Leopold's Land-Ethic

cited authors

  • Martin, Christopher

description

  • For the inaugural Philosophers' Cafe series in Green Bay: Aldo Leopold, a Wisconsin native, is recognized as the founder of an eco-centric ethic for the environment – something he called a 'land-ethic'. At the core of Leopold's theory lies the notion that the land is deserving of moral value, of moral consideration. The history of ethical thought shows that it has gradually expanded the realm of moral consideration to include more and different kinds of entities. The civil rights and suffrage movements attest to this, as does the animal rights movement that has been gaining ground of late. Leopold suggests that the next step in this progression will be an inclusion of the land itself as an entity worthy of moral consideration. His most direct and controversial phrasing of this holds that “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” We'll spend some time discussing Leopold's view. What would it mean to extend moral value to the land? Isn't a capacity to feel a prerequisite of moral consideration? What reasons might be given for and against Leopold's view? How, if he is right, could we mitigate between competing conflicts of interest? Does ethical primacy reside within living individuals, or is it spread throughout the natural world in which they find themselves? Leopold's land-ethic will provide us an opportunity to probe the boundaries and underlying tenets of our alleged moral responsibility to the environment.

authors

publication date

  • 2010

published in