TP is playing at science
'Lo livejournal,
So, in my continual attempts to be a Good Academic (because there are, most certainly, Bad Academics), I'm considering giving a departmental seminar titled:
Telling Truths About Science: Ecology as a Moral Philosophy
(Because, obviously, I need more work to do and I'd be taking this on entirely for fun).
Basically, I think that it would be interesting the push the envelope (very slightly) in our seminar series to include - not just information on the physical sciences - but questions relating to a philosophy of science.
Scientists think about things in a different light than non-scientists. It's a philosophy that says Not All Opinions Are Created Equal; that Weight Of Evidence can displace even culturally engrained ideas; that Careful Method and Rigorous Study can elucidate Truths about Nature.
That's all Enlightenment philosophy though and it's not really that interesting (though inspiring). What I'd like to give a talk on is how, by studying ecology, you are essentially developing a form of moral philosophy that disrupts traditional ameri-european visions of Man and his Place in Nature.
My partner is a human geographer who's writing a thesis on Aboriginal conceptions of place/material/gender. It's really fascinating stuff. The amazing thing about a lot of these questions is how remarkably similar they are to the modern-day construct of environmentalism (sensu stricto).
In fact, if you believe John Ralston Saul's book A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, part of the similarity between modern environmentalism and Aboriginal constructs about nature comes from the fact that a lot of prominent Canadians were central to the early environmentalism movement and (even if we don't recognize it as such), a lot of Canadian moral principals are fundamentally Aboriginal.
"{...} there is nothing romantic about the indigenous idea of nature. It is a philosophy in which humans are a part of nature, not a species chosen to master it. This is now the central concept of most scientists, whether they are looking at climate, water or species. In today's language, the indigenous idea of what is now called environmentalism produced the concept of minimal impairment. (Saul, 81)
When you look at the rise of environmentalism over the last forty years, it is surprising to see how much of the movement originated [in Canada]: Maurice Strong (one of the founds of the international environmental movement), Greenpeace, David Suzuki, David Schindler (the discoverer of acid rain). In part this is perhaps a simple outcome of the overpowering presence of nature here and a reaction to the role of commodities in our economy. But commodities have always provoked a Manichean view of nature. Either you accept the baronial approach - this is our land and if we want to strip it for quick welath, we will - or you are on the opposing side - the belief that nature must be protected. This second option is certainly romantic, but not compared to the romantic optimism of the barons, who seem to believe that after they have rolled through, nature will simply pick itself up and set about reconstituting itself. (Saul, 84))"
Essentially, an understanding of ecology is based on an understanding of relationships between species & the physical environment. Understanding ecology (and evolution & the all derivatives thereof) demands that you place our species in the context of those relationships; not apart and dominant but integral to functioning of the whole.
The reason why I argue that ecology is a form of moral philosophy is two fold: first, by viewing yourself as, fundamentally, a part of an ecological framework, you lose the ability to have a baronesque view of nature, whereby resource acquisition and use can be done without limit. There are limits to natural 'wealth'. When you begin to view nature as a structure of relationships, you can begin to perceive how our actions limit or damage those relationships.
This is where the idea of minimal impairment comes from: all human / animal / plant populations are taking from a 'common bowl'. Your use should not [arguably, must not], cause impairments to the other part of that web.
The second reason why I argue that ecology teaches a moral philosophy is that, without morality, science can be (and has been) inherently destructive. The one thing that the anti-evolution advocates get right about the entire paradigm is that the concept of the 'survival of the fittest' can and has been misused in the past. Social Darwinism was/is real and is probably the worse outcome of science possible, second only maybe the development & deployment of the atomic bomb.
Morality is, naturally, something of a sliding scale. It's not entirely fair to compare the pre-1960 western world with the world today. People forget, sometimes, that the victorian era literally ended in 1901. Colonialism was alive and well until the start of the first world war and didn't really die until after the end of the second. Tied up in colonialism are ideas of racial/linguistic purity. Darwin published The Origin of Species but he also wrote The Descent of Man which was a (by today's standards) a misguided attempt to use evolutionary theory to put the White races at the top of a pyramid of Homo sapiens.
The reason why I argue that these ideas are fundamentally wrong is that they forget one of the main concepts at the center of ecological study (the idea that Saul calls 'minimal impairment'). Humans have a remarkable capacity for empathy. It is the only reason that explains why people care about starving children located on different continents; why people care about animal cruelty; why environmentalists will argue that natural habitats should be preserved because they have esthetic, cultural, and spiritual significance. It's because, once you view yourself as part of a ecological web, you cannot describe that plant/species/habitat as an other. The construction of an other is central to the dehumanization that has allowed and allows atrocities to be committed throughout human history.
What ecology can teach is not so much why factors that cause dehumanization are wrong but rather why factors that lead to the delegitimization of other members of our ecological web are wrong. If you understand that our species is part of a collective whole then extending the ideas of collective good that are prevalent in all modern social welfare states is not so much an intuitive but a necessary leap.
The reason why climate warming is such a difficult problem to tackle is not because the technological issues attached to it are difficult to overcome. One of my favourite quotes in environmental sciences came out of a documentary film called 'The 11th Hour'. If we truly wanted to, with the full implementation of existing technology our species could reduce our carbon footprint by 90% overnight. Overnight!
The fact that we have not done so is not a technological problem; it's a moral problem. And it's a moral problem because we - as collective whole - do not view environmental justice issues as moral issues. We need to do for environmental protectionism what we have already done for human rights. We need to make it as morally abhorrent to willfully and wrongfully pollute the natural environment as it is to commit crimes against humanity, the simple reason being that environmental crimes are crimes against humanity - both in the sense of the impairment that it caused to populations of our species and in the sense that, if you view yourself as a part of that ever enlarging ecological web, you lose your justification for causing impairment in the first place.
When we forget that science has moral implications - indeed, when we pretend that science has nothing to tell us about issues of morality - we stifle the discussion that we could potentially have about these issues. In academia, we tend to make polite nods towards multidisciplinary studies but, in practice, multidisciplinary studies are difficult to fund and support. it's only by applying these traditionally 'arts-based' concepts can we actually fully appreciate and understand the real-life applications of science and what it can contribute to our society as a whole.
Fin.
-T. pirate
So, in my continual attempts to be a Good Academic (because there are, most certainly, Bad Academics), I'm considering giving a departmental seminar titled:
Telling Truths About Science: Ecology as a Moral Philosophy
(Because, obviously, I need more work to do and I'd be taking this on entirely for fun).
Basically, I think that it would be interesting the push the envelope (very slightly) in our seminar series to include - not just information on the physical sciences - but questions relating to a philosophy of science.
Scientists think about things in a different light than non-scientists. It's a philosophy that says Not All Opinions Are Created Equal; that Weight Of Evidence can displace even culturally engrained ideas; that Careful Method and Rigorous Study can elucidate Truths about Nature.
That's all Enlightenment philosophy though and it's not really that interesting (though inspiring). What I'd like to give a talk on is how, by studying ecology, you are essentially developing a form of moral philosophy that disrupts traditional ameri-european visions of Man and his Place in Nature.
My partner is a human geographer who's writing a thesis on Aboriginal conceptions of place/material/gender. It's really fascinating stuff. The amazing thing about a lot of these questions is how remarkably similar they are to the modern-day construct of environmentalism (sensu stricto).
In fact, if you believe John Ralston Saul's book A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, part of the similarity between modern environmentalism and Aboriginal constructs about nature comes from the fact that a lot of prominent Canadians were central to the early environmentalism movement and (even if we don't recognize it as such), a lot of Canadian moral principals are fundamentally Aboriginal.
"{...} there is nothing romantic about the indigenous idea of nature. It is a philosophy in which humans are a part of nature, not a species chosen to master it. This is now the central concept of most scientists, whether they are looking at climate, water or species. In today's language, the indigenous idea of what is now called environmentalism produced the concept of minimal impairment. (Saul, 81)
When you look at the rise of environmentalism over the last forty years, it is surprising to see how much of the movement originated [in Canada]: Maurice Strong (one of the founds of the international environmental movement), Greenpeace, David Suzuki, David Schindler (the discoverer of acid rain). In part this is perhaps a simple outcome of the overpowering presence of nature here and a reaction to the role of commodities in our economy. But commodities have always provoked a Manichean view of nature. Either you accept the baronial approach - this is our land and if we want to strip it for quick welath, we will - or you are on the opposing side - the belief that nature must be protected. This second option is certainly romantic, but not compared to the romantic optimism of the barons, who seem to believe that after they have rolled through, nature will simply pick itself up and set about reconstituting itself. (Saul, 84))"
Essentially, an understanding of ecology is based on an understanding of relationships between species & the physical environment. Understanding ecology (and evolution & the all derivatives thereof) demands that you place our species in the context of those relationships; not apart and dominant but integral to functioning of the whole.
The reason why I argue that ecology is a form of moral philosophy is two fold: first, by viewing yourself as, fundamentally, a part of an ecological framework, you lose the ability to have a baronesque view of nature, whereby resource acquisition and use can be done without limit. There are limits to natural 'wealth'. When you begin to view nature as a structure of relationships, you can begin to perceive how our actions limit or damage those relationships.
This is where the idea of minimal impairment comes from: all human / animal / plant populations are taking from a 'common bowl'. Your use should not [arguably, must not], cause impairments to the other part of that web.
The second reason why I argue that ecology teaches a moral philosophy is that, without morality, science can be (and has been) inherently destructive. The one thing that the anti-evolution advocates get right about the entire paradigm is that the concept of the 'survival of the fittest' can and has been misused in the past. Social Darwinism was/is real and is probably the worse outcome of science possible, second only maybe the development & deployment of the atomic bomb.
Morality is, naturally, something of a sliding scale. It's not entirely fair to compare the pre-1960 western world with the world today. People forget, sometimes, that the victorian era literally ended in 1901. Colonialism was alive and well until the start of the first world war and didn't really die until after the end of the second. Tied up in colonialism are ideas of racial/linguistic purity. Darwin published The Origin of Species but he also wrote The Descent of Man which was a (by today's standards) a misguided attempt to use evolutionary theory to put the White races at the top of a pyramid of Homo sapiens.
The reason why I argue that these ideas are fundamentally wrong is that they forget one of the main concepts at the center of ecological study (the idea that Saul calls 'minimal impairment'). Humans have a remarkable capacity for empathy. It is the only reason that explains why people care about starving children located on different continents; why people care about animal cruelty; why environmentalists will argue that natural habitats should be preserved because they have esthetic, cultural, and spiritual significance. It's because, once you view yourself as part of a ecological web, you cannot describe that plant/species/habitat as an other. The construction of an other is central to the dehumanization that has allowed and allows atrocities to be committed throughout human history.
What ecology can teach is not so much why factors that cause dehumanization are wrong but rather why factors that lead to the delegitimization of other members of our ecological web are wrong. If you understand that our species is part of a collective whole then extending the ideas of collective good that are prevalent in all modern social welfare states is not so much an intuitive but a necessary leap.
The reason why climate warming is such a difficult problem to tackle is not because the technological issues attached to it are difficult to overcome. One of my favourite quotes in environmental sciences came out of a documentary film called 'The 11th Hour'. If we truly wanted to, with the full implementation of existing technology our species could reduce our carbon footprint by 90% overnight. Overnight!
The fact that we have not done so is not a technological problem; it's a moral problem. And it's a moral problem because we - as collective whole - do not view environmental justice issues as moral issues. We need to do for environmental protectionism what we have already done for human rights. We need to make it as morally abhorrent to willfully and wrongfully pollute the natural environment as it is to commit crimes against humanity, the simple reason being that environmental crimes are crimes against humanity - both in the sense of the impairment that it caused to populations of our species and in the sense that, if you view yourself as a part of that ever enlarging ecological web, you lose your justification for causing impairment in the first place.
When we forget that science has moral implications - indeed, when we pretend that science has nothing to tell us about issues of morality - we stifle the discussion that we could potentially have about these issues. In academia, we tend to make polite nods towards multidisciplinary studies but, in practice, multidisciplinary studies are difficult to fund and support. it's only by applying these traditionally 'arts-based' concepts can we actually fully appreciate and understand the real-life applications of science and what it can contribute to our society as a whole.
Fin.
-T. pirate