New Perspectives the Anglophone World J. Baird Callicott, Science, and the Unstable Foundation of Environmental Ethics

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J. Baird Callicott, Science, and the Unstable Foundation of Environmental Ethics
Jean-Daniel Collomb 1 Since its emergence in the 1970s, US environmental ethics has always been closely linked to ecological science. To be more specific, the former tends to draw heavily on the latter. This close association with ecological science makes environmental ethics a groundbreaking and highly stimulating field of inquiry. However it also makes the foundation for environmental ethics more precarious than most of its practitioners would wish it to be. On the one hand, environmental philosophers endeavor to convey a clear moral message and to provide readers with strong ethical guidelines, while on the other environmental ethics is, to a large extent, predicated on scientific knowledge which, in essence, is subject to and driven by change and innovation in the form of new findings. The upshot is that the edifice of environmental ethics rests on precarious grounds, on a shifting foundation that can radically undermine the moral prescriptions issued by environmental philosophers. The purpose of this article is to examine how environmental philosophers come to grips with this tension by taking J. Baird Callicott as a case-study.  (1999) and, more recently, Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic (2013). He remains a major figure, both admired and criticized for his work in US environmental circles, especially for the central role he has performed in the questioning of the notion of wilderness. One of his most significant contributions remains his steadfast commitment to, and interpretation of, Aldo Leopold's land ethic (1966). 3 Change and mutability are central to Leopold's thinking, and thus to Callicott's. Both try to convince their contemporaries that the mutability of ecosystems should be taken into consideration when it comes to defining norms of human behavior. In order for them to act morally, communities need to acknowledge their membership of larger "land communities", characterized by Darwinian change and constant adaptation. Callicott argues that a radical paradigm shift away from modernity and toward a reconstructive postmodern philosophy, informed by Darwinism, ecology and quantum theory, is a necessity, if the land ethic is to bring about significant change and become conventional wisdom. Ironically, however, Callicott's emphasis on change and mutability may also contain the seeds of the destruction of the ethic thus propounded, as exemplified by the impact of disturbance ecology on the land ethic and Callicott's defense of land ethic. Mutability is therefore a concept that is ripe with opportunities and with challenges: both a sine qua non and a threat.
New Developments in the Meaning of Community 4 Leopold's land ethic was expounded in A Sand County Almanac, published posthumously in 1949 (Leopold 1966). Initially employed as a forester in the tradition of Gifford Pinchot's utilitarian conservation, Leopold (1887Leopold ( -1948 gradually changed his perspective on the nature of man's relationship with nature and on the meaning of conservation. Ecological science and Darwinism led him to conceive of the land as a community made up of interrelated parts, heavily dependent on one another and which thus form a coherent whole. Accordingly, the land ethic blurs the distinction between mankind and the rest of nature. For Leopold, man is part and parcel of nature, not a radically distinct entity. Leopold echoes Darwin, who had envisioned an extension of ethics in The Descent of Man (59-60). Leopold contends that the scope of ethics has gradually widened as humans have come to regard themselves as members not just of a family but also of a tribe, a region and a nation. In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold takes Darwin's extension of ethics a step further by stating that ethics should now also encompass whole ecosystems: 1 The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land… In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such. (239-40) 5 This extension of ethics led Leopold to a new moral maxim which, he hoped, would lay the groundwork for a more enlightened relationship between human communities and other living beings: "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." (262) J. Baird Callicott has been trying to convey Leopold's ecocentric message to his fellow philosophers and to broader audiences since the 1970s. 6 Callicott endorses the land ethic, thereby eliminating Cartesian dualism which draws a clear line between nature and civilization as well as between the human species and the rest of nature: "I follow Darwin in thinking that human culture is continuous with primate and mammalian proto-culture and that, no matter how hypertrophic it may lately have become, contemporary human civilization remains embedded in nature." (Great New Wilderness 388) For Callicott, it is implicit that to embrace Darwin's teachings about evolution entails the re-examination of the role of the human species in nature. 7 Aldo Leopold was both a professional conservationist and a professor of game management, he was not a philosopher, however. This explains, in part, why Callicott endeavored to elevate the land ethic to the intellectual plane of philosophy. He felt no qualms about conceding the philosophical limitations of the land ethic as expounded in Leopold's work (Beyond Land Ethic 60). In his attempt to bring philosophical credibility to the concept of land ethic, he turned to David Hume and Adam Smith, since both thinkers had claimed that sympathy is the fountainhead of moral sentiments. 8 Callicott refers mainly to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. According to Hume, man is instinctively able to determine whether an action is morally reprehensible or not. His moral sense is therefore shaped by his emotions and instincts, rather than by reason (Hume 297-98). Sympathy and altruism are intrinsically human, rather than social constructs (305), which enables Hume to assert that man is not merely selfish. The pursuit of self-interest, Hume argues, is not sufficient to give a full explanation of the roots of human behavior. Hume is however also quick to point out the limits of human sympathy (384). 9 Callicott draws on Hume's theories in the formulation of his own ecocentric philosophy. 2 In the process, he attempts to demonstrate that Darwinism, Aldo Leopold's land ethic and his own thinking are all indebted to Hume. The influence of Hume's and Adam Smith's theories of moral sentiments is evident in Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871). Several decades later, Callicott claims, Darwin's application of evolution to the human species was to shape Leopold's ethical reflections, which are now the basis of Callicott's philosophy. Callicott's interest in Hume thus informs two crucial trends in his thinking: the primacy of moral sentiments and the superiority of communitarian obligations over individualism (Thinking 9).
(1) we (i.e., all psychologically normal people) are endowed with certain moral sentiments (sympathy, concern for others, and so on) for our fellows, especially for our kin; (2) modern biology treats Homo sapiens (a), as, like all other living species, a product of the process of organic evolution; and hence, (b) people are literally kin (because of common ancestry) to all other contemporary forms of life; (3) therefore, if so enlightened, we should feel and thus behave […] toward other living things in ways similar to the way we feel and thus behave toward our human kin. (125) psychological impossibility. It makes no sense from the perspective of ecology, which places a premium on interconnections and interdependences, hence Callicott's call for a radical transformation in our understanding of community and individuality. 13 Callicott is optimistic about the ability of moral sentiments and communitarian solidarities to evolve and broaden. He even thinks that the history of ethics is on his side: "The moral sentiments are undetermined and open-ended. We can learn to respect things today, such as universal human rights and animal rights, our nationstates, and our biotic communities, of which our remote ancestors knew nothing when the human moral sentiments were evolving." (Ouderkirk 298)In other words, today's community will not necessarily be identical to tomorrow's community. The mutability and the protean character of community as a notion offer opportunities for the proponents of the land ethic.
14 Callicott's broadening of community coincides with a broadening of the human self, which bears a close resemblance to Arne Naess's deep ecological notion of Selfrealization: 4 […] oneself and other persons (which certainly would not exclude other animals) are nodes or nexuses in a skein of relationships -relationships with organisms both internal and external to one's superecosystem. Through one's superecosystem circulate water, various materials (both nutritious and poisonous) and the biogenic air. The material world, both in form of inert matter and living matter […] crosses the fuzzy and penetrable boundaries of the superecosystem that is oneself. Through the pores of one's skin, on the air one breathes into one's lungs, in the water one drinks, and in the food one eats. (Naess 111) 15 Callicott believes that a human being is much more than a body and self-interest. The self can only be understood properly in the larger context of the multiple communities to which it belongs -family, region, nation, party, ideology, biotic community, to name only a few. Such a broad and elastic vision of the self is bound to seem excessive to many modern philosophers, which is not surprising since Callicott's ambition is to precipitate the dawn of a postmodern age which will transcend modern individualism.
The Need for a Shift in Paradigms 16 Callicott's entire philosophical endeavor is predicated on the simple notion that a radical change in worldview is required for his contemporaries to solve the tremendous environmental challenges of the 21 st century. No solution will be found as long as a great paradigm shift, to paraphrase Thomas Kuhn to whom Callicott explicitly refers, does not come to pass (Beyond Land Ethic 302). In fact, Callicott is convinced that the great paradigm shift is already underway and that modernity is doomed to disappear. 17 Callicott regularly proclaimed the end of the modern idea of nature (1992: 16), which originated in the scientific revolution of the 17 th century with Descartes, Newton, and Bacon, among others. This idea of nature is inherently linked to a fundamental dichotomy between man and nature, subject and object, mind and body. Catherine and Raphaël Larrère see this approach as conducive to a radical subjugation of nature by human science and technology, since nature is perceived as "shorn of all mystery and enchantment, and as a created entity that can be disposed of and manipulated." (Larrère 58-9, my translation) Callicott asserts that despite the prestige and appeal of the modern idea of nature, its scientific justification no longer holds much weight. In the second half of the 19 th century and in the early 20 th century, Darwinism, ecological science and the theory of relativity threatened to discredit Cartesian dualism. The tenets of Darwinism invalidated the notion that the human species is in essence radically different from others; ecology insists on the centrality of the interaction and interdependence found in nature, as epitomized by ecosystems. The theory of relativity makes it impossible to posit a sharp and fundamental separation between subjects and objects (Callicott 1989: 165-6). Callicott argues that these scientific developments have fatally undermined modernity: Ecology is not just an arcane sub-discipline of biology. Like the theory of evolution, it is pregnant with vast philosophical implications. Indeed, ecology, along with the theory of evolution and relativity and quantum theory in physics, is propelling a sea change in the Western world view, a paradigm shift […] I would go further still and suggest that ours could be one of those moments in history […] that come but rarely in human cultural development: a moment in history not unlike the Golden Age of Greece when Western art, literature, philosophy, and democracy were born; or Renaissance Europe when Modern Science and technology began to take shape.
(Beyond Land Ethic 287) 19 Thus, the modern worldview, Callicott contends, is a losing proposition which continues to shape human affairs, and which is one of the great paradoxes of our time.
To his mind, the modern worldview is therefore doomed to be replaced and superseded by a new worldview. The relevant question is to determine when it will happen.
20 Unsurprisingly, Callicott's call for a postmodern vision of nature came in for considerable criticism in environmental circles, especially because of his attack on the notion of wilderness as it helps perpetuate the anti-ecological nature/civilization dichotomy. Callicott was accused of condoning the adversaries of environmental protection, by providing them with arguments to the effect that nature is a myth and therefore need not be protected (Callicott 2008: 351-4). Such accusations prompted Callicott to clarify his position: Note that my Darwinian-Leopoldian naturalization of culture is opposite the stance of other postmodern environmental philosophers who culturize […] nature. They argue that nature is culturally (or socially) constructed, whereas I argue that culture is naturally evolved and remains a part of nature. (Ouderkirk 300) 21 Callicott's approach to the origins of ethics allows him to eliminate this dualism, without endangering the justification for ethics: natural evolution has provided the human species with a moral sense, according to Darwin, Leopold, and Callicott. It is therefore possible for the human species to see itself as part of nature and therefore to treat nature morally. 22 Callicott appears almost desperate to dissociate himself from deconstructionism, or French theory. He wants to cast himself as a postmodern philosopher, while insisting that his ethical propositions will not lead to a relativistic dead end: "Absent a comprehensive and culturally shared new myth, we are left with plural points of view, perspectives, multiple outlooks -each of which has an equal class on truth" (Beyond Land Ethic 161), so much so that Callicott faults Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty for spreading a nihilistic message (163). He even bemoans the advent of the "new Dark Ages of deconstructive différance, without even the minimum methodological agreements required for resolving differences of opinion by informed reasoned argument." (165) Callicott's statements regarding Derrida testify more to his desire to avoid being seen as a postmodern enemy of environmental protection than to an in- depth knowledge of Derrida's actual philosophy, which is far from being antithetical to environmental awareness (Clark). Callicott's main concern is to avoid promoting deconstructive theories which, he argues, may turn out merely to be destructive. 23 A dominant paradigm is not only necessary in and of itself. Callicott contends that it is furthermore desirable. He considers his interpretation of postmodernism to be reconstructive, since its function is not to liquidate all worldviews, but rather to help mankind embrace a renewed one, predicated on the lessons of Darwinism, ecology, and the New Physics: "If Western philosophy played a major role in the creation of the prevailing dualistic mechanistic Western worldview, then Western philosophy would seem to have a major role to play in deconstructing it, and in reconstructing a new ecological-organic worldview." (Beyond Land Ethic 39) The fact that postmodernism can be defined in many different ways (Rey 63) makes it easier for Callicott to lay claim to it.
24 Change or mutation brought about by a scientific paradigm shift is factor which creates philosophical opportunities, as demonstrated by Callicott's blueprint for an ecocentric postmodern age, although it also begets what is an unstable state for ethics. The fruits of future scientific research are at best uncertain. The emphasis laid on change and on scientific developments which is at the heart of Callicott's ethic may contain the seeds its very destruction.
The Ecology of Chaos vs the Land Ethic 25 Callicott has repeatedly proclaimed the superiority of the scientific method: "Before any critical experiments are designed, a scientific theory is brought before the tribunal of the logical law of noncontradiction. Scientific narratives are likely to be internally more consistent than other alternatives, and therefore, more tenable." (Callicott 2001: 91) Self-correction is what sets the scientific method inherited from the scientific revolution apart from other epistemological approaches. Furthermore, the scientific method is highly responsive to the evolution of human experience. Callicott's emphasis on the role of science is all the more crucial insofar as "the facts of ecological science yield the oughts of the land ethic." (Ouderkirk 40) This, however, has prompted some of Callicott's detractors to affirm that ecology is too unstable a field to serve as a reliable foundation for ethics (239). The main weakness in Callicott's ethical apparatus undoubtedly lies in the unending capacity of the scientific method to call into question the state of accepted knowledge, as was made evident by the challenge to the land ethic brought about by the advent of disturbance ecology.
We look for cooperation in nature and we find only competition. We look for organized wholes, and we can discover only loose atoms and fragments. We hope for order and discern only a mishmash of conjoining species, all seeking their own advantage in utter disregard of others. (Worster 9) 27 The upshot is that it now makes less ecological sense to define ecosystem health as stability and for the analyst or observer to systematically regard disruption and stochastic change as unwanted and necessarily harmful. To make matters even worse, from the Leopoldian viewpoint, ecosystems whose relevancy can be questioned, have at best ill-defined boundaries, a feature which undermines the case for studying them as self-sufficient and self-regulating entities.
28 S.T.A. Pickett and P.S. White note, in their introduction to The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and Patch Dynamics (1987), the seminal book on disturbance ecology, that "equilibrium landscapes would […] seem to be the exception, rather than the rule." (Pickett and White 5) While by no means downplaying the ability of ecological researchers to understand their natural environment, Pickett and White focus on the need to pay more attention to the central role of natural disturbances: A systematic and comprehensive approach to the study of disturbance is essential, given its primary role and the inherent complexity of disturbance types and impacts. Without such an approach, ecologists will continue to catalog disturbance patterns and biological responses with little hope of comprehension emerging from the chaos. (165) 29 It should come as no surprise that the impact of disturbance ecology extended well beyond the confines of scientific research and has had an effect on environmental ethics as well. The emergence of disturbance ecology brings to the fore several inconvenient questions regarding the land ethic: does it still make sense to refer to a land ethic, when dealing with natural phenomena which are liable to sudden and unpredictable radical change? How can consideration be granted to natural entities whose boundaries resist precise definition? Callicott confronted these questions headon, writing extensively on disturbance ecology (Callicott 2009: 177-93). 30 Callicott integrated disturbance ecology within an updated version of the land ethic. He did so by way of a distinction between two kinds of perturbation, one that is consubstantial to the functioning of ecosystems and, as such, does not clash with biotic integrity, whereas the other, stemming from large-scale technological and industrial development, is unnecessary, destructive and is therefore unethical. Scale is the criterion adopted here, in order to determine whether the changes at work in a given ecosystem are beyond the pale of the land ethic. The instability resulting from technoindustrial development is of such great magnitude that it becomes essentially different from other non-anthropic disturbances: In general, frequent, intense disturbances, such as tornadoes, occur at small, widely distributed spatial scales. And spatially broadcast disturbances, such as droughts, occur less frequently. And most disturbances at whatever level of intensity and scale are stochastic (random) and chaotic (unpredictable). The problem with anthropogenic perturbations -such as industrial forestry and agriculture, exurban development, drift net fishing, and such-is that they are far more frequent, widespread, and regularly occurring than are nonanthropogenic perturbations. Callicott revised and updated Leopold's land ethic in order to make it compliant with disturbance ecology: "A thing is right when it tends to disturb the biotic community only at normal spatial and temporal scales. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." (138) 32 Science remains central both to Callicott's ethical reflections and to the vulnerability of his ethical propositions regarding the unstable and volatile state of scientific knowledge. The land ethic is scientifically driven. It is therefore highly responsive to contemporary developments and is thus able to address new challenges. It may however also be considered to be unreliable and ever-shifting, as a foundation for ethical guidelines. Whether this uncertainty will appeal to Callicott's contemporaries remains a moot point.
Conclusion 33 Callicott has compelling reasons to believe that modernity is about to be displaced. Faced however with the many challenges of climate change, the depletion of natural resources due to unsustainable global economic growth and the ongoing mass extinction of species that is occurring worldwide, the question as to whether modernity will morph into Callicott's ecocentric worldview or move towards the creation of an increasingly artificialized environment is a moot point. Callicott's optimistic view suggests the advent of a global and multicultural convergence toward a nonanthropocentric consensus, informed by the postmodern scientific vision (Callicott 1997: xiv-v). Others, who are as concerned as he is with our current environmental predicament, argue that the pervasive influence of human action on the biosphere may lead mankind to try to control nature even more, if only to address the problems it has created. Yuval Harari (448-51) has recently described the huge potential of biotechnologies for the 21 st century, while geoengineering is sometimes touted as a credible means through which to address climate change. According to this vision, the influence of global industrial civilization on the biosphere is considered to have become so deep and so far-ranging that the only viable option remaining is that of further control through science and technology. By contrast, Callicott's alternative vision amounts to a radical rejection of the continuation of the Cartesian narrative. 1980s along with the gradual replacement of the balance-of-nature paradigm by the nature-influx paradigm. How can ecosystems be considered communities if they are subject to stochastic and catastrophic change? Distinguishing the scale of non-human change and anthropogenic change, Callicott salvages an ethic whose ecological foundations are precarious and unstable. In doing so, he demonstrates that just as adaptation is part of a natural evolution, it is also the key to intellectual and philosophical evolution. Callicott's response to disturbance ecology nevertheless highlights the precarious position of environmental philosophers who predicate their moral prescriptions on scientific knowledge, given that the science of ecology is always evolving.