Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Three Different Arguments For Environmentalism
In this essay, I will explicate and then evaluate the effectiveness of three different arguments for environmentalism. I will start with the rights-based approach, and then move on to utilitarianism, and lastly I will focus on the virtue of simplicity approach. The stated goals for environmentalists are to preserve the environment from human destruction and to keep ecosystems from being harmed by humans. In this essay, I will describe the flaws of each argument and then explain why the virtue of simplicity does the best job at keeping the goals of environmentalism in our modern age of human-centered thought.
Though environmentalism itself has good reason to exist, some may say that the claims can be hard to support with real evidence. Sober states that ‘the environmentalist movement faces considerable theoretical difficulties with justification’. He moves on to discuss how it’s challenging to provide rationale for why a species should be conserved if there isn’t any value that the species provides to us. However, this seems to be a very anthropocentric point of view, which thereby places the value of other organisms only into perspective of us as humans. The value of other organisms should not be decided by us as humans. This brings me to the topic of the environmental theory called rights-based environmentalism. The rights-based theory of environmentalism states that natural organisms simply have a right to live in their environment and that we as humans shouldn’t interrupt them so therefore we should let them live without disrupting their natural rights. This perspective succeeds by putting the topic of other organisms into a light that is different than our perspective, because after all, why are we making arguments deciding the fate of others? The value of other animals doesn’t just hold true if they are valuable to us. How are we valuable to the earth when we just seem to kill it? Yet, we think that we are somehow hold a special intrinsic value, when in reality, both us as well as animals/natural organisms are intrinsically valuable. Therefore we shouldn’t disrupt the natural rights of other organisms because they, like us, have the same natural, intrinsic right to live.
Though the rights-based theory is successful in some ways, it may be hard on its own to hold up the goals of environmentalism because environmentalists want to protect the general well-being of the environment from humans, and this includes non-sentient environmental items as well. This theory begins to prove challenging because it would be silly to grant non-sentient natural items rights and it simply wouldn’t really make sense to say that a mountain or a tree has rights based on how we think of rights in our society. Thus, this theory may not uphold the goals of environmentalism successfully for the non-sentient parts of nature.
Next, I will move on to unitarianism. Utilitarianism focuses on the happiness of sentient creatures and on doing the action that promotes the most happiness and causes the least suffering. This approach is successful because it seems to value the suffering and happiness of other organisms that are non-human and is significant for that reason. It seems to place other organisms in line with humans and seeks to prevent other sentient creatures from suffering in the hands of humans.
Utilitarianism, however, fails in many important ways. Environmentalism seeks to preserve the environment, however, utilitarianism, too, only focuses on sentient beings, when the environment is composed of many important aspects that are not sentient such as mountains or trees. Additionally, if an action is being considered and weighed under a utilitarianism scope, human interests will likely still trump animal interests, as perhaps the granted ‘happiness’ outcome for humans will be more rewarding than the deemed suffering of other organisms. A famous example that illustrates this is the Hetch Hetchy dam incident, where, in 1913, environmentalists debated against anthropocentric advocates about whether a dam should be built in Yosemite National Park. The anthropocentric side argued that the dam would bring water to the San Francisco Valley, while the environmentalists argued for preservation of the natural state of land (to uphold their goals of humans not destroying the natural environment with developments). It is known that dams create a negative environmental impact, changing water flows and causing erosion, damaging the plants and animals that live in the water near the dam and disrupting ecosystems. Yet, human interests superseded and the dam was built, proving that even if harm is done to animals, human happiness is usually the focus of decision making. This shows that there is a motivation problem for utilitarianism, as humans aren’t really gaining anything, and in fact, losing things at times, if they want to preserve the environment under utilitarianism, causing most people to not want to put in the effort. These factors often cause utilitarianism to thereby fall short of complying to the goals of environmentalism.
Lastly, I will discuss the virtue of simplicity approach and how it seems to be the most successful approach for environmentalists in our current modern day society because it solves the motivation problem by showing that people will be happier if they preserve nature, and at the same time, the approach includes both the sentient and non-sentient parts of nature. Gabriel & Cafaro talk about ‘the virtue of simplicity’ when it comes to environmentalism, describing simplicity as being a conscientious consumer who reflects on their purchases, decreases them, and that this leads to a more focused life and a greater appreciation for both life itself and the materiality that we do partake in. They describe this life of less materiality to be more ‘balanced’ with nature and overuse and underuse, and say that many people in our modern-day society focus far too much on materiality, letting our purchases and devices control us and how we spend our money and our time as well as even how we live.
This is reasoned back to environmentalism and creates what’s known as environmental ‘virtue ethics’ because limiting consumption is better for the environment, and the ideology around this is that by limiting individual consumption, we can each do our part in hurting the environment less. Our consumption hurts the sentient and non-sentient parts of our environment, so decreasing this consumption would comply to the goals of environmentalism by reducing our human impact on the environment. Most of us in our modern day society do use or buy material items excessively, and we could likely all benefit from reducing that amount, allowing us to all have more money in our pockets and more personal time with the people in our life whomst we love the most, without being controlled by our technology and materiality. This argument is so successful because it makes the point that you, yourself will be happier if you live this way too, so rather than seemingly limiting humans from their usual tendency to be disconnected to the environment and use it to their own benefit, the virtue of simplicity connects to the anthropocentrist, appealing to the human urge to make one’s self happier, while still protecting the environment. The virtue of simplicity approach, in short, claims that a virtuous person has respect for nature, but that you will also benefit by respecting nature, and that you will create balance, more quality time with others, and more happiness in your life by doing so.
Opposers of this argument state that it doesn’t bring in the intrinsic value of nature into the argument, but this seems like an unnecessary claim to put in the argument itself, as the argument is successful and seemingly convinces people to conserve the unspoken intrinsically valuable environment that we live in, and that this will give us personal intrinsic happiness by doing so.
In conclusion, some environmental arguments seem to fail to uphold the true goals of environmentalism because they don’t appeal to humans. Many people won’t act unless they get something in return, which is why the virtue ethics approach seems to be the most successful, as it allows people to reduce their impact on the environment, all the while increasing their own happiness, which will enable people to act and change their decisions, resulting in a domino effect that lessens our impact on the environment.
References
- Sober, E. “Philosophical Problems for Environmentalism” in The Value of Biological Diversity, Bryan G Norton eds. Princeton University Press (1986). pp. 173-191.
- Gabriel, J. C. and Cafaro, P. “The Virtue of Simplicity” in Springer Science Business and Media. (2009). pp. 85-108.
