I’ve been reading about Deep Ecology. It’s a philosophical position I’ve seen before, but never really looked into, so I thought I’d learn more. I start with an explanation of why I wanted to read about it. I finish by trying to construct the argument that seems to be made: I’m not convinced, but I’m intrigued.
I had come across Deep Ecology before – it is the idea that ecosystems themselves have a value independently of human beings, and ought to be treated well because of this value, not because of human reliance on them. It contrasts with most environmental philosophy: usually, people believe we have a duty to maintain the environment because human beings would suffer if we did not. On this view, it is wrong to cause climate change because climate change would harm human beings. To a deep ecologist, on the other hand, it would be wrong to cause climate change because it would harm the ecosystem itself, not just human beings – if it didn’t harm human beings, it would still be wrong.
As some readers may know, my Master’s dissertation was about citizenship and animal welfare. One conclusion I drew was that some of our duties to others come from our dependence on those others, and that the duties go beyond the extent to which we depend on those people. So, for example, it is good to love and care for older relatives partly because we have depended on them in the past. The duties owed because of this previous dependence go far beyond our current level of dependence on those people – it is not a matter of paying back what has been received, but of respecting that person as someone who has been a crucial part of my life, and therefore as someone worth saving in themselves, not just because of their utility to me across my lifetime.
I took this a little further, with two more conclusions. Firstly, I used quite a broad notion of dependence. By this I mean emotional dependence, as well as physical dependence. These duties arise whenever a person is hugely emotionally invested in another, to the extent that we might call it dependence, in the sense that the dependent would be severely hurt were the dependency to cease without any mitigating circumstances. This is quite a vague idea, but that’s the nature of the subject. This gets very strange and complicated for certain types of relationships between people, but then again, duties, pains and pleasures have to be balanced out against one another, and it is very much in the nature of life for people to encounter such difficulties. Secondly, I maintained that it was the dependence relation itself which gave rise to these duties, and interdependence relations even more so. Importantly, it had little or nothing to do with the nature of the beings in question – whether they were humans or non-human animals, for example. Such interdependence could occur between, say, humans and their pets, not just between humans.
Deep Ecology, then, attracted my attention. If the dependence relation itself generated moral duties, then our need for a functioning ecosystem meant that we had to act morally towards that ecosystem. There was an argument for ordinary, standard ethical ecology right there. It might even go further: if I was arguing that we owed more to those we depended on than was necessary for our own survival / well-being, then we would owe more to the ecosystem than strictly necessary for our own survival / well-being.
So, back in 2012, I took a quick look at the Deep Ecology literature, but quickly rejected the doctrine. It wasn’t that the position was false, but that I couldn’t find any arguments for it. The books I found tended to state a standard position – that mountains, rivers, etc. had value in themselves, independently of human beings – and failed to give any arguments for it. The closest I was found was a vague justification that we ought to see ourselves as citizens of the world, so we ought to treat the world itself well – but this completely begged the question, whilst raising new ones. Why should we be citizens of the world? Why does ‘citizen of the world’ entail Deep Ecology rather than cosmopolitan care for all humanity? In addition, it seems to me that there would be no right or wrong without creatures to experience it: if no humans or nonhuman animals had ever lived on this planet, and the world was comprised of lakes, trees and hills, then nothing good or bad could ever happen. A related question – how can something be harmed if it cannot experience it in any way? So I didn’t agree with Deep Ecology, and I’m still not convinced.
However, I have searched for a better understanding of Deep Ecology, and I think it is an interesting way to view the world. Whether it is correct is another matter, and not one I’m able to evaluate. There is some reasoning: the argument is that it is possible to view the world in a certain way, and that it is more beautiful to view the world in that way. So Deep Ecology is to be viewed as an aesthetic duty, rather than an ethical one. Interestingly, the conclusion is that ecological disaster is self-destruction.
Here’s the reasoning:
1. There is no single entity called ‘I’, i.e.there is no fixed entity to which I refer when I talk about myself.
This notion will be familiar to anyone who has studied either Hume or Buddhism. Hume claims that, when we try to observe ourselves, all we can observe are thoughts, feelings, desires, sensations, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. We never observe a self that thinks or feels. If we are empiricists, then we cannot conclude that there is some fixed self which has all of these mental phenomena. Similarly, there is a Buddhist thesis that there is no fixed or permanent self. This is often argued by way of analogy. For example, think of an aeroplane. The aeroplane is composed of wings, a cockpit, wheels, etc. – if we were to take them all apart we would not find a single part that was the plane. It is the composite of all these parts, not something separate from them. Human beings are said to be analogous to the aeroplane, and there is no fixed, permanent self. These two arguments are subtly different, but they are similar enough for our purposes.
Of course, these arguments have been debated for a very long time – I don’t really have anything to add to that debate.
2. If there is no single entity ‘I’ refers to, then ‘I’ does not necessarily refer to the individual ego.
In fact, the point of that Buddhist argument was that there is no such thing as the individual ego, so – if the argument is sound – ‘I’ does not refer to it. The conclusion would be stronger, but I’m keeping the modality in because I don’t think the argument needs to concern itself with that debate.
3. If ‘I’ does not necessarily refer to the individual ego, then we do not have to identify ourselves with our ego.
4. If we do not have to identify ourselves with our ego, then we can identify ourselves with others, even in a strict sense of identity.
This move is probably the most controversial. Hume’s argument claimed to show that there was no fixed thing that was the self. He put forward the cluster theory of self, by which I am identified with my bundle of thoughts, feelings, etc. There may not be a fixed criterion of identity for that bundle, but the self is comprised of that bundle, not any other, and it is fairly straightforward in practice to draw the line between the mental phenomena which are part of me and the phenomena which are not.
I may extend this comment in the future, once I’ve thought about it more.
5. It is possible to identify ourselves with other people, i.e. I am more than just my ego, but also other people too.
It is worth illustrating (5) with two examples cited in the literature. Firstly, Gandhi is supposed to have thought this way. When asked about the aim of his work, he replied that his chief goal was self-realization, and it was by helping the poor and needy that he was able to realize himself more fully. If Gandhi had been identifying himself with the individual ego, then this would make little sense, as he was helping others rather than helping himself. If, however, those people were identified by him as part of his self, then he would be achieving some kind of self-realization by helping them. Secondly, it is a common theme within some psychology that at certain stages we develop a social self – for example, we describe ourselves by talking about our job or place in society, so that someone may be a builder or an accountant, as well as an individual ego. It is in this spirit that the extension of the self is meant.
6. It is possible to identify ourselves with nonhumans too, including animals and plants.
An example would be a member of a tribe identifying themselves with their habitat. It is sometimes claimed we do something similar, even in Western culture, we often identify ourselves with a place or nationality, although perhaps in less strict a sense. There have been court cases brought about because people were evicted from tribal lands, and they sued on the basis that they themselves were being harmed by the eviction because that land was, literally, part of their identity, part of them.
Whether these are to be taken literally is up to the reader – they may just be metaphors which are not analogous to the concept of identity we are accustomed to, in which case the inference is a bit dodgy.
7. If it is possible to identify ourselves with our ecosystem, it may be more beautiful to do so.
8. It is more beautiful to identify ourselves with our ecosystem.
I have no idea how to evaluate (8). I don’t know how you tell.
9. In order to be as beautiful as I can be, I ought to identify myself not just with my ego or with other humans, but with my ecosystem as a whole.
10. If, to me, my ecosystem is me, then harming the ecosystem is harming myself.
11. Even if I am purely self-interested, and I identify myself with my ecosystem, then it is in my own interest not to damage the planet.
And that’s how Deep Ecology derives the (aesthetic) duties to mountains, trees, lakes, etc. A Deep Ecologist would view a mountain as part of him or herself.
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So that’s best case I can put together from the literature I’ve read. I am a little sceptical, it must be said, but it’s an interesting idea. There’s a hint of Spinoza there, and an unusual use of metaphysics, even if it is dubious in places.
Jezknee 