Lecture 3 Friday January 28, 2005

Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests

Announcements:

(1) Begin reading Hughes this weekend, with a goal of being done by next Friday.

(2) One of the “optional” readings you might consider doing from the Cronon anthology is Richard White’s essay, “Are you an environmentalist or do you work for a living?”

(3) Three handouts today

I. Followup from last lecture

One of the handouts today is a chart summarizing various estimates of global human carrying capacity from Joel Cohen’s book. [COHEN SLIDE AND POPULATION HANDOUTS]

II. Proctor’s article “Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests”

Proctor’s article echoes some of the themes that Ellis raises, but in the context of the timber disputes in the American Pacific northwest. Proctor clearly believes that each side in the debate is guilty of exactly what they accuse their opponent of doing.

Proctor writes (on p. 273): “There is more than one ethic, more than one sense of right and wrong, more than one way to care about the fate of Pacific Northwest forests.”

Moral aphasia

III. Proctor’s narrative:

So Proctor begins by setting the scene at a public hearing in Eugene, Oregon, at the Lane County Convention Center, in 1989. It’s a public hearing where people get up and voice their opinions about whether the spotted owl should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Speakers include Barbara Kelly, Jean Marie Aurangue, and others.

Significance of the term, “ancient forests”

“The position these people take highlights a crucial fact: there is more than one ethic, more than one sense of right and wrong, more than one way to care about the fate of Pacific Northwest Forests. How, then, can we be sure that the environmentalists hold the moral high ground in their ancient forest campaign?

“It could be that there exists an infinite possible number of environmentalisms, each with its own nature to save.” And he asks in conclusion, if this is so, how are we to choose among them?

So as he tells us on page 273, he aims “to explore the ethics and related ideas of nature informing the ancient forest campaign, and consider whether and how the environmentalist agenda should change in light of the diversity of perspectives on right and wrong suggested in the spotted owl and old-growth debate.”

IV. Overview of Proctor’s article

1. Transformation of Pacific Northwest Forests

2. The Ancient Forest Campaign

3. Ancient Forest Ethics

4. Ethics and Ideas of Nature

5. “Whose Nature? Whose Ethic?”

Ancient Forest Ethics, clearly getting to the heart of what Proctor wants to talk about—the values that underlie the various political and ethical positions people take in the debate.

“Without these values,” he emphasizes, “facts alone would not lead to any specific notion of right or wrong, or any particular policy implications.”

V. Philosophical value concepts that Proctor examines:

1.) Intrinsic versus instrumental value

2.) The idea of “letting nature be”

3.) “Resourcism versus preservationism”

4.) Anthropocentrism versus nonanthropocentrism

5.) “Relativism” contrasted with “absolutism” or moral dogmatism. Proctor also refers to “moral pluralism.”

VI. Leo Marx’s article

Pay particularly close attention to the three broad terms he discusses in this article: Progressivism; Primitivism; and Pastoralism.

START READING PAN’S TRAVAIL BY HUGHES.