Abstract
Environmental ethics is apparently caught in a dilemma. We believe in human species partiality as a way of making sense of many of our practices. However as part of our commitment to impartialism in ethics, we arguably should extend the principle of impartiality to other species, in a version of biocentric egalitarianism of the kind advocated by Paul Taylor. According to this view, not only do all entities that possess a good have inherent worth, but they have equal inherent worth, and in particular no species is superior to any other. In this paper, I elaborate a Heideggerian environmental virtue ethics that slips between the horns of the dilemma. Central to this ethics is the relation of “dwelling” and the many virtues of dwelling, according to which the world is seen as “holy” in a variety of ways. This ethics is importantly local in respect of time and place, but also has universalistic aspects. To understand such an ethics, it is necessary to grasp Heidegger’s notion of truth as “aleithia” or opening, which enables us to escape the metaphysical dilemmas besetting ethics in the analytic tradition, including standard virtue ethics. Elaborating this notion occupies a large part of the paper.
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Notes
I discuss these issues in Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (2003), and particularly in a future work on the virtue ethics of Hume and Nietzsche.
The ethics of dwelling is largely contained in Heidegger’s late work, Poetry, Language, Thought.
I discuss and apply Heidegger’s notion of fundamental emotional attunement in my “A Challenge to Intellectual Virtue from Moral Virtue: the Case of Universal Love,” forthcoming in Metaphilosophy.
Indeed some of my examples below will be precisely of this nature to illustrate the point that dwelling involves relation between culture, iconic items, and the “purely natural” such as trees: indeed on a dwelling orientation the efforts to draw a sharp and weighty distinction between the natural and the non-natural are misguided. Hence Heideggerian environmental ethics is not restricted to traditional “natural” items, for it is a more holistic approach.
For a fictional account of a bridge in fourteenth Century England, described in this rich sense, see Follett, World without End (2007).
“To let beings be…does not refer to neglect and indifference but rather the opposite. To let be is to engage oneself with beings.” Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” p. 144, cited in Malpas (2006), p. 270.
“Environmental benevolence” is also seen as a central virtue in environmental ethics (see Geoffrey Frasz (2005), “Benevolence as an Environmental Virtue”). I agree but argue that it should be shaped by a dwelling orientation, an orientation that also shows that many other virtues are central.
See Swanton (2003), chapter 3, section iii; Scheffler (1992). This view is of course compatible with the idea that not all ethical prescriptions and evaluations are important; for example, the need for a considerate caring parent to choose say the broccoli in the garden rather than cabbage for dinner (because her small child had an unfortunate encounter with a green caterpillar in the cabbage the night before) is not one of the weightier ethical decisions.
I thank John Doris for this “counterexample” and discussion of it.
For criticism of this model of virtue ethics, see Swanton (2003), chapter 12.
Note however that this aspect of openness has an inherent danger: a tendency to retreat from an authentic relation to the world as an individual, in which one’s engagement is one’s own (eigentlich), into an immersion into the average everydayness of Das Man. For authentic engagement, one’s concern must be “anxious” to a degree. On the other hand, authentic (eigentlich) engagement cannot ignore this fourth aspect of openness; “openness to one’s fellows.” As Michael Lewis (2005) explains, authenticity and inauthenticity for Heidegger should be understood as vectors at the extremes of which are complete undifferentiation; a total lack of individuality, and extreme “existentialist” rebellion. Correct openness to one’s fellows avoids these extremes.
For more on Kant’s notions of love and respect see Swanton (2003).
What counts as appropriate is highly contextual, and quite properly beset by ambivalence and indeterminacy. Two huge wilding pines on our semi-rural property received a stay of execution, and I have grown to appreciate them for a variety of reasons. Now they are (almost) loved. Note that this contextualized Heideggerian position is not at all the same as treating ecosystems rather than individual organisms or species as loci of “intrinsic value.”
Recently in New Zealand, proposals to change the rules for the challenge rugby trophy, the Ranfurly Shield, were greeted with howls of protests, despite theoretically good reasons for the change. The words “sacred” and “sacred traditions” were frequently to be heard. The New Zealand Rugby Union backed down.
I am not here suggesting that Heidegger’s anti-science view is a true reflection on science properly conducted and understood. I do not think that science is essentially enframing, as Heidegger appears to think, but assessment of these issues is outside the scope of this paper.
I thank Philip Cafaro for helpful suggestions, and Julian Young who, through his writings and conversation, has helped greatly in opening my mind to the riches Heidegger has to offer.
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