2. Callicott announces on p. 60 the topic of his
essay: “In this essay, I outline the
philosophical foundations and pedigree of the land ethic and indicate how it might be
related to more familiar Modern moral concerns and how it might be applied to those
contemporary environmental concerns that Leopold himself could not have considered. In
particular, I address the most serious and disturbing theoretical and practical challenge
to the land ethic raised by professional philosophers—the problem of ecofascism.”
3. What are the roots of
Leopold’s Land Ethic in Darwin and through Darwin in Hume and Adam Smith
according to Callicott? (60-62)? What account
do Darwin, Hume, and Smith give of the origin of ethics? (60-62) Parse the conclusion to
the section entitled “Evolutionary Origin of Ethics”:
By
themselves, the social impulses and sentiments are not ethics. An ethics is a set of
behavioral rules, or a set of principles or precepts for governing behavior. The moral
sentiments are, rather, the foundations of ethics, as David Hume and Adam Smith argued a
century or so before Darwin considered the matter. In addition to the social sentiments
and instincts, Homo sapiens evolved a high degree of intelligence and imagination and
uniquely possesses a symbolic language. Hence, we human beings are capable of generally
representing those kinds of behavior that are destructive of society ("murder,
robbery, treachery, &c.") and articulating prohibitions of them in emotionally
colored formulae—commandments—which today we call moral rules. (62)
4. In the next section, “The
Alternative Modernist Account of the Origin of Ethics”, Callicott offers an account
of modern ethics arising first out of social contract theory, followed by utilitarianism
and deontology. Given your understanding
of the history of modern philosophy (hopefully from Phil 321!), is this a fairly accurate
account? Why does Callicott hold that utilitarianism and deontology “generalize”
egoism? Is this a fair assertion? Why does
Callicott say that social contract theory, utilitarianism, and deontology were not useful
to Darwin?
5. The next section is “The
Development of Ethics Correlative to the Development of Society.”
Here Callicott
argues that Darwin and Hume correlate the development of society with the development of
ethics arguing that each level of social development leads to the extension of ethics. What does this mean and how does it relate to the
opening of Leopold’s essay “The Land Ethic”?
Does such a correlation seem persuasive? Why
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6. “The
Land Ethic as the Next Step in the Darwinian Society-Ethics Pas De Deux.” Callicott argues that Leopold took Darwin’s
ideas and married them with the ecological views of Elton:
Leopold
(1949, 203) summarizes Darwin's natural history of ethics with characteristic compression:
"All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a
member of a community of interdependent parts." Then he adds an ecological element,
the community model of the biota espoused most notably by Charles Elton (1927): Ecology
"simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants,
and animals, or collectively: the land" (Leopold 1949, 204). When we all learn to
"see land as a community to which we belong," not as "a commodity belonging
to us" (Leopold 1949, viii), that same ''simplest reason," of which Darwin
speaks, might kick in. And, when it does, what results will be a land ethic that
"changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land community to
plain member and citizen of it" (Leopold 1949, 204). [Callicott 66]
Callicott also
argues Leopold incorporated the ideas of Hume and Smith on the moral sentiments via
Darwin. Is this too big of a leap?
7. “The
Holism of the Land Ethic and its Antecedents” (67-70) is the next section. Why is the
Land Ethic “foreign” to modernism but at home with Darwin, Hume, and Smith
according to Callicott (67)? He also responds
to an objection that concern for community does not come from Hume. What is his response?
From your reading of Hume, do you agree? (for a summary ofHume’s moral
position see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/ ) Note Callicott claims that the Land Ethic cares both
about individual members and the community as a whole, but that the concern for the whole
“eventually eclipses” the concern for the individual in “The Land Ethic”
(68). What are two reasons, according to
Callicott, that the individual members drop out? (68-69)
8. Callicott
goes on to present the stark kind of attack on holism that Regan might make:
Whether
by the end of the essay he forgets it or not, Leopold does say in "The Land
Ethic" that "fellow-members" of the ''land community" deserve
"respect." How can we pretend to respect them if, in the interest of the
integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community, we chop some down, gun others
down, set fire to still others, and so on. (68)
What is Callicott’s
explanation? How does the nature of the biotic community with its cycles of energy play
into his explanation? (68-70)
9. “The
Problem of Ecofascism” is the next section. (70- 72)
How does Callicott describe the content of the charge of ecofascism? (70-71) Does he accurately represent Regan’s views? Why does Callicott hold that the land ethic does
not imply what the critics charge? (71-72) What
is meant by “accretion”? How can he
avoid the implication that the biotic community embraces all the other communities to
which someone might belong?
10. “Prioritizing the Duties Generated by
Membership in Multiple Communities” is the next section (72- ) Callicott
has to explain how we can adjudicate between conflicting duties arising out of membership
in diverse communities. He also wants to argue
that the land ethic involves only a limited pluralism.
How does he define a “limited” versus a “thorough-going”
pluralism?
What is wrong with thorough-going pluralism in his view? What second order principles (SOP) does Callicott
think one can derive from the communal nature of the land ethic? How can these help us to priority rank first order
principles? Does his analysis of Sartre’s
description of his pupil’s dilemma convince you that Callicott’s system can
satisfactorily resolve the conflict between duties to individuals and duties to
communities?
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11. In the next section, “The
Priority Principles Applied to The Old-Growth Forest Quandary,” Callicott presents a case from Varner:
Suppose that an environmentalist enamored with the Leopold land
ethic is considering how to vote on a national referendum to preserve the spotted owl by
restricting logging in Northwest forests…. He or she would be required to vote, not
according to the land ethic, but according to whatever ethic governs closer ties to a
human family and/or larger human community. Therefore, if a relative is one of 10,000
loggers who will lose jobs if the referendum passes, the environmentalist is obligated to
vote against it. Even if none of the loggers is a family member, the voter is still
obligated to vote against the referendum.
(Varner
176 in Callicott, 74). |
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