Food Ethics Based on Three Level Eco-holism

Abstract

The problem of how we eat is related to our view of nature, how we treat nature. And Eastern and Western views of nature for environmental ethics are different. In quest of an integral ethics, this paper contrasts, then combines, both traditions to develop new environmental and food ethics. In Edo-era Japan, farms, forest, wilderness, and mountains, were arranged in ways to keep the balance between nature and humanity. Proper distribution of the land and allocation of resources was arranged by a dedicated government, operating on an integral philosophy. The Edo people did not think that humanity was separate from Nature. This was their ethico-political background. By contrast, people today often feel unbalanced and cut off from nature. They suffer the threat of war, nuclear energy, and collapse of spiritual life. And, the problem of world hunger is just as urgent.

Western modernism and traditional Japanese thought differ in their views of nature; the former divides humans and Nature while latter considers them as one. This is Western dualism vs. Eastern holism, a mechanistic view of nature vs. an organismic view of nature. Hare’s method of separating levels of moral thinking offers a way to make a hierarchy of moral principles. Adopting such a moral hierarchy, ecological principles and intuitions would set limits to utilitarian models of human-centered modernism. Were conflict to occur between the humanist and eco-centrist levels, one could move the argument to the eco-holist level, and make a moral decision in consideration of both human and natural welfare. After all, while one can briefly separate humans from nature, in the long run, human welfare and Earth wellness cannot be separated; for if the natural environment were to decay, humanity could not survive. Thus, our ultimate criterion must lie in the welfare of the Earth.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that more confusion is caused, both in theoretical ethics and in practical ethics, by the neglect of this distinction (between two levels of moral thinking) than any other factor.

R. M. Hare

Given the success of the Japanese people in intensively and densely inhabiting a limited and fragile environment over many centuries without destroying either its beauty (albeit partly marred by the devastating postwar industrialization) or its productivity, they may be exceptionally well qualified to take the lead in conserving an analogously small and fragile planet.

J B. Callicott