Abstract
Everyone knows that mankind has to reduce the effects of civilization on nature. But the discussion about ecology is not being held by those in the cold and rational disciplines that assess technology or social mores. The main tone of the discussion is, rather, the moral call: peace with nature, solidarity with creation. This moral pathos has received a cold reception by two very famous, contradictory thinkers, whose theses I want to present briefly before I investigate them with philosophical analysis. The theses in question appear in “Gaia” by J. Lovelock1 and “The Selfish Gene” by R. Dawkins.2
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J. E. Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979 ).
R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976 ).
A predator-prey-chain is more flexible than a scavanger-carrion-chain or organisms that live from anorganic substances. Living beings mutually prepare each others’ living conditions. Gaia is, therefore, the mind of mutual enabling, a sort of “global sage”.
Twenty years ago, Lovelock was a lonesome prophet for climate-conference when environmental ethics still consisted only of a concern for species and landscapes. The discovery of holes in the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect rehabilitated Lovelock’s early warnings.
Cf. Dawkins, op. cit., p. 23 (German translation: Das egoistische Gen).
Cf. also E. O. Wilson, Biologie als Schicksal. Die soziobiologischen Grundlagen des menschlichen Verhaltens ( Frankfurt v.a.: Ullstein, 1980 ), p. 10.
The universe (“All”) has an organic relationship to its parts. It determines (“affirmiert”) each entity in its specific relation to the entirety. Things don’t have a relationship with each other; they exist only as relative things within the absolute universe. An entity possesses selfhood (“Selbstsein”) insofar as it complies with the organism of the “Weltkörper”. It encompasses all realities, including their possibilities (“Potenzen”) and is an infinite substance. So the concept of the Weltkörper has no limitation (from outside) and contains itself. The Weltkörper is the objective appearance of an entity that cannot be thought of as an object alone. Its substance must be a subject. This thought entails the concept of “Weltgeist”, which Schelling also calls God. Cf. F. W. J. Schelling, System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere, §§ 239–257 in: ders., Ausgewählte Schriften, Bd. 3 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), pp. 471–496.
Biology presupposes this definition. As soon as biology tries to explain “life” it must use biochemical reductions, because explanation necessarily means reducing to a less complicated level. Thus, life gets explained by the lifeless.
Jeder Materieabschnitt kann als ein Garten voll von Pflanzen verstanden werden, und als ein Teich voll Fischen. Aber jeder Zweig der Pflanze, jedes Glied des Tieres, jeder Tropfen seiner Säfte ist ein solcher Garten oder ein solcher Teich“. G. W. Leibniz, Die Prinzipien der Philosophie oder die Monadologie in ders., Philosophische Schriften, Bd. 1, hg. u. übers. v. H. H. Holz (Darmstadt: Wissen-Schaffliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), pp. 439–483, 471. Nature consists of an infinite sequence of systems that contain systems that contain systems… This concept entails the idea of an order that ensures the compatibility of all systems. Leibniz defined the coordination of this harmony as ”Monaden“. These monads are not the smallest pieces that build the world, like atoms (nowadays quarks) do. The monads guarantee a consonance with all other monads but rely on a ”higher“ intelligence that guarantees this consonance as a whole. They are only parts and reflections of the whole, not its initiators. Leibniz solves this problem in the Christian way by assuming a divine Creator who programmed the monads in order to function in stability and harmony (”prästabilierte Harmonie“).
R. Spaemann, “Bürgerliche Ethik und nichtteleologische Ontologie” in H. Ebeling (ed.), Subjektivität und Selbsterhaltung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976), pp. 76–96, 80.
And, further, led to the estrangement of universal teleology (the goals of God) from particular teleology (the goals of living beings). Cf. Kant’s distinction between the purpose of nature and the purpose of beings in nature.
Cf. N. Luhmann, Soziale Systeme: GrundrU einer allgemeinen Theorie ( Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984 ).
Cf. H. Blumenberg, “Selbsterhaltung und Beharrung: Zur Konstitution der neuzeitlichen Rationalität” in H. Ebeling (ed.), op. cit., pp. 144–207, especially pp. 156–158.
Cf. E. Lévinas, Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’Extériorité ( La Haye: Nijhoff, 1974 ), pp. 81–125.
Therefore it is immoral to argue that it is permissible to leave toxic waste behind because future generations might change their genetic code in order to develop a resistance to it.
F. Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. Kritische Studienausgabe, Bd. 4. Hg. v. G. Colli/ M. Montinari (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1967ff.), p. 19. The “last man” knows everything but he cannot re-create mankind. That’s what depresses him. He asks, “Was ist Liebe? Was ist Schöpfung? Was ist Sehnsucht? Was ist Stern?”, although he has lost any interest in the future.
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Hafner, J.E.V. (2000). Is Environmental Ethics a Collective Egoism of Mankind?. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Paideia. Analecta Husserliana, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2525-5_7
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