with the damage done to persons, to entities within the environment, or to the environment itself. Let’s call this the “Harms View”: Harms View: that pollution devalues the environment, either intrinsically or extrinsically. The idea is that pollution causes some damage either to the environment itself or to some valuable resources upon which others depend. I do not have the space in this chapter to address differing conceptions of harm, though the literature in this area is vast (see, for instance, recent important work, among other material, by these authors: Bradley 2012; Feinberg 1984; Hanser 2008; Shiffrin 2012; Thomson 2011). For my purposes here, it will suffice to think of harm broadly, as damage or as degradation, and to allow that damage involves a sort of disvalue. Having offered this caveat regarding the complications associated with thinking about harm, a second caveat is in order. There are of course many different kinds of pollution, and little agreement about what makes pollution wrong (Hale 2013). Air, water, and soil pollution are those that typically dominate the environmental discussion, but it is common to encounter concerns about noise and light pollution as well. Indeed, in more extreme circumstances one may even speak intelligently about “getting polluted” in reference to alcohol or drug abuse. Not only should I offer a caveat regarding kinds of pollution, but it is also important to emphasize that there are many mechanisms through which pollution enters our environment: through accidental spills or leaks, deliberate actions like midnight dumping, planned or anticipated outflows as with expected emissions, or just plain ineluctably, as there are many emissions that are a function of life itself. This variety of mechanisms is important in many respects, as simply through the process of living, or even in improving our world, we often degrade our environment by emitting. The question we want to answer here is not simply what pollution or environmental degradation is, but when and why it may be permissible in some circumstances to degrade our environment.

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To add further icing to my caveat cake, in this chapter, I speak primarily about pollution, though my intent is really to address a broader range of environmentally deleterious acts. Pollution serves as one of several kinds of acts that do damage to our environment. Other such acts include the varieties of resource extraction—mining, logging, fishing, animal harvesting, poaching, and so on—as well as various forms of encroachment—urban development, road construction, watershed and park management, agricultural terraforming, and so on. Of course, pollution, extraction, and encroachment are all categories of action that carry with them somewhat different ethical implications, but in this chapter, I would like to focus primarily on accounts that construe all three as morally problematic for roughly the same reasons—that they degrade the environment. Thus, I use the terms pollution and environmental degradation not synonymously, or necessarily even interchangeably, but with environmental degradation in mind. The non-consequentialist position I defend has limited support in the philosophical establishment. Rather, the loudest non-consequentialist voices come from the environmental virtue ethics literature, where environmental harms are reframed as indicators of poor character. I prefer instead to approach environmental questions not from a virtue position, but rather from a more deontological position. There is no space to cover the reasons for preferring the deontological approach to the virtue approach here, but suffice it to say that at minimum, the deontological approach is an act-oriented view, which in my opinion makes it better suited to address questions about how our actions ought to impact the environment.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL WRONGS AS A PROBLEM OF TRESPASS AND DISRESPECT In the earlier papers I mention above I used several scenarios of tea drinking to make the case that pollution is problematic not on harm grounds, but on trespass grounds. I do not cover those arguments here, but the basic gist was that if I add a poison to your tea, say, this would seem a clear instance of harmful pollution. Looking at a case of tea poisoning more closely, however, and slowly peeling back the harmful aspects of poisoning a person’s tea— removing risks, uncertainties, and even the poison itself from the configuration—it begins to appear that poisoning a person’s tea is not wrong by virtue of the damages done to the victim, nor even by risks to them, but rather by virtue of the unauthorized tampering with the person’s tea. Indeed, I would not be permitted to add health potion to your tea, even if it will be quite good for you. In rough contour, this is the intuition behind the “Trespass View”: Trespass View: that pollution disrespects and/or trespasses on others.

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One of the simplest devices for quickly seeing the shortcomings of the Harms View involves employing reversal cases—that is, cases that aim to make the world whole again. Here I will lean heavily on remediation technologies, which are technologies that remediate or clean up polluting messes. Such an approach takes its stepping off point from a position advanced by Robert Elliot (1982), in which he argues that environmental restoration projects are akin to faking nature. Elliot uses the analogous case of an art forgery to suggest that there is some ineffable, intrinsic value, probably related to the artwork’s origin, that leads us to value the original artwork over the forgery. Elliot’s article spawned a raft of responses, but the basic orientation of those articles was much the same: raising a question about intrinsic value in either art or nature. Returning momentarily to the poisoning of a person’s tea, consider that even if one has a very effective antidote to the poison that has been administered to a victim’s tea, simply having the antidote, and thus repairing the victim, does not undo the wrong. For Elliot, restoration and its remainder offered a clear indication that something important and valuable is lost in the faking of nature. I have argued instead that remediation demonstrates not that something important and valuable is being lost, but rather that some important principles are being violated. Reversal cases offer a way to think about wrongs without the attendant harms. To illustrate with a crude parallel, the idea is the following: that one cannot un-murder the murdered and that one cannot un-rape the raped. Reparation for these crimes is not possible simply by compensating for damages or restituting for gains and thereby “making the victim whole again.” One, of course, may argue over whether remuneration for one’s crimes is a possibility: whether one can remunerate the surviving victims of the murdered or whether one may even compensate a rape victim for rape. So too may one argue, as many often do, that one can make amends for environmental degradation by paying to restore the environment. I am dubious of such claims, and while I do not have the space to argue the full extent of my objection here, it is important to see that there are at least two possible objections to the idea that restoration or restitution can work to compensate victims. One objection is that even if, say, a rape victim is handed a hefty settlement, there will always be some remainder that cannot be undone and/ or accounted for. In other words, one need not deny that compensation or restitution to a victim offsets some substantial harm that that victim has suffered. One only need acknowledge that compensation or restitution alone will never be enough to make the victim whole again. Call this the “Remainder Argument.” Another objection, however, is that if this same rape victim is handed a hefty settlement, it is not simply that there is some remainder that cannot be undone and/or accounted for, but rather that this settlement does not in any morally relevant sense make up for the wrong. Reparation must be pursued through another channel entirely. It is this thesis that I argue below.

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Rape and murder are obviously high crimes, complicated considerably by the irreversibility of human life and experience. Matters grow far less clear cut, however, when we consider questions about environmental wrongdoing. It would appear, on first appraisal, that one can in fact undo environmental degradation. What difference does it make whether a stream veers to the left or the right, whether an oyster bed is natural or artificial, whether one tree is identical with its replacement? In so restoring the environment, it would appear that, unlike cases of rape or murder, one can undo the wrong. If one destroys a watershed, for instance, it is very easy to believe that all it would take to right such a wrong would be to restore the watershed. Thus, one line of argument for the Trespass View can be gotten at by looking to reversal cases, which I have used before to reveal an ineffable remainder when harms are restituted or remediated. It’s precisely this strategy that I deploy here. I look at other cases of harmless wrongdoing and ask what it would take to right the wrongs. I reason by analogy, showing how many non-consequentialist accounts of harmless wrongdoing fall subject to remediation (or reversal) objections, just as consequentialist accounts do. At the end, I nod at a solution as to how harmless wrongs can be undone. The reason for this strategy is that harmless wrongdoings challenge pervasive consequentialist ideas about wrongings. Though it is probably not the case that there are any environmental wrongs that are in fact harmless— almost all cases of environmental wronging involve some harm or damage— it is my contention that this feature of environmental action is deceptive. Looking at harmless wrongdoing as regarding persons opens the door to think more clearly not only about what would rectify a wrong, but also what may be the source of the wrong in the first place. If the source of the wrong is primarily patient centered—as would be the case with violations of rights, disrespect of personal preferences, or even perverse intentions—then there is yet more work to do to argue the non-consequentialist case for environmental wrongs. If, on the other hand, the wrongs are describable independently of harms to others or damages to the environment, this adds at least prima facie support to the notion that wrongs can be located elsewhere and that reparation for environmental wrongs cannot be accomplished through restoration or remediation alone.

4.

UNDOING HARMLESS WRONGS: TRESPASS, RESPECT, AND PATIENT-CENTERED ACCOUNTS

If you’re on board with the idea that pollution is more aptly an incidence of trespass than an incidence of harm causing, then it is but a short leap from here to arrive at the conclusion that there are no “state of the world” conditions that alone can undo the wrong. In fact, it would appear that such a claim jives with common intuitions about a fair number of cases of harmless wrongdoing. When construed this way, we are then immediately left with an

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important question: If undoing damage will not right the wrong, what sorts of responses are required? Consider the various non-consequentialist positions on offer, whether patient centered or agent centered. Many of the most prominent nonconsequentialist positions propose that environmental wrongdoing consists, roughly, of concerns about (a) rights, (b) preferences, or (c) intentions. These are fairly broad-brush non-consequentialist approaches, and I have only selected three of the most common, but they should serve well enough as a representative sample. Take first a patient-centered view: (a) Rights One very common patient-centered response centers on the rights of victims. Maybe, for instance, a victim’s (defeasible) rights are violated by the polluting act. Joel Feinberg has gone some way in addressing this position with his famous Log Cabin example (Feinberg 1978; Thomson 1980). Consider a slight variation: Log Cabin (LC): Lou is hiking in the backcountry. A blizzard sets in. In need of a place to take shelter, he stumbles upon a log cabin. He must either break in or die. For warmth, he burns the tables and furniture, finding no other firewood around. On first reflection, one might be inclined to assume that Lou is within his rights to break into the cabin and burn the furniture. In particular, one might assume that, even though clearly the cabin belongs to somebody, he has done what he needed to do. Indeed, this was Feinberg’s assertion. But the property owner is made materially worse off by Lou, and Lou has arguably wronged Gretchen, the property owner. Is there a way for Lou to right his wrong? Consider a reversal scenario: LCα. Upon returning home, Lou compensates the owner, Gretchen, for her losses. Most would likely agree that in compensating Gretchen, Lou has discharged his responsibility to the owner. Some might even suggest that Lou has done more than is required of him. Though Gretchen may feel violated by Lou’s breaking and entering, she has little claim against him. Lou has made Gretchen whole by compensating her for her losses. He has trespassed, yes, but he has undone the wrong by making Gretchen whole again. There are thus channels through which such wrongs can be reversed. But consider a slight variation on this theme: LCβ. Before setting out on his hike, Lou decides not to pack necessities, neglecting to bring a sleeping bag, a tent, some food, and winter gear.

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Benjamin Hale On the nightly news he hears that a nasty storm is coming. “No matter,” he thinks; he can just crash in one of the many cabins peppered across backcountry.

These extra details change—or at least ought to change—our assessment of whether Lou was within his rights, or whether Gretchen has a claim against Lou, regarding the break-in. Certainly Lou does have good reason to act in his own interests and protect his life, but in the β case, Lou’s was an act of blatant disregard for others. Is remuneration and repair enough to resolve this disregard? I suspect that it is not. Even a more robust offer, perhaps to compensate Gretchen for her troubles, seems somehow insufficient to amend for the violation. Lou has wronged Gretchen not by harming her, but by acting without regard for her or others. To shift back briefly to our opening example, were the rights of parties affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster violated? Not clearly, as the rights holders also include BP and other extractors, who maintain a right to pursue a livelihood. Certainly they do not maintain a right to destroy livelihoods, but their actions were not direct violations of the rights of other affected parties. In this way, the rights angle seems unpromising. If one however considers the extraordinary profits unique to the oil industry, one is left feeling that the arrangement is more than a bit unfair. One might propose the same of polluting and/or using resources more generally—certainly, one is within one’s rights to use resources that one needs to survive, even to add effluent to the environment in a way congruent with living—but unconsidered (wanton and reckless) use of resources leaves us to evaluate the actions more harshly. What we need, clearly, is a method for determining when and how actions are wanton and reckless. (b) Preferences Another common patient-centered view about the source of harmless wrongs regards the preferences of the victim and whether the actor has respected these preferences. Perhaps what has gone wrong is that the victim does not want to, or would prefer not to, ingest or inhale some pollutant. Or perhaps the other way around: many people desire the products of industry, and in wanting the products of industry, they must also accept the consequences of the production of those products. But preferences are notoriously slippery and unreliable when it comes to specifying harm. Consider a related case: Peeping Tom (PT): An old man, Tom, discovers that a young, female neighbor, Sue, showers and changes her clothing at 9:30 every night. Tom finds this exciting and makes it a practice to sneak behind her house and peer in her window to watch.

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On first reflection, one may be inclined to assess the violation here as one that places Sue under threat of harm. If Sue were to learn of Tom’s antics, it is no stretch to suggest that she would likely be affronted and perhaps feel violated. This peeping is not what she would prefer. The damage here, ostensibly, is to Sue’s security and sense of self. A turn to preferences would appear to overcome some of the objections to rigid state-of-affairs consequentialist accounts. One can account for trespass without invoking spooky notions like rights. But suppose some variations on this theme: PTα. This continues nightly for years. Tom tells no one. Sue is none the wiser. Eventually, Tom passes away, taking his secret fascination with him to the grave. Having no heirs, he anonymously leaves a large sum of money to Sue upon his death. This money is more than enough to compensate Sue for any woe or harm that may have befallen her as a consequence of Tom’s peeping. PTα suggests that there are some circumstances in which such damages to security and self-esteem might readily be avoided. It therefore poses a complication for the consequentialist variation on the preferences position, but it leaves space for a non-consequentialist interpretation that proposes that the preferences of patients must be respected. (Naturally, one could argue that the damage to Sue is not in the actual discovery, but in the risk of discovery. I’d like to set concerns about risk aside for this chapter. I address risk more directly elsewhere (2009).) Consider that the outcome needn’t necessarily be damaging to Sue in order to be salacious and morally problematic. Indeed, it would appear in PTα that what grounds the moral disapprobation is that it flies in the face of Sue’s preferences. In this instance, however, Tom makes the world whole again by leaving a large sum of money to Sue. But consider now the following variation: PTβ. Sue is a professional stripper who very much enjoys showing off her body. She regularly accepts payment to do just that. Tom knows this. He peeps on her, in effect, without paying. Having no heirs, he anonymously leaves a large sum of money to Sue on his death. Here it would seem, by supposition, that Sue enjoys being seen, has preferences to show herself off in this way, routinely accepts payment for doing just that, and even has been compensated by Tom. Indeed, Tom, by way of peeping on Sue, is in a way respecting her preferences. But still, something is awry. Tom oughtn’t to peep, even if Sue would normally accept payment for him to do so, even if he were to remunerate her. The internal contradiction here is that Tom cannot possibly pay Sue to peep on her, for his peeping is contingent on not being discovered. If he pays, he’s not peeping. In this instance, there’s an internal conflict that entails disregarding Sue’s preferences. Throwing money on the bedside table after

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the fact does not overwrite Tom’s disregard for Sue, even if she is the type of person who would otherwise accept money on her bedside table. Rather, one might argue that Sue’s stripping behavior is limited to her place of work, an area over which she has moral jurisdiction. At home, she is “off duty,” so to speak, and is entitled to secure a safe space where she does not consent to being seen. Similarly so, people need and want oil. Almost everyone living in the modern age is guilty of consuming energy and thus creating deleterious emissions. One could easily interpret this ongoing demand as the complicity of the masses in condoning or endorsing the dangers of deep water drilling. But most consumers of oil are not in the business of examining the life-cycle effects of their oil consumption, even if economists believe that they ought to be. Indeed, these consumers are consuming a fungible good—energy—and the sources of this energy are virtually invisible to them. (So too for the eventual repository of their emissions, e.g., the atmosphere, though a consumer’s output is more causally connectable to that consumer.) Simply because oil consumers effectively endorse the consumption of oil does not commit those consumers to the acceptance of risks associated with extracting that oil. It is difficult to near impossible for the consuming public to fully understand the risks and costs associated with oil extraction. BP’s actions were, to a certain extent, contingent on and facilitated by significant information asymmetries.

5.

UNDOING HARMLESS WRONGS: INTENTION AND THE AGENT-CENTERED ACCOUNT

Consider now the most common agent-centered variation: the view that proposes that intentions or motivations matter. Suppose, for instance, that the wrongmaking feature of pollution rests in the intentions of the agent. Consider this case: Sandlot (SL): Some children are playing baseball on a sandlot in their neighborhood. Their neighbor, Frank, is at work. Their ball smashes Frank’s lamppost. What is wrong here? Obviously again damage and in a direct way trespass. But kids will be kids. In many circumstances, they sometimes make silly decisions. SLα quickly dispenses with the consequentialist variation and helps us identify a remainder: SLα. Being resourceful and responsible, the kids decide that they will immediately clean it up. They clean up the glass, run to the hardware store, and purchase and install an identical lamp, restoring the house to the state in which Frank had left it. Frank returns to his house and is none the wiser.

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In this case, it would appear that the kids have recognized the error of their ways and have made Frank whole again. Still, one may believe that Frank has been wronged. How so? The kids ought to have alerted him to the damage. Not doing so was, as we say, disrespectful. Indeed, if alerted to their mistake, Frank may forgive them for their carelessness—maybe he likes baseball—but some would argue that it is critical that Frank be involved in the un-wronging. Now consider a complicating variation: SLβ. There is another baseball diamond and a playground at the other end of the street. This particular sandlot is sandwiched between many houses. To make matters worse, Frank has asked the kids for weeks to not play ball near the houses. Looking at the traditional agent-centered non-consequentialist view— that is, that intentions and motivations matter—it would appear that the kids have done nothing wrong. They did not have any ill intentions toward Frank and were not motivated by dark objectives. Nevertheless, the β case suggests that there may indeed be something wrong with their actions. They were negligent. They disregarded Frank’s earlier advice. In the β instance, Frank may not forgive the kids and may require more assurance to right the wrong. What will make the difference here is the extent to which Frank does or could assent to the reasons that they offer him. That is, what matters is whether he deems their actions to be justifiable, whether they are reasonable. So it is not, in fact, the intentions or motivations of the kids that matter so much as the claims that best explain or describe the action. In the Deepwater Horizon case, many argued that while terrible, such accidents happen, and if we are to live in a world in which oil is in such high demand, we must expect that periodically there will be negative outcomes. Indeed, it would appear that oil spills of the Deepwater Horizon sort fall into the category of what Charles Perrow (1984) once famously called “normal accidents.” But there is something still unnerving about such exculpations of BP, Halliburton, and others. Normal accidents occur, to be certain, but when there are other options available, as was the case here—with other sources of oil and alternative energies—these factors ought to change our evaluation of BP and complicit actors. There are other variations on such cases, of course, and I do not mean the above set of cases to be exhaustive. Rather, these are but a representative sample of the kind of arguments that one might offer in reply to the idea of trespass. We can imagine cases where the polluter violates the rights of patients, disregards their preferences, or pollutes by accident, perhaps remediating for these reasons, but is still wrong. What then could possibly be wrong with Tom’s or Lou’s or the sandlot kids’ behavior in the β cases? It must be something other than rights, preferences, or intentions—something, perhaps, more public. If any of the three

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parties had subjected the reasons that they had for taking the actions that they took to the scrutiny of the community, or perhaps to the affected parties, it is likely that they would’ve been rejected by Gretchen or Sue or Frank. It would seem, then, that the mitigating factor in the above cases is consent. But is that all it would take?

6.

WRONGMAKERS AND JUSTIFICATORY TRESPASS

Indeed, consent would go a long way in avoiding complications of trespass and disrespect—if the perpetrators had just asked permission, much of this could be avoided—but it is not always necessary to get explicit consent. Rather, what matters in instances in which consent cannot be gotten—and this is fairly often the case in environmental matters—is that actions be of the sort to which parties could or would consent if given the opportunity. What is necessary is that actions be at minimum reasonable—where a test for reasonableness can be met by using a criterion such as that offered by Scanlon or Habermas or Forst or any one of several other authors (Forst 2012; Habermas 1991, 1995; Scanlon 1999). I do not aim to offer a precise reasonableness criterion here. In all three of these cases, the outcomes remain the same, but as we learn more of the circumstances that explain the action, we understand that the justification for each and what it would take to right the wrong, changes slightly. In some cases, actors can give good reasons for their actions; in other cases not. Paul is disrespectful of Gretchen. Tom is literally trespassing on Sue. The Sandlot kids act recklessly. Do any of these actors have good reasons for doing what they’ve done? Can they offer up genuine apologies for their wrongs? As we get further into their cases and learn more—that is, as we make our way from the α reversal to the β variation, the remainder pops into stark relief. What concerns me here is the reasonableness of actions, and specifically, with whether or not the reasons that actors have for acting can withstand the scrutiny of other affected parties. Many times when we have an objection to how something is done, whether in a person-to-person context or in a more environmental context, the objection is seated in concerns that some important or salient reasons were not taken into consideration. Often these objections manifest as prompts to acknowledge an overlooked loss or value or damage or harm. But it is often enough not the case that these appeals to harm and damages do all of the work that one might hope. As reversal cases show, what will really make a victim whole again is whether the actor can offer up an explanation and/or an apology that is reasonable. And since it is virtually impossible to assess the reasonableness of an explanation or apology independent of the feedback of others, we must instead rely on reasonable evaluators to agree that it is reasonable. Trespass and respect essentially fall in the same category. When one chooses to act in a way that trespasses on or disrespects another, this

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effectively amounts to not taking them—they as persons, they as ends in themselves—into account. This is not a mere matter of rights, preferences, or intentions, but rather a question of whether one has acted considerately. What I think is that we’re tied to one another through our justifications, which ultimately derive from obligations under which we bind ourselves by virtue of our peculiar rationality. So here we have the start of a solution to the problem of environmental wrongdoing. Environmental wrongdoing, like many other instances of wrongdoing, harmless or otherwise, is characterizable as a sort of trespass. What distinguishes a wrong action from a right action is not necessarily whether the action trespasses on rights, disrespects preferences, or is made with the right intentions, but whether the reasons that best explain that action can be justified. In this case, being justified means being undertaken for reasons that would be acceptable to all. Thus, the trespass is primarily justificatory—a trespass on the reasons of others. The source of our responsibility not to do damage to the environment is not that the damages will necessarily fail to promote important values, but rather that many of our damaging actions proceed without fully taking into consideration the extent of their impacts. It is the “failure to take into consideration,” not the “extent of the impacts,” where the wronging occurs. When environmentalists object that such-and-such an action is unjust or unfair or wrong or awful, more often than not, they are objecting that the bad actors have neglected to address some important moral consideration. To be sure, sometimes what is neglected are the damages of the actions, but equally many times, objections concern unauthorized encroachment or tampering or disrespect or trespass. This is why it is more apt to characterize environmental wrongdoing as justificatory trespass: because the violations stem fundamentally from an objection to the offending action as one worth endorsing. We must justify our actions by appeal to our duties to one another. Casting environmental wrongdoing in terms justificatory trespass comes with multiple implications. For one thing, it places a heavy burden on actors. It insists that actors act have good reasons for taking action. Before undertaking to act, actors must ask themselves whether their reasons would be acceptable by all affected. Where possible, they should seek countervailing arguments against their position. Actors must ensure that the reasons guiding their actions are justified, meaning that those reasons are acceptable (and are accepted) to all affected. I do not have the space to address the full extent of this position here. Return to Log Cabin. If Lou is hiking in the backcountry and neglects to pack necessities, yet has knowledge of an impending storm, this very much changes our evaluation of his behavior when he breaks into Gretchen’s house. So too for Peeping Tom. Even though Sue may not so much mind being on display, Tom trespasses on her by sneaking into her backyard. Much the same can be said for Sand Lot as well. Our judgments about the

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actors’ responsibilities hang very much on the reasonability of their actions, not necessarily on whether some state of the world has come to pass. Similarly, after taking an action, we can only seek reconciliation through reasoned appeal to the affected. We can’t take back what we’ve done. As such, our actions can be rectified only through communicative validation, through reconciliation with the wronged. Consider again the sandlot case. In order to make amends for the wronging, or even to determine whether the act as wrong, the children must share their reasons for acting with the affected party. “We didn’t mean any ill,” they may appeal to Frank. And supposing that Frank believes as much, and has no other reason to be upset with them, he may accept their claim. There are other such responses that the kids might offer up as well: • “It was an accident; we just wanted to play.” • “There are bullies at the other diamond.” • “Honest, sir, we don’t mean any disrespect. That’s why we returned your lamp to its original condition.” • “The grass is too high at the other ballpark. Any of these may work for Frank. He can accept or reject any, some, or all of these claims; and he may do so on truth, truthfulness, or rightness grounds (Habermas 1987). Reciprocally, the kids will (and must) look for a reason that Frank can accept. If they find one, and Frank accepts it, then they will have reconciled. Importantly, their reconciliation seems to hang on the condition that Frank accept the speech-act offer. If Frank is unreasonable, of course—suppose he irrationally hates children and refuses to accept all apologies—a slightly different reasonableness test can be applied. That is, one can ask whether any reasonable person in Frank’s position would accept such an offer. This is the only way to establish the appropriate moral response to wrongdoing. Because victims are intimately caught up in the actions taken against them, they are in the best position to accept or reject the claims of those who have acted inconsiderately. The same is true for the other cases as well: • Log Cabin: “I made a gross miscalculation, I apologize . . .” • Peeping Tom: “I was lonely; I have a disorder; I didn’t think you’d mind . . .” • Sandlot: “As a token of our concern for you.” Apologies won’t always do the work we need them to do, of course, but they can go a long way in repairing wrongs, and quite a bit further than mere restitution. Since our only apparent method of redressing wrongs is through reconciliation with the wronged, which is virtually impossible in the case of

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environmental wrongs—one cannot appeal to the fish and the oysters—we must instead ensure that our actions as individuals and collectives pass a test of justification such that those actions could be reconciled with the wronged. It is therefore through communicative validation, not through redressing harms, that one can overcome harmless wrongs. Inasmuch as this is true more traditional reversal cases, communicative validation is a natural place to look for environmental wrongs as well. It may be more helpful to put it this way: pollution is wrong, but it is wrong because it is a wronging, not because it involves creating disvalue in the environment. One wrongs not by harming, but by disrespecting, trespassing, and acting inconsiderately—by acting without good reasons. Respect for persons involves not taking persons, but taking reasons—basically all reasons, whether articulated or unarticulated—seriously. What it is to disrespect others, to trespass on others, is to disregard good reasons, reasons that count in favor of. This is as much the concern of justificatory liberals as it is the basic environmental concern. What concerns environmental ethicists and advocates is not straightforwardly that the world is being destroyed in every corner everywhere, but that so many of the actions that we take, individually and collectively, appear to be taken haphazardly and without good reason.

7.

CONCLUSION

All actions in the world involve material tradeoffs. Every expenditure of energy, every act of creation, involves also the consumption of the material world and conversion of the world into waste or value. There is harm and damage all around. It is an inescapable feature of human industriousness, of life itself. There are at least two ways to navigate this landscape of consumption and degradation. One way—the way that has been advanced most thoroughly in this volume—is to weigh values, to promote the better world, and to ensure that benefits outweigh costs. But this process leaves us with an ineffable remainder and opens the door to egregious violations of others. If, however, we seek to understand what it might take to overcome the remainder, as I have done above, then we see that there is in fact an alternative to weighing goods and bads. We can seek independent validation of our reasons to ensure that they are “justified,” where this means that the reasons pass tests of wide deliberative scrutiny. Such an approach, of course, includes consideration of goods and bads and of costs and benefits, but rather than collapsing all other moral notions into a single metric of good and bad (which is the best we can do to account for the remainder), it accounts for the remainder by keeping incommensurable principles and values in play and subjecting the range of principles and values instead to the scrutiny of affected parties.

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One implication of this conclusion is that while it may be right and required to try to remediate environmental degradation, remediation alone cannot undo the wrong. This position thus leaves open the possibility that end states of the world matter quite significantly—requirements, for instance, that one restore the world to its prior state or to some saliently equivalent state—but that these end states are not and cannot be the determining factor in reparation for wrongs. My claim in this chapter therefore isn’t that there are no harms associated with environmental degradation—obviously there are—but that the harms themselves, or the diminution of value, isn’t alone the source of the wrong. Polluting an environment wrongs those who are affected by the pollution. It does so not necessarily by harming them—indeed, many are not made materially worse off by destruction of environments—but rather by unauthorized trespass on the world. In this case, what I mean by “unauthorized trespass” is that the alteration of the universe is not the sort of alteration to which affected parties would agree. For the sake of this chapter, I remain agnostic on whether such agreement is hypothetical or actual, ideal or real. To crystallize this point in the context of environmental degradation: when BP punched a hole in the ocean floor to extract the oil upon which we all depend, its actions didn’t neatly fall into the category of those that readily bespeak wrongs. Sure, there was a lot of damage. Yes, it was costly. But much of the damage can be cleaned up, and those who have been affected can be compensated for losses. Even still, one is rightly left to ask why, when we have so many other sources of energy, we were drilling for oil a mile below the surface of the gulf in the first place. Doing so was not a trespass on rights or preferences, per se, nor was it accomplished by people with bad intentions. It was, above all, ill considered—an action taken by lone actors in the pursuit of self-interest, in a world in which many safer and newer energy technologies are just coming online. How do we know these things? We know these things because our deliberative discourse unveils them for us. Much has been written about impacts and implications since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Most of what has been written after the fact should’ve been written before the disaster. Monday-morning quarterbacking this may well be, but if there’s one thing we should learn from our retrospective assessments of these and other disasters, it’s that if we’re going to keep doing this, everyone had better be a part of the game plan.

WORKS CITED Bradley, Ben. “Doing away with Harm.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85.2 (2012): 390–412. Elliot, Robert. “Faking Nature.” Inquiry 25 (1982): 81–93. Feinberg, Joel. “Voluntary Euthanasia and the Inalienable Right to Life.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 7.2 (1978): 93–123.

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———. Harm to Others. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1984. Forst, Rainer. The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice. Trans. Jeffrey Flynn. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Vol. 1. Trans. by Thomas McCarthy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1987. ———. “Discourse Ethics.” Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. 43–115. ———. Between Facts and Norms. Trans. William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. ———. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Hagerty, Curry L. and Jonathan L. Ramseur. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Highlighted Actions and Issues. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2010. Hale, Benjamin. “Polluting and Unpolluting.” Environmental Ethics. 2nd edition. Ed. Michael Boylan. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Hale, Benjamin, and Lisa Dilling. “Geoengineering, Ocean Fertilization, and the Problem of Permissible Pollution.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 36.2 (2011): 190–212. Hale, Benjamin, and William Grundy. “Remediation and Respect: Do Remediation Technologies Alter Our Responsibilities?” Environmental Values 18.4 (2009): 397–415. Hanser, Matthew. “The Metaphysics of Harm.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 77.2 (2008): 421–450. doi: 10.1111/j.1933–1592.2008.00197.x. Perrow, Charles. Normal Accidents. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Scanlon, T.M. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Shiffrin, Seana Valentine. “Harm and Its Moral Significance.” Legal Theory 18.3 (2012): 357–398. Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “Rights and Compensation.” Nous 14.1 (1980): 3–15. ———. “More on the Metaphysics of Harm.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82.2 (2011): 436–458. doi: 10.1111/j.1933–1592.2010.00418.x.

10 Moral Bookkeeping, Consequentialism, and Carbon Offsets Julia Driver

1.

INTRODUCTION

Moral trade-offs seem an inevitable part of the morally conscientious person’s life. The only theorists who deny this are global absolutists who view duties as absolute, and who are disinclined to accept that there are moral conflicts in which a kind of moral remainder—a sense of wrongness—is left over even when the conflict has been rationally resolved. For most of us, there is a sense that we can build moral credit, lose it, and go into a kind of moral debt, at least with respect to some of our morally significant actions. Helping Oxfam by donating large parts of my salary might mean forgoing a benefit for my family. Helping one child might mean sacrificing some well-being for another child. One function of effective moral deliberation is to negotiate these sorts of decisions responsibly. Utilitarians have often been characterized as advocating a very simple way of making such decisions—a form of moral cost/ benefit analysis. Critics note that this method of decision making seems inappropriate with respect to some moral decisions, at least—particularly those having to do with the lives and well-being of other persons. But the issue is much more general, too. Most view at least some trade-offs as inevitable, and they seem willing to extend credit for some actions—for example, those that seem to require a sacrifice on the part of the agent. This chapter explores this issue in the context of environmental ethics, focusing on the example of carbon offsets. Carbon offsets have been controversial for a variety of reasons. The reason relevant to this discussion has to do with the view that there is something wrong with a moral credit and debit system with respect to certain harms to the environment. This chapter attempts to diagnose the worry and offer a solution that supports the permissibility of carbon offsets.

2.

THE PROBLEM: EXAMPLES

As global climate change becomes reality, and as it becomes increasingly clear that human activity is fueling it, there has been a great deal of interest in developing strategies to cope with the carbon emissions that are responsible

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for global climate change. One strategy frequently discussed involves neutralizing carbon footprints via carbon offsets. Carbon offsets represent a kind of bookkeeping solution to the problem: the basic idea is that it is permissible to engage in activities that produce carbon emissions, as long as one also takes corresponding steps to decrease or mitigate those emissions in other areas. The following are some actual examples: Qantas Airlines enters into an agreement to purchase offset credits, and to offer offsets to passengers. (Fly Carbon Neutral Program Overview 2013) BP [British Petroleum] has a “Target Neutral” program for the 2012 summer Olympics, designed to offset the carbon emissions produced by travel related to the Olympic Games. (Voegele 2012) Duke University supports the development of carbon offset programs to limit the University’s environmental impact (Sustainability: The Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative). Duke is not the only university to use carbon offsets as part of its environmental program.

3.

THE QANTAS PROGRAM

As a primary example, I would like to discuss Qantas’s program. It is administered through a company called Climate Friendly. Climate Friendly offers offsetting services to individuals as well as companies. In the case of Qantas, passengers can chose to pay a small additional fee to have a flight offset. Qantas uses the money to purchase “accredited carbon offsets” to apply against the passengers’ travel. Passengers are assured that they are not double charged for offsets, since they are also charged a carbon tax. The voluntary program is supposed to meet the needs of passengers who want to keep their own personal books balanced, who want to fly but not feel that they have added to the overall emissions problem. Sylvia, the flier: Sylvia has an entire month of vacation time and has decided she would love to spend the summer in Australia. She lives in New York City, so the trip to Australia is a considerable distance (around 9, 935 miles). Sylvia decides to purchase carbon offsets for the trip, since she is concerned about the impact carbon emissions have on the environment, and would like to minimize her overall impact. (Carbon Planet 2013)1 These schemes—of the sort that Sylvia would like to use—have generated mixed responses. Some view them as a great way to cut negative environmental impacts, and others have viewed them as nothing more than “indulgences,” such as those offered by early churches to sinners (Smith 2007). What is an “indulgence”? The negative view holds that an indulgence

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provides a way for individuals to be prospectively forgiven for wrongdoing as a way to sin, and so still qualify for heaven in spite of having sinned. But offsets would be very different from indulgences if one of the following were met: (1) the offsets actually do some good, and (2) use of the offsets is not selfishly motivated. Critics argue that it is often the case that neither of these conditions is met. If (1) is not met, then the bookkeeping is bogus.2 If (2) is not met, there is still a kind of bookkeeping in which the bad is off set by the good, but the agent’s reasons aren’t the right sort of reasons. Thus, the agent may still be blameworthy in some sense, even though the agent hasn’t, overall, caused more damage or harm in the world. A more serious worry is a third sort of worry—even if it is true that carbon offsets produce some good, a system in which they are promoted might overall lead to worse environmental outcomes. So, for example, this might be the case if using offsets encouraged people such as Sylvia to fly a lot more than they would otherwise fly. This could be cashed out into several (at least) distinct sorts of harms. First, overall pollution levels might rise if people ended up using the offset system imperfectly. Second, it might make flight much more popular, leading to an accelerating loss of natural fuel to meet the demand. Third, it might undermine Sylvia’s character in some way by making her less worried about consuming in general. Not only are carbon offsets suggested as ways of allowing individuals such and organizations to offset emissions; they are also suggested as means for less wealthy countries to acquire funds by selling carbon allocations to countries that consume more energy resources. The same worries, though amplified, apply in these cases as well. There is something odd about offsets, at least from the moral point of view. Offsets are an example of what I term moral bookkeeping—the idea is that as long as the books are balanced in the end, no damage is to be credited to the bookkeeper. Indulgences are like this as well. I may go into moral debt in one way, but compensate for it in another way.3 In the case of carbon offsets, this bookkeeping strategy is seen by some as allowing people to get off the moral hook in ways that don’t require changing the behaviors that led to the problem in the first place—so, the worry is that people such as Sylvia should not fly, or at least drastically reduce their flying, not that they should try to keep to their carbon rich lifestyle but pay compensation or make some sort of restitution. An analogy might be in order: Bertie, the selfish dilettante: Bertie is a wealthy aristocrat who travels widely and enjoys doing things such as drag racing in fragile ecosystems, hunting rare animals, and exploiting impoverished workers. Although he has desires to do all these things, and the means to satisfy those desires, he also has the secondorder attitude of a bit of guilt in indulging himself in these ways. So, what he does is make regular contributions to environmental groups

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and human rights groups that are carefully gauged to improve overall well-being, taking into account his own transgressions. It seems that at least for some immoralities bookkeeping clearly does not work to clear the balance sheet. One cannot kill one person and then make things right by saving the life of another. One cannot treat some people with disrespect, and then make up for it by helping others. Indeed, what some find objectionable about Utilitarianism is the appearance the theory has of endorsing a bookkeeping mentality in the moral agent. The standard, traditional, version of Utilitarianism holds that the right action is the action that maximizes the good, or promotes utility. This will sometimes result in trade-offs such as sacrificing an innocent person in order to save even more innocent people. The classic example illustrating this sort of trade-off is one part of the Trolley Problem: in that part, we are asked to consider a scenario in which a trolley is out of control and cannot be stopped.4 If the driver of the trolley does nothing, the trolley continues on its path and runs over five innocent people, killing them. If the driver switches to another track, on the other hand, the trolley will strike only one innocent person, resulting in one death. Is it better to let the trolley continue, killing five, or switch it to another track, killing only one? Most side here with what the Utilitarian would likely say—killing the one is the right trade-off for saving five. On the other hand, contrast this with the famous organ transplant scenario, in which one can kill one patient and use his organs to save five innocent people. This seems morally outrageous. Some things simply cannot appropriately be tallied against others. Of course, utilitarianism would have a problem with offsets in that the agent who uses the prospect of offsets is not maximizing—she’s ameliorating. Why can’t she refuse to fly and put money into planting trees as well? That’s truly maximizing—at least, along this particular parameter. However, the carbon-offset strategy accepts—as utilitarianism does—that one can balance harms and trade them off against each other. This is another feature of utilitarianism that is found objectionable. Again, clear cases of the inappropriateness of this strategy involve trading off one sort of mistreatment of human beings against another. Consider another case: Robert, the overly tolerant boyfriend: Robert’s girlfriend is, in general, a charming woman. However, much to his dismay he discovers that she is virulently anti-Semitic. Once he finds out, he feels horribly guilty for continuing to date her. And yet, he has become accustomed to having a girlfriend, and this particular girlfriend is physically far more attractive than any of his other prospects. Robert decides to “offset” the damage he does by having an immoral girlfriend. To compensate, he volunteers at a Jewish community center.5

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Here, Robert knows that continuing to date his anti-Semitic girlfriend is wrong, but believes that if he offsets it with good deeds, he might not be praiseworthy, but at least he might be able to manage neutral. But the outrageousness of his strategy is part of what makes Andy Richter use it as a storyline—this kind of trade-off is not appropriate. Michael Kinsley (2007) tries a similar strategy as a reductio on the permissibility of carbon offsets: The genius of carbon credits is that it opens up a whole new inventory of things that people can buy and sell. And there is no reason that the principle should be limited to environmentalism. For example, how about a “bad-parenting surcharge.” It would work like this. Suppose you come home after a hard day of work, and there is your acne-ridden, foul-smelling brat of a son—if, indeed, he is your son, which is hard to believe—playing video games with his friends. Your living room is strewn with Dorito crumbs and other detritus that doesn’t bear close examining. Needless to say, the lawn has not been mowed as promised. How would you like to slug him? Or rather, how much would you like to slug him? You know you shouldn’t. But what if by slugging him, you could actually reduce the total amount of child abuse in the world? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? What’s needed is a market in child-abuse credits. Somewhere in the world there is a parent who is slugging his kid every night. For a price, he would refrain for a night, or even two. By paying that parent not to slug his kid twice, you gain the right to slug your kid just once. This kind of criticism of offsets is extremely common. A website, www. cheatneutral.com, spoofs offset programs by offering to sell you cheat credits, so you can cheat on your spouse. The credits pay for someone else to remain faithful. However, one way to differentiate this kind of trade-off from what we see in carbon offset strategies is to note that treating others with disrespect (which includes harming them)—and being complicit in treating them with disrespect—is intrinsically wrong, whereas carbon emissions are not themselves intrinsically wrong. Rather, carbon emissions are instrumentally wrong since they generate harms. Thus, we can note a distinction between constituting immorality and generating a harm. Disrespect, pain, suffering— these are bad in themselves. Perhaps it is inappropriate, then, to offset these sorts of things, rather than mere instrumentally damaging things like emissions. But this will not really capture the difference. First, pain is intrinsically bad and it does not seem wrong to offset pains, at least as a matter of policy—both personal and public. For example, I may decide, quite rationally, to cause myself some pain today for less pain in the future—that’s the way exercise is supposed to work. Even more dramatically, one might live through a painful operation now to avoid some other painful experience in

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the future. The timing might matter quite a bit, so that even though one isn’t experiencing a net savings in terms of pain avoidance, one is experiencing the pain at a more convenient time—before one tries climbing Mount Everest, for example, as opposed to while one is climbing it. This case—of intrapersonal offsets—involves voluntary decisions on the part of an individual agent, and this is quite different from interpersonal offsets. One cannot decide to enslave ten people now and then make up for it by freeing ten people later—or even more. In these sorts of cases, balancing the books isn’t even possible. One will always be awash in red ink. This brings out another anti-consequentialist feature of moral bookkeeping—for some harms, moral redemption is not possible. If Aubrey kills 100 innocent people, has a change of heart, and sets out to save the lives of another 100 innocent people, that may ameliorate, but it cannot balance things out. Human lives are not interchangeable like that. How significant the analogy with bookkeeping is might depend on the type of consequentialism to which one ascribes. In the case of maximizing consequentialism, it won’t be possible to truly make up for having failed to maximize the good. However, if one is a “satisficer”—that is, the sort of consequentialist who hold that the right action produces enough good, then failure on one occasion to produce enough good might be made up at another time by producing more than enough good. Even so, trade-offs in terms of lives seem inappropriate. Yet, of course, in real life we often do make trade-offs of a sort. The law, for example, recognizes mechanisms for ameliorating damage and harm. However, it is one thing to accidentally or unintentionally create a problem and then to try to ameliorate it by offsetting the damage on has done. This is like compensation or recompense. It would be best to not have created the problem in the first place, but given that one has, it is better to ameliorate than do nothing. Offsets are different. In the case of offsets, the damage is intentionally and knowingly generated, with the understanding that it will be offset. Sylvia intentionally and knowingly generates emissions by flying from New York to Sydney, but pays extra to plant trees to offset her subset of the resulting emissions. It isn’t the offset itself, but the way in which it is conducted that poses the moral problem. The deliberative process illustrated in Robert’s case is “I will be complicit in the disrespectful treatment of people, but then compensate by helping them. Further, I will be complicit for no greater morally significant reason. The complicity simply suits my own personal ends.” This isn’t really compensation. Typically, one who compensates harms others unintentionally, and the compensation is the best that can be done after the fact. Further, a policy maker knows that some harm will occur, and the real question is how to deal with it—that is, what policies will diminish the severity of harm. When someone sets out to create damage that will not otherwise be created she has created a problem, she hasn’t simply realized a problem exists and then attempted to ameliorate it. Thus, we need another

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distinction between compensation or restitution, and amelioration. Offsets fall into the amelioration category. What many find wrong about carbon offsets is something similar. Some, who buy into the land ethic, will regard one harm to the environment as not only intrinsically wrong, but wrong in a way that involves the same sort of “inviolability” that people have. One cannot, on this view, balance out harm to one part of the environment with a benefit to another part. This is what some refer to as an agent-centered restriction on minimizing [or, in our case, balancing out] the bad. This sort of restriction has a good deal of intuitive support when it comes to limiting harms to human beings, who are widely viewed as having a special moral status. They are inviolable (Kamm 2007).6 If a being is inviolable then there are ways in which treating that being is impermissible. As Kamm (2007) notes, this sort of inviolability, though, is very broad. It may be impermissible to burn someone’s supply of corn, so the supply of corn, in this very broad sense, is inviolable, but that says nothing about moral worth. For this we need something narrower, the impermissibility in question must be understood relative to what the thing is in itself, “because of what it is in its own right.” Corn only has instrumental value. The refined version also considers actions for the sake of the being in question, thus, “an individual is inviolable if, and only if, because of what it is in its own right and for its own sake there are ways in which it is impermissible to treat it” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2009: 168). Lippert-Rasmussen (2009) terms this sort of inviolability “interest-based” inviolability. This is the sort of inviolability animals have; for persons, we need an even narrower concept of “individualized inviolability.” In this chapter, however, I would like to consider the more expansive notions in relation to the issue of bookkeeping. An environmentalist who is against carbon offsets because she believes that that those offsets fail to mirror the correct appreciation of nature can appeal to both the second and third senses—that is minimal inviolability and interest-based inviolability, and this does not commit her to treating natural objects and animals as having fully the same status as human beings, as having the individualized inviolability. I believe that some reasons that have been provided against offsets do not recognize different degrees of inviolability. Indeed, at Offset Consumer (2013), one reason explicitly provided against offsets is “Offsets don’t give you a license to increase your personal greenhouse gas output, just as donating to an anti-domestic-violence NGO [nongovernmental organization] doesn’t give you an excuse to engage in domestic violence.” However, one legitimate worry about carbon offsets is that they may only very imperfectly compensate for harms. Consider the cornfield case that Kamm discusses. In the case of sacrificing corn, we are not sacrificing something with intrinsic value—trading off corn for some other benefit is fine, morally speaking. But in the case of pollution, the harm is not limited to consumption of a resource. There is also damage to the environment, which

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may, in fact, at least partly consist in direct damage to persons who breathe in noxious fumes and particles that harm the respiratory system. So in some cases the harm to persons isn’t even mediated. What carbon offsets do, then, is try to make up for this damage by providing resources that serve to—let’s say—clean the air via carbon sinks. Now, however, it does seem that what we are doing is trading off some persons’ well-being for the well-being of others, even though none of the people involved in the trade-off are identifiable to us. This would seem to violate moral norms prohibiting the direct harming of another person. To make the reasoning more explicit, let’s consider Sylvia’s case again. Sylvia will be flying to Sydney, having purchased carbon-offsets to offset carbon she is expending as a result of fuel used during the flight. The flight consumes fuel, turning into pollution. That pollution may be ameliorated by trees that can absorb and process the carbon. However, it is also the case that the pollution can consist in particulates that irritate respiratory systems of individuals who breathe in some of the fumes, even in diluted form. Large-scale pollution can have short-term effects that harm individual persons, though we may not know who because the pollution itself is so diffuse. Of course, this isn’t true just of jets. Perhaps even more salient examples would involve car exhaust. It is interesting, though, that I suspect that car fumes are considered part of our normal day-to-day lives, as background conditions almost, and so don’t register as potential harms to others. A closely related intuition may be that the features of the environment being damaged by carbon emissions are in some cases irreplaceable. It is doubtful that such is the case with things like air and water, understood simply as air and water. But some features of the environment—such as national forests damaged by acid rain or fragile ecosystems, such as deserts, damaged by global climate change, might well fall into this category. Irreplaceability seems connected to uniqueness, though a caveat is in order. Some objects are irreplaceable not due to any intrinsic features that they exhibit, but rather due to certain purely relational features such as their history—and in the context we are considering here—their history in relation to human beings. It would be terrible to lose the original Constitution, for example, or Magna Carta, even if there are many replicas of it out there in the world. But someone who takes the land ethic seriously might well argue that very many features of our environment are irreplaceable independently of their connection with human experience. Leaving aside that particular issue, however, the worry is that carbon offsets do not address the damage done to irreplaceable features of the environment, even if we consider only histories and other extrinsic goods, which are of significance only to human beings. Global climate change, which is at least partly caused by carbon emissions, has led to great damage to old growth forests, for example. Hotter temperatures mean more, and more damaging forests fires, the spread of insects that feed on the trees, as well as soil damage that harms the forests (Bernstein et al. 2007). Further, old growth forests have

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great instrumental value as carbon sinks. Replacing what we destroy with new trees represents an overall loss of value. This is one worry that those opposed to carbon offsets have. However, I also think that two distinct worries tend to be conflated. One is the worry that something irreplaceable, of unique value is lost and “replaced” with something of lesser intrinsic value. The other worry is that promoting a replacement, or a moral bookkeeping, strategy for dealing with environmental problems endorses the wrong attitude to take toward the environment. So far I’ve discussed the first problem and how it has some merit, even though in the end my view on this is that it may be the best we can do—giving up the generation of carbon emissions will entail significant losses to human well-being, and those need to be considered as well. But the second worry is distinct. The second worry resembles a worry that some non-consequentialists proposed for consequentialism—that the very attitude it proposes that agents adopt is a corrupt attitude. The corrupt attitude is the view morally significant actions as transactions, as a matter of course. Trade-offs are to be handled, not to be agonized over. One way to cash this out is that it fosters an attitude of “problem solved” when it hasn’t actually been solved, it has only been mitigated. The reason that trade-offs are tolerated in the first place is that they are seen as undesirable, yes, but also practically necessary. The alternative to no trade-offs is much, much worse. But critics of carbon offsets dispute the necessity—or at least the scope of the necessity—for these sorts of carbon trade-offs. That’s because they think that people could be doing a lot more to lower carbon emissions pre-offset. Sylvia could fly less, for example. If this is the correct diagnosis of the worry about carbon offsets, then the real focus of the problem has to do with the issue of whether or not the activities people engage in that lead to the emissions in the first place are significant enough to warrant the trade-off. In deciding this issue, my own view is that it requires a consideration of the well-being of humans and animals affected. There is no doubt that a good deal of the activity leading up to increased emissions is not worth the trade-off, for example, a strong urge to buy trinkets. Something that makes someone momentarily happy, but has no lasting significance, is not worth the trade-off. But some activities don’t indicate a superficial consumerist character. Flying to Europe to see Rome, for example, is enriching. There will be disagreement here about what is worthwhile and what isn’t—but people will generally agree that some trade-offs do not indicate a bad character or attitude, one that treats all trade-offs as mere consumer transactions. Thus, offsets can be part of responsible moral bookkeeping. Carbon offsets offer (if genuine offsets) offer a way to make thoughtful trade-offs and make up for environmental harms. They may involve tradeoffs that some find distasteful, but if the activities that are allowed to continue via these trade-offs are significant enough then they are warranted— much in the same way that we frequently make other trade-offs in living our daily lives.

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NOTES 1. Carbon Planet calculates the cost of the offsets, for a round-trip between New York City, JFK Airport, and Sydney, Australia, to be AUS$124.20. 2. There is some evidence that many of the schemes are flawed, since they are based on optimistic projections, or predictions that are basically unverifiable. See Adam (2006). 3. Interestingly, some recent empirical research has shown that people who “buy green” seem to view themselves as having purchased a sort of moral credit; they then feel free to go on and act more immorally than those who do not “buy green.” See Mazar and Zhoung (2010). 4. The trolley problem has generated a huge literature. It was first discussed by Foot (1967). 5. This example is adapted from an episode (“Little Andy in Charge,” season 1, episode 3) of Andy Richter Controls the Universe. 6. For a critical discussion of Kamm on this issue, see Lippert-Rasmussen (2009).

WORKS CITED Adam, David. “Can Planting Trees Really Give You a Clear Carbon Conscience?” The Guardian. N.p., Oct. 6, 2006. Bernstein, Lenny, et al. “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report.” IPCC Plenary XXVII. Valencia, Spain. Nov. 12–17, 2007. CheatNeutral. CheatNeutral. N.p., n.d. May 23, 2013. Carbon Planet—Global, Full Spectrum Carbon Management. Carbon Planet Limited. May 24, 2013. Fly Carbon Neutral Program Overview. Qantas Airways Limited. May 24, 2013.

Foot, Philippa. “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect.” Oxford Review 5 (1967): 5–15. Kamm, F. M. Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007. Kinsley, Michael. “Credit for Bad Behavior.” Time. Jun. 21, 2007. Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. “Kamm on Inviolability and Agent-Relative Restrictions.” Res Publica 15.2 (2009): 165–178. “Little Andy in Charge.” Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Joint Production of 20th Century Fox Television and Paramount Network Television. Apr. 2, 2002. Mazar, Nina, and Chen-Bo Zhong. “Do Green Products Make Us Better People?” Psychological Science 21.4 (2010): 494–498. Offset Consumer “What Are Carbon Offsets?” Offset Consumer. May 24, 2013.

Smith, Kevin. The Carbon Neutral Myth: Offset Indulgences for Your Climate Sins. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute, 2007. Sustainability: The Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative. Duke University. May 24, 2013.

Voegele, Erin. “BP to Showoff Biofuel, Offer Biomass Carbon Offsets at Olympics.” Biomass. Jul. 25, 2012.

11 John Stuart Mill’s Green Liberalism and Ecofeminism Wendy Donner

1.

INTRODUCTION

John Stuart Mill’s moral and political philosophy has at its foundation a structure that he articulates in the System of Logic and other writings. The architecture of his theory is organized based on the Art of Life. This is a technical term used by Mill to refer to the organizing framework he employs. This framework distinguishes Mill’s theory from many other forms of utilitarianism and consequentialism, which are designed only as theories of morality. Mill’s utilitarianism, in contrast, is a theory of the good life which contains a theory of morality, but is not itself a theory of morality. Mill’s moral philosophy has a doctrine of Aesthetics and Virtue that compliments his theory of Morality. In the Logic, Mill lays out the three departments of the Art of Life—“Morality, Prudence or Policy, and Aesthetics; the Right, the Expedient, and the Beautiful or Noble” (CW 8: 949).1 The distinction between Morality or Duty, on one hand, and Nobility or Virtue, on the other, plays a crucial role in Mill’s theory. Understanding the framework of the Art of Life makes it apparent that much human happiness depends on the flourishing of well-being outside of the limited domain of Morality. I believe that some theoretical puzzles often associated with Mill’s theory can be resolved or at least clarified by further reflection on the category of Virtue, Nobility, and Aesthetics in his Art of Life, and in particular the connections between aesthetic education and Mill’s environmentalism. In this chapter, I extend Mill’s views on virtue and aesthetics as they relate to his environmentalism to examine how they interact with his liberalism and how they intersect with some current environmental theories, in particular with ecological feminism. As part of this, I offer an interpretation of Mill’s environmentalism that examines his connections to some current concerns about the impact of economic growth and development ethics. A striking component of ecofeminism is its critique of escalating economic growth as constituting “maldevelopment,” which is particularly harmful and oppressive to women2. Mill is well known for being an early critic of continual economic growth and for advocating in its place a stationary growth economy. Many of his reasons are the very reasons invoked

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by contemporary environmentalists who are alarmed at the environmental impact of continual and escalating economic growth on the environment. I want to place his environmentalism within this contemporary movement against excessive materialism and consumerism and in favor of a conception of the good life as concerned with a life that is “simple in means, rich in ends” in the words of deep ecologist Arne Naess (2012b), or “voluntary simplicity” in the words of ecofeminists Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva (1993). It would seem that a life that is simple in means and rich in ends is very much in keeping with Mill’s notions of higher, virtuous activities and ends, with his love of natural beauty, and with his disdain for the excesses of materialism and consumerism. It also seems that many of Mill’s concerns overlap with some principles and tenets of ecological feminism, a feminist theory of the environment. I claim that there are strong thematic links between Millian environmentalism and ecofeminism. Mill’s liberalism offers some powerful theoretical tools to resist human attitudes that are destructive to the natural world.

2.

MILL’S ART OF LIFE AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

In some recent writings, I have attempted to articulate the place and importance of the theoretical framework of the Art of Life in Mill’s environmental philosophy (Donner 2010a: 84–98; Donner 2010b: 146–165; Donner and Fumerton 2009: 33–55, 125–143; Donner and Green 1995: 6–17). The resources offered by this framework are promising for the project of understanding Mill’s environmentalism. The first important step in this consists in explaining the division, central to Mill’s thought, between the proper jurisdiction of Morality and of Virtue and Aesthetics within the Art of Life. The domain of Virtue or Aesthetics plays a crucial but underappreciated role in promoting well-being of humans and other sentient beings. The domain of Virtue is concerned with cultivation of all of the human excellences of self-development, but in particular with aesthetic education. This is particularly associated with education and deepening of the emotions, which Mill saw as being marginalized if not entirely displaced in his own education. After his early mental crisis, which he describes in the Autobiography, he sought out ways to rectify this neglect and to give the development of feeling its proper place. Aesthetic education is essential to developing the utilitarian sensibility that enables agents to respond to and be attuned to the happiness and suffering of others and to be motivated to act to alleviate suffering. Thus, aesthetic education is one essential component of Millian education that has as its goal to promote an ideal of self-development in which human capacities such as reason and emotion, individuality and sociality, and autonomy and compassion are all promoted in dynamic holistic balance rather than being conceptualized as dualistically or hierarchically arranged. Piers Stephens expresses a similar ideal of Millian character, consonant with green

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thinking, when he notes that Mill seeks harmony of reason and passion and that “Mill’s emphases on vitality and balance of the faculties resonates with green demands for an integrated model of rationality which incorporates the passions, and also shares the ethos of spontaneity and organicism” (2014: 183). It’s not too early in this chapter to point out that ecofeminism strongly resists dualistic and hierarchical thinking. These matters are general and extend broadly. Of particular note for Mill’s environmental philosophy are his accounts of the value of the environment and of the ecological self. With regard to the first, I have argued that since Mill’s theory of value is some broad form of hedonism or mental state account, intrinsic value must be located in and rooted in positive states of consciousness or awareness of sentient beings.3 This effectively rules out accepting the commitment of environmental ecocentrists that the natural environment has value in itself, and apart from any relation to consciousness. But it does not rule out something such as the projectivist account of J. Baird Callicott, which I have argued previously is more adequately characterized as a relational account of value. This allows us to attribute to the natural world what can be called moderate relational intrinsic value (Callicott 1989: 129–155).4 That is, value can be located in the gestalt of a knowledgeable and appreciative consciousness in relationship with the natural environment. Mill has explained very movingly how interactions with the beauty of nature had a sublimely satisfying effect upon him (CW 1: 149–155). The uplifting and ennobling effects of relationships with nature are often explored in environmental theorists’ examinations of the value of the natural world. This relational account of value can harmoniously be accommodated within Mill’s qualitative theory of value, since the kind of experience of the beauty of the natural world is of superior value and its sublime nature has a powerful uplifting and elevating effect on the agent. This commitment to the value of human interactions with nature as a fount of aesthetic or emotional education is a distinctive element of Mill’s environmentalism.5 Mill’s value theory is qualitative and recognizes that some kinds of happiness are higher and superior in value than others. This is not limited to the intellectual pleasures and, in the present case, very naturally extends to the pleasures of enjoying natural beauty. The basic utilitarian sensibility is promoted by human exposure to the beauty of nature and natural settings. An important consequence is that this requires the preservation of the natural environment from human interference. This also supports the value of the spontaneity of nature, which intersects with Mill’s promotion of spontaneity as a value-elevating characteristic in many contexts6. I have also recently explored the question of the ecological self in Mill’s theory, contrasting the Millian utilitarian ecological self with the deep ecology Self 7 and the Buddhist no-self. Environmental and aesthetic education underpin all of these models of the ecological self, and they all seek means and models to develop and promote the aesthetic virtues associated with these models of selfhood. These are all ways and means of seeking to

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develop the virtues of compassion, selflessness, or overcoming selfish egoism; they differ in the extent of interconnectedness with nature that is their goal or ideal (2010b: 157–165). Millian ecological selves are metaphysically separate and distinct; they are not merged to the extent of the Buddhist conception of no-self. I have argued that Mill’s account resembles in this respect the account of moderate relational value and the relational self that calls on an appreciating, caring consciousness; a deep relationship of care; and an attitude of love rather than domination. This also links up with ecofeminist commitments, as I argue later. This framework quite naturally leads into the exploration of Mill’s views, often expressed, that the pursuit of materialism and consumerism are low value, unworthy pleasures. They do not suit the dignity of humans. The good life should include moderation in our pursuit of material goods and the satisfaction they bring. This resonates with deep ecologist Arne Naess’s conception of the good life and value as one that is “simple in means, rich in ends” (2012b: 130). In this view, we should restrict our concern to the satisfaction of vital needs, rather than trivial wants. This means that such a good life puts a premium on the appreciation of non-consumptive goods that do not deplete the environment for trivial human ends. The rich ends endorsed by Naess can be seen as similar to Mill’s higher value pleasures. They come from and emerge from aesthetic education, an education in the end that relies on an appreciation of the value of nature rather than a compulsive and addictive need to possess, consume, and conquer nature. Mill takes a clear and strong stand on questions of consumerism and materialism. While he certainly supports using nature to meet important human needs, he also rather consistently supports limiting this usage to such needs. His support for a stationary growth economy, much noted and celebrated within environmentalist circles, extends broadly to his attacks on materialism of his day, regarding both land use and industrialization.8 As Donald Winch notes, Mill and John Ruskin both removed themselves from membership in what could be called “the ‘steam-whistle party’, those who celebrated industrial and scientific progress and entertained optimistic prospects held out by further technological innovation” (2010: 59). In the Principles of Political Economy, Mill expresses his environmentalist sympathies, and criticizes those who would squander nature for trivial human pursuits. This passage is frequently quoted, for good reason, since it transmits powerfully Mill’s environmental commitments. It is a critique of the casual exploitation of nature and the loss this leads to for human well-being, as well as a lament for the loss of wild spontaneous nature. It signals Mill’s sympathies with the Romantic exaltation of natural beauty and his well-known appreciation of Wordsworth’s poetry. Wordsworth’s poetry is praised for its portrayal of the sublime aspects of the environment, in particular the areas of wilderness in Britain that were

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threatened by the encroachments of industrialization. In this well-known passage, Mill says, It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated, is a very poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character; and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. (CW 3: 757) Mill doesn’t much like the parasitism and idle lifestyle of the rich aristocracy. The pretentions of the middle classes to high status and consumption at the expense of nature also merit ridicule as far as he is concerned. And he does not spare wasteful members of either class from his ridicule and polemic. He is a notable advocate of preserving wilderness areas from consumerist uses. In his day, many areas were preserved as what was then called “commons” because they were perceived as being held for certain common human uses. They were vestiges of a feudal system of land ownership which Mill claims served to “prop up a ruling class” of often idle landowners (CW 5: 689). As part of land tenure reform, Mill worked with Henry Fawcett to create the Commons Preservation Society (Winch 2010: 57). This was the precursor of the British National Trust. One policy promoted is to ensure that in cases of lands not under cultivation for important human needs, the state should use its rights to these lands to preserve “extensive tracts in a state of wild natural beauty and freedom” (CW 5: 693). This is to be done “for the general enjoyment of the community, and encouragement in all classes of healthful rural tastes, and of the higher order of pleasures” as well as for the benefit of future generations (CW 5: 695). When such lands are put into cultivation, then the primary purpose should be to promote the interests of the working class and not to increase the wealth of the already

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rich (CW 5: 693). And Mill the writer frequently became Mill the activist. He went as far as to attack the Archbishop of Canterbury for closing off some of the Addington hills near Croyden. He roused the people of Croydon to “sally out with axe in hand” to remove fence barriers put up “to exclude them from what was morally . . . their birthright” (as quoted in Winch 2010: 63). He attacks the aristocratic so-called sport of hunting. “We confess that when we read of enormous game preserves, kept up that great personages may slaughter hundreds of wild animals in a day’s shooting, we are amazed at the puerility of taste which can call this a sport” (CW 4: 384). He continues his lament that “there is something out of joint . . . when it is proposed to plant parks and lay out gardens for [people], that they may enjoy more freely nature’s gift alike to rich and poor, of sun, sky, and vegetation; and along with this a counter-progress is constantly going on, of stopping up paths and enclosing commons. Is not this another case of giving with one hand, and taking back more largely with the other?” (CW 4: 384). England does not exactly have an abundance of wilderness areas, and those existing are under threat (CW 4: 384). He expresses his disdain for those who want Britain to be like many parts of Europe “where every foot of soil is hemmed in by fences and covered over with the traces of human labour” (CW 4: 384). The effect of this is sadly only to increase population, not to increase people’s well-being. He ends this passage with a jab at those who advocate that commons be appropriated from the poor only to “be added to the enclosed pleasure domain of the rich.” This robs those who love nature, and future generations, and is aptly described as “legalized spoliation” or plunder (CW 4: 385).9 Mill’s views on the stationary growth economy are linked with his ideas that we should focus our attention to improving the Art of Living and improving the quality of life rather than the quantity of consumer products: It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary state of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. (CW 3: 756) These claims and statements clearly resonate with the spirit of ecofeminists Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva’s (1993) promotion of a life of voluntary simplicity. Mies and Shiva promote an anti-oppression ideal that they conceive of as a life that liberates the consumer and unhooks people from what they call the maldevelopment of Western industrialized and technological society. Maldevelopment is explained in terms of the existence of an inverse relationship between the good life and economic growth. In

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this view, carefully explained by Mies and Shiva and also widely held by environmentalist thinkers and activists, economic growth and quality of life and well-being are in conflict. The standard view that economic growth is needed for well-being is rejected as lacking contact with reality. According to Mies and Shiva, economic growth, increased production, and materialism act as barriers to rather than producers of well-being. On the contrary, they suggest that well-being depends upon reconceiving the good life and unhooking it from consumerism and materialism. We should replace this compulsive and addictive view with one that detaches the good from pursuit of and consumption of material objects. This goes along with a more just distribution of the economic and material basis of a good life, so that no one is deprived of the basic material goods needed for a decent standard of living that meets vital needs. This ideal removes the addictive and compulsive pursuit of materialism and replaces it with an ideal of moderate use of nature to provide for vital human needs. This notably resonates with the sentiments expressed by Mill in his attacks on the materialism of his day. Mill was prescient in his views, since few nineteenth-century thinkers foresaw that the resources of nature were limited and under threat by consumerism.10

3.

MILLIAN ENVIRONMENTALISM AND ECOFEMINISM

Mill is widely regarded as being an early liberal feminist theorist. I want to raise the question of whether he can be viewed as having links to ecofeminism. This leads into my exploration here in which I examine, somewhat tentatively, the question of some ways in which Mill’s environmental theory overlaps with and intersects with contemporary ecological feminism, or a feminist theory of the environment. Any claimed, purported, or alleged link must be limited by the facts of the case—that Mill does not attribute intrinsic value to the environment while he did make it one of the prime campaigns of his life to fight for gender equality and the recognition of the equal dignity and value of women and men. Thus, any linkages between Millian environmentalism and ecological feminism must offer a moderate, middle-way account. I also claim that contemporary ecofeminist thought can illuminate and deepen our understanding of Mill’s theory of oppression, and in particular his theory of human maltreatment of the environment.11 Against the background of his powerful theory of oppression which runs as a clear thread throughout his political philosophy, most saliently through On Liberty, The Subjection of Women and his writings on economic class relations in Representative Government, Principles of Political Economy, and other writings, I believe that I can pull out some threads that tie his views on nature to these other theoretical concerns. Feminist theories of environmental ethics are now multifarious and nuanced, with many proponents. I propose to use Karen Warren’s classic

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statement of the theory, and some of its key points, in exploring the possible links of ecofeminism and Mill’s environmentalism. Firstly, ecofeminists claim that the oppression of women and the oppression of nature are linked (Warren 2012: 589). As Karen Warren explains it, ecological feminism “provides a distinctive framework both for reconceiving feminism and for developing an environmental ethic which takes seriously connections between the domination of women and the domination of nature” (589). The feminist environmental ethic fits into the general theory of feminism, which works to remove “any and all factors that contribute to the continued and systematic domination or subordination of women” (590). One strategy that is invoked to bring this systemic oppression into awareness, so that it can be overcome, involves pointing out similarities in language used to explain the domination of women and the domination of nature. For example, this strategy of raising awareness can take the form of using organic or environmental metaphors and language to explore the nature of patriarchal domination. Mill’s writing contains a striking example in one frequently quoted passage from The Subjection of Women, in which the organic metaphors and analogies are front and center. The backdrop is Mill’s argument that under conditions of patriarchy, we can never have the opportunity to know women’s nature (or indeed men’s nature): “I deny that any one knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another” (CW 21: 276).These relations of patriarchal oppression repress women’s individuality and spontaneity and force them to conform to limited sexist stereotypes. Mill also draws a contrast between the natural and the artificial, and there can be no doubt that Mill sees artificiality in this case as the result of thwarting spontaneity and individuality. In the case of human character, the natural is linked with the features of spontaneity and authenticity. We have already noted Mill’s lament that the spontaneous workings of the natural environment are being suppressed and interfered with for unimportant human desires. Now we see that Mill makes a similar point with regard to women under patriarchy: What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing—the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others . . . no other class of dependents can have had their character so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by their relation with their masters . . . but in the case of women, a hothouse and stove cultivation has always been carried on of some of the capabilities of their nature, for the benefit and pleasure of their masters. Then, because certain products of the general vital force sprout luxuriously and reach a great development in this heated atmosphere and under this active nurture and watering, while other shoots from the same root, which are left outside in the wintry air, with ice purposely heaped all round them, have a stunted growth, and some are burnt off with fire and disappear; men, with that inability to recognize their own work

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Thus, it is not surprising that one of Mill’s powerful examples of patriarchal repression of women is the practice of foot binding, in which women’s feet are “maim[ed] by compression” (CW 18: 271).12 The drive to control the wildness of nature and the “wildness” of women is a sure sign of patriarchal corruption and oppressive impulses. I suggest that these passages reflect an underlying thread connecting the oppression of women and the maltreatment or lack of respect for the free spontaneity of nature. This echoes the feminist tenet of the connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature. In On Liberty he generalizes this point to extend to the lack of liberty and the oppression of all who are coerced to conform to dominant norms of a culture, disregarding their own individual choices and natures. This leads to lack of individuality and ultimately lack of character. He draws a contrast between human nature as “machine” or “automaton” and human nature as organic and living. In extreme cases of this, human “machines” lack character. Those who lack character in this sense are like “steam-engines” (CW 18: 264). “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing” (CW 18: 263). Piers Stephens also notes the frequency of these sorts of images and the “pervasive use of metaphor and analogy . . . in which the natural tendencies of growth are opposed to the mechanical, the stifling, the artificial” (2013: 11). Further developing this line of thought, in On Liberty Mill castigates Calvinist “pinched and hidebound” models of humanity. Those who hold this model are disparaged and compared to those who “have thought that trees are a much finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut into figures of animals, than as nature made them” (CW 18: 265). The larger issue here turns to the common environmentalist claim that respect for the environment necessitates reducing human interference with untouched wild nature. Contemporary environmentalists would sympathize with Mill’s voiced lament that humans ought to leave wild nature alone, when important interests are not affected. In contemporary environmental discourse, policy proposals frequently turn on support for natural wilderness areas protected from human intervention or even human contact. This protection of wilderness domains is seen as a key strategy and policy for preventing environmental destruction.13 Since Mill was an early supporter of protecting wilderness areas from unnecessary encroachment of industrialization, an interesting comparison can be drawn between Mill’s high estimation of the feature of spontaneity as

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valuable in both human character and in nature. There are parallels between Mill’s attitudes of praise for spontaneity as a highly prized feature of human character and his appreciation of untouched wild nature. And in both cases, support for spontaneity and noninterference is part and parcel of an anti-oppressive, anti-arrogance stance. He promotes this set of attitudes that resists and exposes the depraving and corrupting attitudes of the oppressor who seeks to overpower and control others. The patriarchal oppressive stance seeks to control and conquer “wildness,” which it fears rather than loves. In The Subjection of Women Mill’s strong rhetoric underscores a pristinely clear argument—that the root of men’s drive to oppress women is the vice of the tyrant who needs to control, conquer, and dominate. Indeed, it could be argued that this is the core argument of this essay. A second key ecofeminist claim is that patriarchy is the root or fundamental cause of all oppressions. The two oppressions specified here are the oppression of women and the oppression of nature, but there are many others that could be assessed using this framework. Thus taking on patriarchy means taking on a commitment to resist all kinds of oppression. Karen Warren says that feminism is “a movement to end all forms of oppression” (2014: 183). While Mill does not go quite so far as to claim that patriarchy is the root cause of all oppressions, he does go as far as to say explicitly in The Subjection of Women that the oppression of women is the most enduring and entrenched form of oppression. It is a kind of slavery that endures after other forms have been eradicated. Note that Mill does not merely say that patriarchal marriage is like slavery, but he actually says that such marriage is a form of slavery. Patriarchal marital relationships quite literally enslave women. Mill states that marriage of his day “is the primitive state of slavery lasting on, through successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same causes which have softened the general manners, and brought all human relations more under the control of justice and the influence of humanity. It has not lost the taint of its brutal origin” (CW 21: 264). Although other forms of systems of “right founded on might” have been overcome, this systemic patriarchal oppression holds the dubious distinction of being “the very last to disappear” (CW 21: 265). Mill views the desire to oppress as corrupting and depraving, leading to his often quoted comment that the love of liberty and the love of power are in conflict. “The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism . . . The desire of power over others can only cease to be a depraving agency among mankind, when each of them individually is able to do without it” (CW 21: 338). Mill’s theory rejects one frequently held conception of liberty within liberalism. He rejects the view often promoted by other liberals that the liberty of self-interested agents calls for them to acquire power over others in order to enjoy, maintain and consolidate their own liberty. According to Mill, the correct view of liberty is precisely the opposite. In order for people to be lovers of liberty, they must decisively repudiate the temptation to dominate or oppress others. Freeing women from patriarchy

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would constitute nothing less than substituting a life of rational freedom for a life of subjection to the will of the other. Such rational freedom is one of the most vital human interests, and is at the heart of Mill’s concept of human well-being and happiness (CW 21: 336). The mirror side of this is, of course, the positive ideal sought and the hope of loving relationships when oppression and domination are overcome. Mill’s ideal of non-patriarchal marriage is often construed on the model of friendship between equals. This harmoniously links into some values of ecological feminism, which incorporates within it the feminist care ethic, in which relationships and care are given a prominent place. Karen Warren explains that “ecofeminism makes a central place for values of care, love, friendship, trust” (2010: 599). The ecofeminist commitment to the emotional virtues of love and friendship is conjoined with an equal commitment to resist oppression and the compulsion to control and dominate. Mill more than agrees. Mill is often read as holding that his ideal of marriage is an ideal of friendship.14 The family need not be a school for tyranny and vice but “the family in its best forms is . . . a school of sympathy, tenderness, and love” (CW 21: 288). As we know from his discussion on aesthetic education, Mill often looks to encounters with the natural world engender the aesthetic virtues of love, selflessness, compassion, sympathy, and emotional depth, and these are also the very virtues in which Mill hopes that a family can school its members. His high estimation of the value of untouched nature leads directly to his lamentation about excessive human interference with nature and the corruptions of human greed and materialism as spurs to this. The elevating effects of immersion in natural beauty develop the aesthetic virtues that are the basis of loving and caring human connections. Thus, to interfere with and destroy the natural beauty that cultivated these elevating emotions is doubly harmful. The thematic links with ecofeminism are palpable. Ecofeminism features an endorsement of the ethic of care as the mirror side of a rejection of despotism and the vices of oppression. Correspondingly, attitudes of caring are advocated for dispelling attitudes of domination that prop up oppressive social structures. There is key contrast between two types of attitudes and conduct—“an imposed conqueror-type relationship, and an emergent caringtype relationship” (Warren 2010: 595). Ecofeminists draw a line between the loving eye and the arrogant eye. The attitudes of care, of relation and connectedness, and of love dispel and dissipate the compulsive need to have power over and dominate the other. The oppressive stance of the dominator or conqueror is sharply distinguished from the loving, caring stance of the feminist ethic. Now, of course, the core of Mill’s argument in The Subjection of Women is a sustained assault on the patriarchal attitudes of arrogance and coercion in which men resist acknowledging women’s individuality and value and equality in their own right. The rejection of arrogance and the endorsement of love and friendship underlie the entire argument of the The

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Subjection of Women and are salient in Mill’s lament about human mistreatment of nature. Mill’s theory of oppression runs as a clear line, and focuses on the evils of the love of power over others as corrupting, depraving vices. He says that humans sometimes have “bad instincts which it should be the aim of education not simply to regulate but to extirpate.” In this class he includes “the instinct of domination; a delight in exercising despotism, in holding other beings in subjection to our will” (CW 10: 398). Mill’s theory of oppression is thus in strong accord with feminist rejection of oppression of women and nature. His strong appreciation of the value of the emotions and of the virtues of love, sympathy, and friendship is also consonant with the feminist care ethic. And these positive emotional virtues are at the core of the capacities that in Mill’s view are essential for the most valuable forms of happiness and well-being.

5.

OBJECTIONS AND LIMITS

I have argued that Mill’s theory of oppression, coupled with his lamentation over human destructiveness of the natural environment, offer the basis of a thematic link between his early environmentalism and contemporary ecofeminism. Now I consider some objections to these proposed linkages and intersections. The first and most obvious objection springs from Mill’s well known argument in the essay “Nature,” which seems to go against the grain of Mill’s lamentation and his enlightened attack on materialism. The arguments in this essay certainly seem at first glance to act as a counterforce to Mill’s ideas, expressed in other writings, that human overuse of nature is undesirable. In the end, the essay brings home to us some limitations of Mill’s environmentalism, which must be placed in the category of enlightened anthropocentrism. However, it should in fairness be noted that in the essay “Nature” Mill’s primary object is to critique the natural law claims that we ought to look to nature as setting out moral standards, and that there is a form of intelligent design in nature that humans ought to discover and follow. His opponents are theological, not environmental. In the course of this argument, Mill states vehemently that the promotion of human wellbeing often calls for us to change and control nature, rather than follow its ways. He says that humans should act “not by imitating but by perpetually striving to amend the course of nature,” in order to promote “justice and goodness” (CW 10: 402). Piers Stephens also notes that critics of this essay have overlooked the context and purpose of this piece and have thus ignored Mill’s avowed wider perspective. In the course of this, Stephens emphasizes that this essay does not undercut Mill’s support of ideals of virtuous character such as the harmony of reason and emotion and the celebration of “natural vitality and energy” (2014:183). In the course of this, Stephens emphasizes that this essay does not undercut Mill’s support of “Romantic

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claims about nature’s inspirational qualities” (2013: 9) as well as Millian ideals of virtuous character such as the harmony of reason and emotion and the celebration of “natural vitality and energy” (2013: 10). In sum, while the arguments in the essay “Nature” pull away from the links to ecofeminism in some respects, we should not overestimate the tensions. For ecofeminism locates the source of all oppressions, of women, of nature and others, in relations of oppression which are internal to human society. On this point ecofeminists agree with social ecologists like Murray Bookchin, who lambastes environmental deep ecology for having “no real sense that our ecological problems have their roots in society and in social problems” (2012: 166–167). Social ecology and ecofeminism agree that important human interests and needs for food, clothing, and shelter must be met, and that these needs require use and consumption of the resources of nature. Materialism and consumerism, the target of the critiques, go far beyond using nature to meet such vital interests. That is why Mill expresses disdain for so-called “economic progress” which is just “the mere increase of production and accumulation” (CW 3: 754–755). And that is why he proclaims that “I know not why it should be matter of congratulation that persons who are already richer than anyone needs to be, should have doubled their means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as representative of wealth” (CW 3: 755). He here expresses solidarity with ecofeminists such as Mies and Shiva, who diagnose as maldevelopment the economic development that destroys nature and human quality of life to meet extravagant demands of the rich who already consume too much. Mill’s well-known comments on the stationary state, as we have seen, reveal the extent of his progressive stance on the problem of maldevelopment. His classic and often quoted comments may yet be a guidepost for our times. Mill would surely agree with this ecofeminist assessment, were he alive today to witness what he could only glimpse—massive environmental destruction as the long-term consequence of greed, materialism, and continual economic growth. He would draw a clear line between using environmental resources to meet vital interests and allowing environmental destruction to feed human greed and extravagance. Human forms of domination that originate within human social and political structures are the source of both environmental destruction and exploitation of vulnerable groups of humans. This leads into another line of objection that serves to reveal some limits to Mill’s enlightened anthropocentrist environmental ethic in relation to ecofeminism. Ecofeminism is built on a rejection of dualisms and hierarchies between humans and nature. Yet Mill does not always reject dualisms and hierarchies in this context. For example, his very-well-known comment in Utilitarianism that it “is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied” indicates a pretty clear hierarchy, placing the value of humans as higher than that of animals (CW 10: 210). This higher estimation of the value of humans over other animals and nature is also part and parcel of his

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enlightened anthropocentrism. But it should be noted that Karen Warren’s classic statement of ecofeminism does not reject dualisms and hierarchies as systems of classification or as means of giving basic information which is necessary in “daily living” (2012: 591). She claims that the “problem is not simply that value-hierarchical thinking and value dualisms are used, but the way in which each one has been used in oppressive conceptual frameworks” (2012: 591). The key problem with the oppressive conceptual framework is just that the logic of domination attempts to justify the domination of women, nature, or animals. Then the question becomes whether Mill’s acceptance of the use of nature, including animals, in order to satisfy vital human needs amounts to domination or oppression. The bite of this objection, I believe, is limited by Mill’s lament at the squandering of nature for wasteful purposes. Yet the hierarchies built into his theory, just like his rejection of the intrinsic value of nature, serve to set some limits to direct comparisons between his environmentalism and the more radical environmental theories of our day.15 These points of similarity and overlap between Mill’s environmentalism and ecofeminism, as well as their limitations, are telling and suggestive. They illuminate our understanding of how Mill’s early environmentalism anticipates the commitments of present-day radical environmental theories. They point the way to interesting lines of inquiry that could deepen the understanding of Mill’s environmental and anti-growth commitments and link them to certain contemporary environmental activist movements. Mill’s environmentalism, like the rest of his philosophical and moral corpus, is designed to offer a framework for promoting the utility or well-being, which is the foundation of the utilitarian Art of Life.16

NOTES 1. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill will be referred to as CW followed by the volume number and the page number. 2. See Mies and Shiva (1993) and especially Mies (1993: 55–69) and Shiva (1993: 70–90). 3. Most recently in Donner and Fumerton (2009: 15–32). 4. I have explored this question in some depth elsewhere. See Donner and Fumerton (2009: 132–135, especially 132–135). Also see Donner and Green (1995: 6–17). 5. For a fuller treatment of aesthetic education, see Donner (2010b: 149–157). 6. For example in On Liberty (CW 18: 263–271) and The Subjection of Women (CW 21: 269–278). 7. Arne Naess contrasts the narrow, egoistic shallow ecology self with the wider, more enlightened deep ecology Self in his discussion of Self-realization. See Naess (2012a: 133–142). 8. See Donner and Fumerton (2009: 128–132). 9. For a fuller description of these questions, see Winch (2010: 57–66). 10. For a fuller treatment, see Mies and Shiva (1993, in particular 55–90 and 251–263).

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11. 12. 13. 14.

I thank Victoria Davion for suggesting this point. See also the discussion in Piers Stephens (2014: 183–185). For example, see Bill Devall and George Sessions (2012: 143–148). Many feminist philosophers, such as Maria Morales and Mary Lyndon Shanley, have examined Mill’s positive proposals for marriage and family life using this model. See, for example, Shanley (2005: 114–134) and Morales (1996). 15. I thank Victoria Davion for posing this objection. 16. I presented earlier versions of this chapter at the ISUS-XI Conference in Lucca, Italy, June 25, 2011, and at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, December 2, 2011. I would like to thank the members of the audiences for their questions and comments. In particular, I would like to thank Victoria Davion, Piers Stephens, and Ed Halper.

WORKS CITED Bookchin, Murray. “Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology.” Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Eds. Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman. 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson, 2012. 165–176. Callicott, J. Baird. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1989. Devall, Bill and George Sessions. “Deep Ecology.” Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Eds. Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman. 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson, 2012. 143–148. Donner, Wendy. “John Stuart Mill and Virtue Ethics.” John Stuart Mill: Thought and Influence—The Saint of Rationalism. Eds. Georgios Varouxakis and Paul Kelly. London: Routledge, 2010a. 84–98. ———. “Morality, Virtue and Aesthetics in Mill’s Art of Life.” John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life. Eds. Ben Eggleston, Dale E. Miller and David Weinstein. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010b. 146–165. Donner, Wendy and Richard Fumerton. Mill. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Donner, Wendy and Michele Green. “John Stuart Mill e L’ambiente [John Stuart Mill and the Environment].” Prometeo 13.50 (Guigno 1995): 6–17. Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. Halifax, Canada: Fernwood, 1993. Mill, John Stuart. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Ed. John M. Robson. 33 vols. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1963–1991. Morales, Maria. Perfect Equality: John Stuart Mill on Well-Constituted Communities. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. Naess, Arne. “Ecosophy T: Deep versus Shallow Ecology.” Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Eds. Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman. 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2012a. 133–142. ———. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecological Movement.” Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Eds. Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman. 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson, 2012b.129–133. Shanley, Mary Lyndon. “Marital Slavery and Friendship: John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women.” Mill’s The Subjection of Women. Ed. Maria Morales. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 114–134. Stephens, Piers H.G. “Plural Pluralisms: Towards a More Liberal Green Political Theory.” Contemporary Political Studies. Vol. 1. Eds. I. Hampshire-Monk and J. Stanyer. Proceedings of the Political Studies Association of the UK. Belfast: Political Studies Assocation, 1996. 369–380.

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Warren, Karen J. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Eds. Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman. 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson, 2012. 589–601. Winch, Donald. “Wild Natural Beauty and the Religion of Humanity.” John Stuart Mill: Thought and Influence—The Saint of Rationalism. Ed. Georgios Varouxakis and Paul Kelly. London: Routledge 2010. 57–66.

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Index

Adam, David 173 Alrøe, Hugo 68 Anderson, Elizabeth 18, 19, 31 animals, non-human 2, 6–8, 10, 26–7, 31, 39–40, 42–4, 46–9, 62, 86, 93, 95–6, 98–9, 101, 123, 125, 147; flamingoes 17; giant pandas 20, 58, 69; polar bears 17–18, 20, 26, 29–30, 47; sea turtles 17; wolverines 17 Annas, Julia 12 Anscombe, G.E.M. 112–13 anthropocentrism 2, 7–8, 11, 38–9, 43, 46, 48–9, 51, 66, 86, 89, 185 anti-Moorean puzzle 54, 56–9, 65 Apelles of Kos 112 Aristotle 51, 64, 89, 111, 114 Arneson, Richard 6 Arrhenius, Gustav 134 Art of Life (in the work of John Stuart Mill) 11–12, 70–4, 87, 174–6, 187 Attfield, Robin 9, 35–53, 68, 75, 89, 109 axiological valence 54, 58, 63, 67 Barry, Brian 138–9 Baumgartner, Stefan 145 Bennett, Jonathan 107 Bentham, Jeremy 6, 111 Bernstein, Lenny 171 biodiversity 17–18, 26, 30, 31, 36, 43–4, 48, 116–17 Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von 89 Bookchin, Murray 185 Bradley, Ben 4, 9, 18, 92–106, 107, 149 Brandt, Richard 6 Brink, David 6, 12 British National Trust 178

British Petroleum 147, 154, 156–7, 162, 165 Broome, John 4, 132 Brown, Campbell 12 Buddhism 176–7 Bykvist, Krister 7, 11, 122–35 Callicott, J. Baird 55, 61, 96–7, 176 carbon offsets 11, 164–73 Card, Robert 31 Carter, Alan 9, 35–53, 68, 70–91 Cartesian dualism 62 Chang, Ruth 87, 119 climate change 1, 5, 11, 17–18, 28, 29–30, 31, 92, 100, 115–16, 123, 164–5, 171 Commons Preservation Society 178 consequentialism: act 3–4, 56–9, 64–8, 70, 98–9, 108, 109, 164–73; actual act 5–6; and holism 60–1; and its special relationship to environmental ethics 7–12, 117–18, 122; as a decision procedure 111–14, 119; as a theory of rationality 11, 83, 96, 119, 122, 128–30, 133–4; biocentric 35–52; dance 54; direct vs indirect 82–3; expected act 5–6; hedonistic 51, 176; indirect, multidimensional 70–89; reflective 108–19; rule 3–4, 82–4, 108; satisficing 31, 108, 110, 169; system 54–5, 59, 61, 63–8; total view 41; traditional 123–9, 134; value vacillator 125–6; vs. Kantianism 18–29, 31–2, 107; virtue 13 Cooper, David E. 52

192

Index

coral 17, 29–30 cost-benefit analysis 108, 164–73 Cottingham, John 120 Cowen, Tyler 103 Crisp, Roger 4 Dancy, Jonathan 59, 68 Davion, Victoria 188 Davison, Scott 102 Darwall, Stephen 22 Darwin, Charles 62 Deep Ecology 2, 66, 176, 186, 187 Deepwater Horizon disaster 147, 154, 157, 162 degrees of rightness and wrongness 130–1, 133–4 deontology 21, 58, 62, 68, 82, 150 Devall, Bill 188 Devine-Wright, Patrick 32 Dobson, Andrew 145 Donner, Wendy 7, 11–12, 174–90 Doritos 168 Dorsey, Dale 6 Dreier, James 12 Driver, Julia 6, 11, 12, 38, 164–73 ecocentrism 39–40, 49, 89 ecofeminism 11–12, 174–88 ecosystem 2, 7, 8–9, 17, 20, 30, 36–7, 39, 41–3, 45, 47–50, 61, 64, 75, 86, 92–6, 100–1, 118, 123, 166, 171 Elliot, Robert 12, 92, 93, 150 endangered species 47 environmental degradation 148–52, 162 environmental fascism 66, 68 environmental sustainability 43, 48–9, 136–7, 165 Ereshefsky, Marc 95–6 Every Generation Argument 47–9 factory farming 1, 5, 27, 64; Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) 64 Fawcett, Henry 178 Feinberg, Joel 149, 153 Feldman, Fred 12 Figge, Frank 145 Fink, Charles 102 Foot, Philipa 173 Forst, Rainer 148, 158 Frankfurt, Harry 88 Frey, R.G. 6

Fuller, Steve 119 Fumerton, Richard 175, 186 future generations 6, 11, 38, 40, 48, 136–46, 178–9 Gardiner, Stephen 100, 115 Garvey, James 5 Gifford, Robert 33 Gill, Michael 12 Goodpaster, Kenneth 36 Gray, John 71–4, 87 Green, Michelle 175 Greene, Joshua 25–6 Griffin, James 12 Grote, George 87 Grundy, William 148 Habermas, Jürgen 148, 158 Habib, Allen 11, 136–46 Hagerty, Curry L. 147 Haidt, Jonathan 25 Hale, Benjamin 11, 147–63 Halper, Ed 188 Hanser, David 149 Hare, Richard 88 harmless wrongs 148–9, 152–8, 161 Harms View 149, 151 Harsanyi, John 6 Hartwick, John 137–9 hedonism 50–1, 176 Herman, Barbara 88 Hettinger, Ned 92, 93, 95 Hill, Jr.,Thomas 2 Hiller, Avram 1–14, 54–69, 102 Hobbesian materialism 62 Hodges, Emily 12 Holland, Alan 10, 11, 107–21 Hooker, Brad 4, 7, 67 Howley, William, Archbishop of Canterbury 179 Hume, David 12, 68 Hurka, Thomas 3 Ilea, Ramona 12, 68 impartialism 124, 126, 130, 132 impartiality 38, 129–30 industrial farming see factory farming industrialization 177–8, 182 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 30, 31, 33, 123 Jacobson, Daniel 7 Jamieson, Dale 5, 12

Index Johnson, Conrad D. 119 justice, intergenerational environmental 136–46 Kagan, Shelly 3, 67, 115, 120 Kahn, Leonard 1–14 Kamm, Francis 170, 173 Kant, Immanuel 19, 31, 32 Kantianism 2, 9, 18–29, 31–2, 85, 88, 107 Katz, Eric 93, 95 Kinsley, Michael 168 Korsgaard, Christine 19, 21–4, 31, 32, 67 Kristensen, Erik Steen 68 land ethic 2, 61, 68, 170–1 Lemos, Noah 31 Lemos, Ramon 31 Lenman, James 119 Leopold, Aldo 2, 8, 55, 61 liberalism 108; green 174–89; justificatory 11, 148–9, 161 Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper 170 Lockhardt, Ted 134 Lumpkin, Susan 58 McMahan, Jeff 102 McShane, Katie 9, 17–34, 63 Magna Carta 171 Marx, Karl 89 Mason, Elinor 38 Mathews, Freya 61, 67, 68 Mazar, Nina 173 Menzies, Peter 134 Mies, Maria 175, 179–80, 186 Minimax Implication 41–4, 52 Mill, J.S. 6, 11–12, 70–5, 87, 118, 174–90 Moore, G.E. 6, 55, 59, 67, 68 moral book-keeping 164–73 moral inertia 9, 92–3, 97; negative difference (MIND) 98–102; nonintervention (MINI) 99–102 moral fetishism 130–1, 134 moral uncertainty 10, 11, 27, 94, 122–35 Morales, Maria 188 Mount Everest 169 Mulgan, Tim 12 Naess, Arne 2, 61, 66, 68, 175, 176, 187 Nagel, Thomas 21

193

Nefsky, Julia 120 New York City, New York 165, 169, 173 non-identity problem 10, 40 Norcross, Alastair 68 Norton, Bryan 52 Nozick, Robert 12, 64 Oatley, Keith 119 Oddie, Graham 134 offsets, consumer 170 O’Neill, John 107 O’Neill, Onora Sylvia, Baroness of Bengarve 32, 52 organic unities 59 “ought” implies “can” 126 Palmer, Clare 33 Parfit, Derek 4, 7, 10, 18, 21, 31, 40–1, 67, 84, 87 particularism 59 patriarchy 181–4 Peeping Tom 154–5, 159, 160 Perrow, Charles 157 Pettit, Philip 6, 31, 68, 112 Pezzey, John 145 Pinchot, Gifford 8 Portmore, Douglas 12 prioritarianism 6, 85 promises 22–4, 37, 58, 63–4, 67, 109, 131, 138, 145, 168 Qantas Airlines 165 Quass, Martin 145 Railton, Peter 6, 21, 38, 88, 109, 110, 117, 119 Ramseur, Jonathan L. 147 Rawls, John 68 Raz, Joseph 12 reasons: agent-relative and agentneutral 21–3, 166; contingent extrinsic 92; instrumental 97; justifying 157–61; noncontingent intrinsic 101; non-consequentialist 102; nonderivative 36, 63; overriding 92; philosophically boring 92, 102 Regan, Donald 87 Regan, Tom 2, 31, 32, 68, 88 Remainder Argument 151–2, 158, 161 Repugnant Conclusion 40–1, 42, 67, 68, 87, 88

194

Index

Richter, Andy 168 Rogers, Jason 108 Rolston III, Holmes 55, 61, 63, 95–6, 102 Romanticism 177, 185–6 Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni 31 Ross, Jacob 134 Ross, Sir David 63 Routley (Sylvan), Richard 1–3 Ruskin, John 176 Ryan, Alan 71, 87 Sandler, Ronald 2 Sartorio, Carolina 92, 96–8, 102 Scanlon, T.M. 4, 31, 32, 148, 158 Scannell, Leila 33 Scheffler, Samuel 21, 84, 110 Schopenhauer, Arthur 118 Schroeder, Mark 31 Schweitzer, Albert 68 Seidensticker, John 58 Sen, Amartya 3 Sepielli, Andrew 134 Sessions, George 188 Sextus Empiricus 112 Shanley, Mary Lyndon 188 Shaw, William 3 Shiffrin, Seana Valentine 149 Shiva, Vandana 175, 179–80, 186 Shrader-Frechette, Kristin 102 Sidgwick, Henry 87 Siipi, Helena 119 Simon, Robert 62, 67 Singer, Peter 2, 6, 8 Slote, Michael 31, 88, 108 Smart, J.J.C. 6 Smith, Kevin 165 Smith, Michael 134 social ecology 186–7 speciesism 124–6, 130, 132 Stephens, Piers 175, 185–6, 188 Sverdlik, Steven 4 Sydney, Australia 169, 171, 173 Taylor, Paul 2, 35–6 teleology 4–5, 38, 63, 71 Thompson, Janna 52

Thomson, Judith Jarvis 149, 153 Throop, William 92, 93, 95 Timmons, Mark 88 Toman, Michael A. 145 trees 8, 28, 29, 63, 64, 93, 94, 99, 102, 152, 167, 169, 171–2, 178; giant sequoias 17, 29; mangroves 17 trespass view 150–2 trolley problem 167, 173 utilitarianism see consequentialism U.S. Constitution 171 Vallentyne, Peter 7 value: as what-is-to-be-promoted 18– 19, 23–4, 26, 31, 166, 175–6; contributory 76, 80, 82–6, 88, 89; instrumental 9, 20, 36, 54, 96–7, 107, 140–1, 145, 168, 170, 172; intrinsic 5–9, 18–20, 31, 35–52, 55–66, 67, 68, 73, 92–7, 100–1, 109, 118, 125–31, 149, 151, 168, 170–2, 176, 180, 187; overall 51, 76–86, 89, 122 Verbeek, Bruno 119 Vickery, Jim Dale 33 virtue ethics 2, 86, 150 Voegele, Erin 165 Ward, Arthur 68 Warnock, Mary 111 Warren, Karen 181, 184, 187 welfarism 6–8, 12, 19, 23–4, 91, 99–102, 125 White, Nicholas 12 Williams, Bernard 4, 38, 67, 88, 109, 118 Wilson, Edward O. 45, 68, 117–18 Winch, Donald 176, 178–9 window resources 11, 139, 141–5 Wood, Paul 116 Wordsworth, William 176 zero growth 116 Zhong, Chen-Bo 173 Zimmerman, Michael 31, 125–8, 132 zoocentrism 49–50, 86, 89 zoos 94