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Hunter, Susan
AN INQUIRY INTO POLICY CONFLICT: THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY DISPUTES
The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1984
University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106
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University Microfilms International AN INQUIRY INTO POLICY CONFLICT:
THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY DISPUTES
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of the Ohio State University
By
Susan Hunter, B.A., M.A.
The Ohio State University
1984
Reading Committee: Approved By:
Dr. Stuart J. Thorson
Dr. Kristi Anderson
Dr. John Dryzek
Dr. James Farr Adfvisor Department of Political Science Copyright By Susan Hunter 1984 To
George F. Hunter
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The years I have spent in pursuit of this degree have been long and often difficult— not just for me, but for my family as well. They have not always understood my edginess and bouts of extreme frustration, but they have always been there for me. I am grateful for their support and understanding.
I wish to express my gratitude also to Dr. Stuart J. Thorson who has been my adviser almost from day one. He has encouraged, advised and fought for me every step of the way. His confidence in me kept me going when I would have stopped.
I wish to thank Dr. Donald Sylvan who has been an adviser and friend for the entire four years of my graduate work.
Special thanks go also to my reading Committee. Dr. Kristi
Andersen has provided a great deal of help on editing, but has always provided a work environment in the Polimetrics Laboratory which was conducive to writing, thinking, and learning. Dr. John Dryzek first introduced me to environmental policy and to the normative issues in policy analysis. For that, as well as for his advice, objective and careful reading of every chapter, and his friendship go my thanks.
Dr. James Farr has provided such detailed comments on every chapter that the pages have often "run red" with ink, but the comments have added a great deal to the quality of this work. My thanks go to Dr. Farr for the long discussions on political theory which have helped.to form my own views, as well as for his devotion to the task of reading this dissertation.
The entire staff of the Polimetrics Laboratory deserve very special
thanks. I have learned more here about survey research than could be learned in a classroom, and have been able to work with the best staff at Ohio State University while doing so. Nora Groves has "lightened" the load when I needed time, and has been a friend as well. Elizabeth
Cook, my companion in computations, has provided a few sentences for the dissertation as well as companionship for lunches, movies, and other essential activities. Mark Teare, my closest friend, taught me to use the computer systems, and spent many hours debating with me the philo sophical questions which are the core of this research. Jim Ludwig has made it possible for me to write and produce this dissertation with relative ease. Without Jim's assistance, I would still be typing.
Thanks also to Monika, Jeff, Molly, Maria, and Sean who have taken messages, helped typed sections of this work, drawn flow charts, and helped to make Polimetrics and unusually pleasant place to work.
My four years at Ohio STate University have been made easier by the support provided by the staff of the Political Science Department. I wish to thank Emily Fogel, Sandy Wood, and especially Dick Stoddard for all the little things they did to "ease" the way.
iv VITA
April 13, 1947...... Born - Flint Michigan
1970...... B.A., Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
1980...... M.A., Central Michigan University Mt. Pleasant, Michigan
1980-1981...... University Fellow, The Ohio State University
1982-1984...... Graduate Research Associate, Polimetrics Laboratory, The Ohio State University
1983...... M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
"Community, Crime, and Rationality" (with Stuart J. Thorson), Pittsburgh Symposium on Modeling and Simulation. Pittsburgh. April, 1982.
"The International Whaling Commission as a Global Actor", International Studies Association Conference in St. Louis, November, 1982.
"Environmental Mediation: Can It Work for International Problems?" (with John Dryzek), International Studies Association Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, March 1984.
v FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Policy
Policy Evaluation. Professors John Dryzek and Donald Sylvan.
Methods and Techniques. Professors Don Sylvan, John Dryzek, and Stuart Thorson.
Values on Policy Analysis. Professors Stuart Thorson and James Farr.
Environmental Policy. Professor John Dryzek.
Minor Field: Theory
Critique of Methods. Profesor James Farr. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...... iii
VITA...... v
LIST OF TABLES...... lx
LIST OF FIGURES...... x
CHAPTER
1. ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT...... 1
1.1 The Problem...... 1 1.2 Rationality...... 8 1.2.1 Rationality of Beliefs...... 10 1.2.2 Ontologies...... 13 1.3 Outline of Dissertation...... 16
2. RATIONALITY AND ACTION...... 20
3. RATIONALITY AND BELIEF...... 35
4. HISTORICAL DISTINCTIONS...... 47
4.1 Oneness...... 51 4.2 Apartness...... 56 4.2.1 By Spirit...... 57 4.2.2 By Reason...... 61 4.3 Conceptual Differences...... 64
5. ONTOLOGY, WHAT?...... 66
5.1 Ideological Answers to Environmental Problems.... 67 5.2 Ontological Distinctions...... 74 5.3 Conclusion...... 85
vii 6. RESEARCH DESIGN 87
6.1 Selection of Q Sort Respondents...... 93 6.2 Selection of Stimuli...... 95 6.3 Constructing Ideal Types...... 97 6.4 Pattern Matchings...... 98
7. THE REALITY OF ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES...... 100
7.1 Type 1 - Deep Ecologists...... 102 7.2 Type 2 - Activists...... 109 7.3 Type 3 - Dominators...... 113 7.4 Type 4 - Conquerers...... 120 7.5 Ontologies and Policy Positions...... 124
8 . ONTOLOGIES AND POLICIES: COMMITMENTS, BELIEFS, VALUES, AND ACTIONS...... 135
8.1 Methodological Implications...... 139 8.2 Implications for the Environment...... 140 8.3 Implications for Policy...... 142 8.4 Foundations and the Future...... 143 8.5 Conclusions...... 144
APPENDIXES
A. GUIDE FOR STRUCTURED INTERVIEW...... 146
B. ITEMS USED IN Q SORTS...... 158
C. FORM USED TO RECORD Q SORT SCORES...... 162
D. CLUSTER SCORES ...... 164
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 165
viii LIST OF TABLES
TABLE Pa§e
1. Ranking of Q Items for Deep Ecologists...... 105
2. Ranking of Q Items for Activists...... Ill
3. Ranking of Q Items for Dominators...... 117
4. Ranking of Q Items for Conquerers...... 122
5. Deep Ecologists versus CO, PM, SM...... 128
6. Activists versus TT and CR...... 130
7. Dominator versus SC...... 132
8 . Conqueres versus KC...... 134
ix LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Hypothetical Decision Tree for Choosing Societal Economic Goal...... 33
2. Decision Tree for Belief in God...... 40
3. Matrix of Political and Environmental Positions...... 70
x Chapter 1
Environmental Conflict
1.1 The Problem
On a pleasant summer day in 1983, a small band of people quietly entered the Siskiyou National Forest in Grants Pass, Oregon, and took their places on the newly constructed road. They formed a chain across the road, which was being constructed to allow developers access to the wilderness area. A truck bearing construction workers to their job site came up the road toward them.
For a moment the blockaders faced off the truck. Then it shot forward, hitting (Ken) Foreman in the chest and knocking him back five feet...five construction workers piled out of the truck and surrounded Foreman who was lying half under the front of it. 'You dirty communist bastard! Why don't you go back to Russia where you came from?' 'But Les,' Foreman replied, 'I'm a registered Republican (Devall, 1983).
Before that week was over, five EarthFirst! members^ had been
^The leader, Ken Foreman, and his group are members of EarthFirst!, an American environmental group which has no political affiliations at all. The members seek a simpler, more natural lifestyle which would cause less harm to the natural world. The structure of the political system is unimportant to them so members are as likely to support Ronald Reagan as as they are to support any other candidate or party.
1 buried (luckily only temporarily) alive by a bulldozer, and a dozen more had been taken to jail for criminal trespass. Les' wife declared that she was terrified for her husband's life everytime he entered the construction area. Ken's friend, Molly, declared that death in defense of mother earth was a noble act— it was a holy war against the despoilers of "our mother”.
"All we want is a clean home", says Ken. "Siskiyou is one of the few clean, natural areas left. It has a right to exist in its present state, and we must defend it."
Les and his fellow workers are angry, frightened, and bewildered.
"We're just trying to earn a living", says Les. "People want to build homes in wooded areas, and Siskiyou is a huge undeveloped area. As it is, no one can use it at all. We aren't strip miners, or people who will needlessly destroy anything. All we want is to earn a good living."
"Murderer!" yells Ken. "Commie, Hippie", counters Les. Who is wrong, who is right in this fight— the developers or the environmentalists? Is one position rational while the other is not? Is it possible that the two positions can both be rational?
Within the behavioral sciences, most research progresses under the assumption that rationality is a commonly shared attribute of mankind—
that the defining characteristic of humans is their ability to examine alternatives and select that which will best allow them to reach their goal. There is also, however, a "feeling" that some actions are not rational. At best these actions are emotional or nonrational; at worst,
irrational. Les contends that Ken acts solely from emotion. If he would examine the alternatives, declares Les, then Ken would see that development is beneficial for everyone— home buyers, developers, construction workers, and even environmentalists who would benefit as members of the society. A wilderness left alone is good only for backpacking in Les' view. Les means "undeveloped resources" when he uses the word wilderness.
For Ken, the wilderness is one of the few valuable places left on earth. Creatures other than humans gain essential benefit from it— a place to live, eat, rest, and reproduce. A natural cycle of birth, death, decay and rebirth continues as it has existed over the centuries.
Any intervention by humans is likely to destroy the delicate balance
that exists. To Ken, this system— of which humans are a part— is the only thing that matters. He sees not resources, but part of himself when he looks at a wilderness.
Les and Ken share only one view in common— that Siskiyou presents a problem. They might have become friends if they had met in a local bar
and had discussed women, politics, or sports. Now they are bitter
enemies, each dedicated to the obstruction of the other's goals. Ken is
perceived as emotional and Les as a heartless, greedy pillager. It
seems that no compromise is possible. There is no trust and no
willingness to give even an inch when such basic principles as one's
livelihood and the other's complete existence is involved. Les and Ken disagree about actions. They disagree about policies. They disagree O about beliefs. They disagree about ontologies .
Conflict is possible whenever two or more people come together in a political setting. Political discourse occurs at least four levels, and conflict can occur at each of these levels.-* The first level of potential conflict is that of evaluation. Does the policy or action meet its goals? Although discussion at this level should be relatively straightforward, often it is not. How we measure success is often hotly debated, so the question of success or failure is equally debatable.
The political process and the power of the implementors has a great deal to do with the judgment of success or failure.
A second level questions the validity of the criteria used.
Conflict here arises over the validity of the criteria used to define success in relation to the values of the society (or to some system of values held by some members of that society). What values of the society are at play in this particular policy? Again, the discussion should be straightforward, but often it is not. If the values are
p Ontology refers to the entities which populate a person's world, what exists for him. This is one of the key concepts of this dissertation, and it will be discussed in much greater detail in later chapters.
^1 am borrowing the concept of four levels from Frank Fischer (Fischer, 1980), who has borrowed at least some of this from Paul Taylor (Taylor, 1961). % discussion does not, however, exactly follow Fischer's or Taylor's. Fischer talks about validating or vindicating a choice, while I am concerned with another issue— possible levels of conflict. agreed upon, however, such conflicts can he resolved through open discourse.
The third level of conflict concerns the values themselves which are held by the participants. Arguments arise over the value of economic growth versus a steady-state economy, for example. Although values are individually held, discussion concerns the relative value of each position for society. To resolve the conflict, one must establish that his/her values contribute more to the accepted way of life of that society— to the culture— than do the opposing values. This is probably the most common level of philosophical debate. Utilitarianism is the predominant ethic of American society, but there have been many debates over the value of this ethic for our way of life. (See Fried (1978),
Singer (1979), and Taylor (1961)).
There is a level beyond philosophical debate however. Fischer refers to this as "Rational choice" (Fischer, 1980). For Fischer, the question is: has this way of life (or this specific policy) been chosen by rational methods? Taylor, whom Fischer draws upon, contends that freedom, impartiality, and enlightenment are required in order to make a rational choice (Taylor, 1961: 165)* One should be able to use reason, rather than personal preference to choose the way of life which is
"better" in some objective sense. "Rational choice" here requires knowledge of the consequences of each alternative way of life. The informed, preferred alternative is then selected.
For my purposes, the four levels are similar, but not identical to Fischer's levels of evaluation. One may find conflict occurring over
(1) evaluation of the effectiveness of a policy; (2) the means used to achieve a particular policy end; (3) the ends or goals themselves; and
(4) the premises from which those goals develop.
Take the example of poverty. At level one, we ask whether, say, the "war on poverty" under LBJ was successful, in that poverty has been eliminated altogether. At level two, we ask whether the best way of eliminating poverty has been used.^ At level three we ask, should poverty be eliminated; and at level four we ask what premises lead us to such goals as elimination of poverty.
Although these four levels of conflict exist, Fischer has delineated ways in which resolution may occur. He has stopped before describing the deepest and most severe level of conflict however.
Beyond the way of life one has adopted is an even more fundamental level. This is the level of one's core beliefs, or reasons for adopting a particular way of life. Fischer (and Taylor) asks at the level of rational choice whether a way of life was rationally chosen. There is no clear line between that question and the deeper one— were the foundations (basic premises) of that way of life rationally chosen. The latter is, I believe, the more important of the two questions. If basic premises are "irrationally" chosen, the fabric of decision-making is
^The use of "rational" techniques such as cost-benefit analysis or decision analysis is one way to determine the "best" policy(means). irreparably weakened. • Although the visible conflict concerns ways of life, the bitterness of such conflicts indicates deeper roots.
Such bitter conflicts occur, not because the protagonists disagree on means to a common goal, but because each cannot even comprehend the other's position. Their goals conflict and each sees her world threatened by the other. An easy assumption for each actor is that her opponent is "irrational". The opposing position is "unreasonable"-’ says, "In the light of a primary reason, an action is revealed as coherent with certain traits, long- or short-termed, characteristic or not, of the agent, and the agent is shown in his role of Rational
Animal".) when seen from the perspective of the other world view, and to hold an unreasonable position appears irrational.
Any attempt to understand this conflict requires an understanding of the situation from the perspective of each actor. Before any actor
C can legitimately label another "irrational" she must examine the situation from the other's perspective. An analysis of a perspective using a basic assumption of rationality was proposed by Karl Popper in his delineation of situational analysis. Situational anlaysis is based
-’"Having good reasons" is one, rather primitive definition of rationality. As Davidson (1968, p. 49
^This, of course, seldom occurs, but that does not detract from a dictum on useful discourse. on a principle of rationality."^ One sees an understanding of an actor’s action by searching for beliefs, intentions, and context which would make the action appropriate to the situation. An actor's statements or writings about the situation could provide evidence as to his beliefs and/or perceptions. Although an action could be "irrational"— inappropriate even when the actor's perception of the situation is understood— the presumption of situational analysis is one of
O rationality.
1.2 nationality
Any real attempt to understand a situation requires such a reliance upon a premise of rationality. However, there are two levels of concern with regard to rationality. The first is concerned with actions. This is the level of interest to rational choice theorists.
"Rational choice theory" is the name given to a body of literature which seeks to explain and predict actions or behavior, using as its basic premise the assumption that people will pick their most preferred alternative from their known set of alternatives. The selection of policy positions is such an action, in that the positions are choices
"^'The trivial law that sane persons as a rule act more or less rationally' (Popper, 1966: 265).
8See Popper (1966),(1972); Watkins (1970); Jarvie(1972); and Parr(l983). 9 made from a set of alternative positions. The alternatives are limited, political constraints exist, and often decision makers are unable to select their "best" position. However, the assumption is that the choice is made from among a set of alternative positions which are ordered according to preference. Traditional rational choice theory does not generally address a crucial issue: the development of alternative sets. It allows one to examine the set of alternatives used by an actor, and to investigate the possibility that she may not make the rational choice within that alternative set. Some work by Tversky,
March,^ and others though, has begun to examine this issue of constraints on alternative sets.
Unfortunately, it is always possible to escape charges of irrationality by arguing that the actual goal was different than supposed, or that the best alternative was not known to the actor at the time of choosing. The discussion can seem tautological— if one chooses an alternative it must be the most preferred of the known choices. Ken
^Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman (1981) "The forming of decisions and the psychology of choice”. Science. 211:453-458. They examined the impact of the formulation of the problem on the choices of respondents.
James March (1978) "Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice", Bell Journal of Economics, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 587-607. and Jon Elster (1979) IJlysses and the Sirens, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: argue that people know their limitations and frailties and sometimes make choices with the knowledge that this choice will change or limit their future alternative sets. This is known as binding behavior (or bounded rationality). 10 helped form a picket line because he wanted to do that. We may not know his goals, or his set of alternatives, but we do know that he chose picketing. This was a "rational" choice if he preferred picketing to every other activity available to him, if it was the best alternative in relation to some goal, or it was consistent with his beliefs about the situation.
1.2.1 Rationality of Beliefs
A second level of rationality extends behind actions to the beliefs that serve as the premises for actions. Just as rational choice theory ignores the development of alternative sets, it also ignores the basic beliefs or premises which make sets and subsequent actions possible.
Perhaps these are non-rational, say rational choice theorists. When one terms an action "irrational", however, one can either be arguing that the actor has not selected her preferred alternative, or one can be arguing that there is no reasonable belief behind the action.
Discussions about the existence of God, for example, often revolve around the issue of rationality of belief in God. Is it rational to believe in God? Despite Pascal^® there is a general reluctance to
ascribe rationality to such beliefs. A belief held without "good
evidence" however, risks the attribution of irrationality. If the belief is self-evident, it is known to be true, and this is one way that a belief might be said to be rational. "All men are mortal" is a self-
evident statement, and so it is rational to believe it, irrational not
to. Philosophers who share a belief in God argue that the existence of
God is "known"— it is self-evident— so a belief in God is rational. As
Alvin Plantinga argues, belief in God is foundational— it is a belief about the entities that exist. Belief in God is much deeper than beliefs about the value of one type of political system over another,
for example. Foundational beliefs develop from ontological commitments
to certain states or classes of being. If Plantinga is correct, the
rationality of these commitments cannot be disputed, so the foundational beliefs which develop from them, and the consequent actions which stem
^Pascal's Wager takes the form:
Since there is a certain positive probability that God exists, and since he that believes in the existence of God receives an infinitely large gain if he proves right, whereas only a finite amount is at stake, the principle of expected utility maximization requires that one should believe (Elster, 1979a:47-54).
From this, it appears that one should complete a decision tree for beliefs, and should select the belief with the highest expected utility. 12 from them are not intrinsically irrational (Plantinga, 1979).^ Although
Plantinga seems to argue that any belief which is not "irrational" is
"rationally" held, a more accepted view is that these beliefs are
"nonrational". Ontologies, being even more basic cannot be evaluated on any rationality criterion. Only the beliefs which are related to the ontology could even be evaluated.
In investigating the conflict between the environmentalists and the construction workers, one cannot simply examine their actions. The basis for each person's actions is more important than the action itself. "Raising one's hand" is a trivial example of an action with many meanings. The intentions of the actor(his reasons for acting?) are the important issue, not the action itself. Intentions, reasons, context, beliefs, perceptions, as well as the ontologies or commitments from which other beliefs stem, all form the basis of an action. 1 P
^Plantinga refers to the belief as foundational while I am referring to the ontologies which allow such beliefs to develop.
^See Taylor (1961), Davidson (1968) and Thorson(l 981) for a discussion of actions and intentions. 13 1.2.2 Ontologies
The important issue is not that people choose, rather it is that they choose such divergent alternatives that antagonists often cannot even understand the basis for their opponent's view. Not only in the environmental arena, but in other areas, such as foreign policy negotiations does such conflict occur. That is, the participants not only disagree on policy, but they often fail to understand their opponent's position. An example may be occurring with regard to Soviet-
American arms race talks If the Soviets have a concept of ''peace'' which is synonymous with pacification, while "peace" to us means co-existence, discussions cannot go very far. Perhaps co-existence is not even a construct which is meaningful to them, in the same sense that "kwoth" is meaningless to u s ^ Although both sides talk about their desire for peace, they have quite different concepts in mind. As Alasdair
MacIntyre notes, (MacIntyre, 1970: 62) " it is presupposed that, even for us to disagree, it is necessary to understand each other." The most difficult aspect is the- inability to talk about the lack of understanding. One can never "know" that another understands her words, even when he appears to do so. You can say that "harakiri" is understandable to you, but all you really probably mean is that you know
1 ^ -'Kwoth is the Nuer concept of divinity which is "both sharply contrasted with the material creation and widely present in it" (Evans, 1956: 131). To the Nuer, to say someone is a bird, is to mean exactly that, rather than to denote some similitude. 14 the physical manifestations. Empathy is, however, lacking. There is a lack of understanding between the two parties which leads to increased frustration and anger rather than satisfactory solutions1^
The source of such misunderstandings may lie in the mistaken assumption that the protagonists share a common vocabulary. But, as
Alasdair MacIntyre explains (MacIntyre, 1973). cross-cultural comparisons are made difficult by the fact that terms do not always refer to the same concept. We have been made aware of this problem when dealing with other cultures, but at the same time we appear to have neglected it in intra-cultural investigations. If a culture were truly homogeneous the negligence might be excused. However, in a diverse and pluralistic society such as the United States, it is conceivable that great differences do exist. Words (labels) evoke images of objects, but there is no easy way to determine whether the images held by all discussants are even comparable. The assumption that they are can lead to gross misperceptions of motives, actions, and even words used. When such misperceptions occur regarding the opponent's goals and positions, conflict is inevitable.
The conflict which occurs due to ontological differences does not manifest itself at that level. Because protagonists are using similar words for different concepts there is no easy way for them to
^This idea was suggested to me by Howard Tamashiro, but is not documented by any "real" evidence. It is merely a possibility. 15 communicate. Although I argue that an understanding of this problem can help in developing solutions, my research seeks to do more than simply show that ontological differences might exist. They make a difference.
Indeed there is a strong relationship between the ontological commitments people hold regarding human and non-human nature, and the types of policy preferences they have on environmental issues. Les and
Ken not only disagree about the policy with regard to Siskiyou, but I contend that they will disagree on virtually every environmental issue they ever discuss. Les sees the earth as a resource, while Ken calls it
"his mother".
Ontological commitments limit facts, values, and alternative sets to those which are consistent with the commitments. Although "perfect 1 ^ rationality" 3 requires a knowledge of all alternatives, it is clear, in most cases, that we must select from a limited set. Ontological commitments define our world for us, and by doing so put constraints on the types of facts, values, and alternatives we can entertain.
Compromise is impossible until a common ground can be discovered.
This is almost impossible when the protagonists share no common concepts. However, an understanding of the basis for their differences may enable mediators to seek other types of solutions. It at least
^Selection of the most preferred from the complete set of alternatives on the basis of complete information. See Anthony Downs(l965), An Economic Theory of Democracy, and Kenneth Arrow (1963), Social Choice and Individual Values; as well as Watkins (1970) for a further discussion of this concept. 16 allows for an assessment of the situation from a more informed position.
1.3 Outline of Dissertation
This research is motivated by an interest in understanding the sources of those instances of bitter policy conflict which seem to be non-negotiable. An important source may be the ontological commitments held by the policy actors.
A further objective of this research is to propose possible relationships among ontologies, beliefs, and policy positions. The visible forms of conflict seem to revolve around policy positions, so it is important to understand the relationship between the ontologies and the policy positions which are in conflict. The consequences of particular policy positions is an important and interesting area for research, but it will have few results if the underpinnings of the policy positions are not understood. If there are important relationships between ontologies and belief structures and between belief structures and policy positions, this must be explained before adequate strategies to reduce conflict over policies can be developed.
A corollary to this is the possibility of developing a computer model which simulates the process by which a person's policy positions develop. Ontology, foundational beliefs, and context are the factors which are likely candidates for key roles in this process, and the research seeks to discover potential relationships among them in order to lay the foundation for a computer model. Such a model would allow 17 policy-makers to examine the possible reactions to any proposed policy before actually committing themselves to it, and would provide greater 1 6 information to the users of the model.
The research design has two major components: A theoretical part in which the concept of rationality is explored as an explanatory tool for policy conflict; and an empirical section which ties the theoretical component to present day environmental policy differences.
In the theoretical section, the concept of rationality is considered with reference to actions and to beliefs. The discussion reaches past the level of foundational beliefs to ontologies, upon which all beliefs and actions are predicated. These "ontological commitments" seem to provide a foundation for rationality, and so cannot be rationally decided upon. I propose that nature ontologies fall under this rubric. The existence of different nature ontologies throughout history is shown, and implications for present policy conflicts are considered.
For the empirical section, in-depth interviews with environmental elites in Ohio were conducted. The interview had two parts. The first part asks the respondents to rank a set of statements which represent components of an environmental attitude. The second part consists of a
1®For a more complete discussion of the uses of such "Artificial Intelligence" modelling, see Margaret Boden, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man; James Carbonell, POLITICS; and Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason. 18 series of scenarios about the environment and a set of open-ended questions. These interviews provide evidence about the premises respondents hold with regard to the environment, and about opinions the respondents have on environmental issues.
Responses were analyzed • using a Q sort methodology and cluster analysis. An inverted matrix was used, so that the clusters indicate associations among respondents rather than among items. The open-ended interviews are used discursively to provide additional information about the respondents in each cluster. The objective is to establish a relationship between ontological positions (represented by the different clusters), and types of policy positions.
The conclusion brings together the theoretical and empirical material and draws out the implications of this research for environmental policy as well as for the study of conflict resolution.
For conflict resolution, it is obvious that any increase in understanding of the perceived problem can aid in its resolution. For environmental policy, the implications are less clear. One is that political institutions which develop from similar basic premises are likely to develop similar types of policy positions. A socialistic system, based on the premise that non-human entities are resources for humans will be as willing to develop exploitive policies with regard to those resources as a capitalistic system founded on the same premise.
Solutions must be examined in light of their basic premises. If certain consequences are desired, premises which make those consequences 19 more likely should be considered.
I do not pretend to argue for one ontological position over another. This research does not provide a defense of any political, economic, or ethical system. It attempts only to provide a possible explanation for environmental conflict, and to offer directions for conflict resolution. Chapter 2
Rationality and Action
The construction workers and EarthFirst! members in Siskiyou
National Forest hold very different views about the policy which should be developed by the forestry service with regard to Siskiyou. Their conflict could be resolved if both sides could be convinced that one or the other argument is best. Conflict might also be reduced if each could see the other's positions as being in some sense "rational". At that point, the situation might move from one of antagonism to one of negotiation. However, in the example, Les believes the policy of development is reasonable and good— the rational decision. Ken and his cohorts argue that a policy of preservation should be adopted— for that policy is rational. How can it be decided which is "better", which is
"rational"?
In order to unpack this dispute, it is first necessary to clarify the notion of a "policy decision". There are many definitions for policy, but the simplest one is that course of action which the government follows— what government does. Even inaction can be a policy. Although "policy" is often thought of as the written positions and rules of an agency or government, we are only concerned here with
20 21 the "actions"— decisions— of government. A written, but non-implemented policy is unimportant, since it is the actions which lead to conflict.
The debate, and therefore the opportunity for conflict concerns the policy alternatives or the goals according to which those alternatives are selected, as well as the way in which these alternatives are selected. The rationality of a particular policy can be questioned (is it the "best" possible policy for solving the particular problem), and, as a seperate question, the means for selecting the policy can also be evaluated. The selection of means for policy development is a primary political question. What institutional structure will provide the best means for selecting policies? Because of a belief on the part of many political scientists that1 institutional structures affect the types of policies selected (Dryzek, 1984, Riker, 1982, Rae, 1979» Ophuls, 1977), the selection of structures is an important question. Although the debate is most often concerned with the choice of socialism versus a decentralized system, in America there is also a debate about the relative worth of "muddling through" (Lindblom’s advocacy of disjointed incrementalism (Braybrooke, 1963)), our present system versus
"rationalistic policy analysis" (a selection of policies according to some defined criteria). Advocates of policy analysis such as Dror
(1971), and Dunn (1980) contend that it is possible to use "rational" techniques to develop the best policy to solve a defined problem, but even those unfamiliar with the policy process would probably hope that the selection of a policy could be a "rational" process. 22
The argument for incrementalism is that it is just as "rational" as a process which uses a more formal choice mechanism. The debate, compromise, and ultimate selection of an alternative through the policy- process, is (Lindblom argues) quite rational. The policy which finally develops from this process reflects the preferences of the interested parties. All important values and concerns which have any supporters enter into the process, so, it is said, the political, process more accurately reflects the preferences of society than does a "rational technique". Many of the "rational" techiques (such as policy engineering) take the values of society as givens, and seek the alternative which best promotes those values. Cost-benefit analysis uses dollars as measures of value, and in this is an implicit assumption that society prefe-r. an increase in the GNP to no increase, so orders alternatives according to their benefits in terms of dollars. Decision analysis uses whatever values the decision maker assigns. These could be societal values, which have been aggregated by some social choice 17 mechanism, or they could be the decision maker's personal values.
What do we mean by "rational" policy choices? One thing we mean is that a policy is chosen when other ones could have been— that there was a choice. There are several other criteria which also might be applied to determine the rationality of an choice. The most primitive level is
17 'For a more complete discussion of the two sides see Charles Lindblom [1976] ; and Yezekhel Dror [1978]. 23 simply "appropriateness" - a policy should be a reasonable response to the problem, in that there are good reasons for it. Sending grain to
Afghanistan— to choose a wild example— is clearly not a reasonable
(appropriate) policy in response to a water shortage in Arizona. To be rational at this level, the policy must have some connection to the problem, it should be an appropriate solution. In this sense "rational" means, only that the policy choice is understandable given the decision maker's perception of the problem.
Most theories of rationality have stronger assumptions however.
One such rationality assumptions is transitivity. For transitivity requirements (of revealed preferences) to be met, the actor who prefers
A to B and B to C would have to also prefer A to C. The choice of B or
C would be inconsistent with the preference ordering (involve intransitive preferences). Because feasibility, cost, and political constraints do affect policy decisions, the rationality of a policy decision cannot be determined simply by comparing preferences to choices however.
If all choices were made under the conditions stipulated by
"perfect rationality", choices would be much simpler. By "perfect rationality", I mean making decisions under the following conditions: complete information about all alternatives and outcomes, a transitive preference ordering, and an actor who chooses out of self-interest
(selects the alternative which she most prefers of all those known to her). The optimal— or optimum— alternative would be selected. The 24 optimal choice is one which could not be bettered. A slightly lesser principle would be that the alternative which is optimum is selected— any other alternative would be less good. "Perfect rationality" probably does not exist, however. As Watkins notes, people often cannot even compare alternatives (1968, p. 167). Comparisons between ice cream and artichokes may be such an example. They entail different attributes, so comparabiity, and therefore transitivity does not exist.
Because people cannot order all alternatives, or even know all of them, they actually make choices, either by "satisficing", as Herbert Simon suggests (Simon, 1980), or they select from a rather limited set of alternatives. A perfect example is that of marriage. No one examines all possible spouses (all living single members of the opposite sex).
Neither does one select a person who meets every criteria (except for those bachelors among us who are still looking for the perfect mate).
One "satisfices". We set minimum criteria and marry the person we meet who satisfies our minimum standards. This weaker form of rationality
(inperfect rationality in Watkins terms) requires only that the actor will act in a way thatis "appropriate to his aims and situational appraisal (Watkins, 1970: 172).
As choices are made neither with full knowledge of alternatives, nor of the consequences of actions, decisions are often very complicated. They are often made under conditions of risk or uncertainty, and preferences cannot be simply ordered. Von Neumann and
Morgenstern (1947) addressed this problem in their theory of choice 25 behavior. They represented preferences by a utility function, and incorporated conditions of risk or uncertainty into calculations of
"expected" utility. In their definition a rational choice would be one which maximized expected utility (Thorson, 1976).^®
I have been talking primarily about assumptions of individual rationality. In the policy arena, it is more often "collective" rationality which must concern us. In a liberal democracy such as ours, it is implicitly assumed that policy choices should reflect the preferences of the society. This requires some form of aggregation procedure, whether it is simply the political process, public opinion data, or any of a variety of methods. It is also true, however, that there is seldom only one decision maker for any particular policy issue.
There can be many actors, each with his own goals and preferences. A very different ordering of expected utilities could exist for each
1 9 actor. ^ The choice which is finally made could be one in which each participant acted rationally, in the sense of maximizing expected utility, but the collective action itself was not rational— it would not
1ft loFor national policy issues, it is expected that the utility is that of society. Determination of the utility for society— a social welfare function— is not an easy task. These are assumptions of rational choice theory as used by economists, but they have been used also by political scientists. See Kenneth Arrow, Stuart Thorson, and Alfred Mackay for more on this (Arrow, 1963, Thorson, 1976, MacKay, 1980)
19 ■'This is not Arrow s representation of choices. Utility functions are not required— they simply make comparisons easier when there, exists risk or uncertainty. 26 have been an action taken by any of the participants using even weak rationality criteria i.e., transitivity. (See Cyert and March (1963), and Olson (1971), for a better discussion of this problem.)
For research on the policy process itself, questions of collective rationality are very important. My objective is, however, to explain the actions of individual actors with regard to policy situations. The levels at which rationality of choice can be examined remain the same, but the focus differs. The actor could choose an action which he considered to be the best for society, or for himself. He also chooses the technique with which to select a policy. As techniques can constrain the set of alternatives which are considered (to alternatives which consider only dollar benefits and costs, for example) the choice of technique is an important one.
All of these questions of rationality can be addressed in the following example of Congressional decision making about the Tellico Dam project in Tennessee. This project was first proposed in the early
1970's, and the debate discussed here took place in the late 1970's.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which proposed the project and would be responsible for implementation, has traditionally used the technique of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to determine whether a policy should be adopted. The Corps is responsible for flood control and navigation projects in the United States, and has a budget which is determined in part by the projects which are funded. As an agency, the Corps maximizes its utility by increasing the number of projects for which 27 they obtain funding. To justify their requests, they must establish that a project will provide more benefits than costs in terms of contribution to the GNP. Cost-benefit analysis is the technique normally used. If the benefit to cost ratio is greater than 1/1, the choice for the Corps is to implement (This is not necessarily the choice of the funders however). One of the assumptions of cost-benefit analysis is that the calculation of costs and benefits provides an aggregation of societal preferences, and so reflects the preferences of that society ( so proponents of CBA claim). In the case of Tellico Dam, however, the decision, allegedly founded on CBA results, seems less 21 rational.
A cost-benefit analysis was completed in the 1970's which showed the project to be only marginally beneficial (1.03/1.00 benefits to cost
20por a discussion of the objectives and attitudes of the Army Corps of Engineers, see Mazmanian and Nienaber (1979).
^Stokey and Zeckhauser (1978), go into much greater detail on cost- benefit analysis than is feasible or interesting to do here. CBA, as well as decision analysis, linear programming, and simulations of various types are all models, which allow one to examine the important issues and relationships for a decision. CBA requires that the costs and benefits be translated into dollar figures while other methods allow other forms of quantification. The costs of a project are compared to the benefits, and the benefits must be greater than the costs for the project to be implemented. Species, historic sites, and other intangibles can be assigned values through shadow pricing, but the values assigned are always controversial and they reflect the bias of the analyst. What CBA assumes is that everything can be evaluated (and should be evaluated) in terms of its usefulness to humans, and that even human lives have an assignable value, based upon their value to others. 28 ratio). (Cook, 1977) Using factors which could easily he expressed in dollars (labor costs, materials, kilowatts of electricity, tourist dollars) CBA gave evidence of almost no benefit. The Corps decision to propose the project could be considered rational because their criteria were met. However, CBA was unable to compute a value for the snail darter, a very small, almost extinct fish which was thought to live only in the waters immediately below the proposed dam. The fish had no commercial value, so, according to CBA, the fish had no value. Other considerations, such as the destruction of an ancient Indian village, and the actual need for either the electricitiy or the lake were
AA simiarly ignored in this analysis (Cook, 1977).
The Army Corps of Engineers might have been "rational" in its attempt to gain funding for another project despite its lack of benefits. Even the decision to leave out important costs might be
"rational", given their goal. The rationality of a technique like CBA which considers only a limited type of factors, is at best however,
"imperfect" rationality.^
Congress, which was given the CBA results, also was given information about the snail darter through a series of court actions.
Op “ Cost-benefit analysis has problems with values, amenities, and even the consideration of future generations. The problems with Tellico were not unique in that sense.
^ S e e Elster (1979) for a discussion of binding behaviors and imperfect rationality. 29 Opponents of the project succeeded in delaying the project, and a CBA done by the opponents provided sufficient information that the actual benefit-cost ratio was less than 1/1 (The benefits had been overestimated by the original analysis). This additional information indicated that the "societal" preference should be to reject the project, because no increase to GNP would occur if the project were implemented. (Cahn, 1979a)
However, the Tellico Dam project was approved by Congress. Was that a "rational" choice? Not for society, perhaps, but for the individual choosers (in this case, Congressmen) that is less clear.
Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee (home of Tellico and many other water projects) added the Tellico authorization to an appropriation bill as a rider, had another Senator propose dispensing with a reading of the bill, and obtained a favorable vote from colleagues who were completely unaware that Tellico was even being considered. Because each Senator wanted to go home (it was close to the end of the session) he chose to vote on a bill without reading it. Individual actors may have maximized their expected utility at the expense of society (Cahn, 1979b).
Under what criteria could the Tellico decision be termed rational?
Is it an appropriate solution, given the problem and the context? Is it the most preferred of the policy choices (which in this case might only be to build or not to build)? Does it provide more benefits than costs
(the CBA version of "preferred by society")? For each question, the answer for society is NO. Only if society prefers more water projects 30 to fewer ones, is Tellico a "rational" choice. Tellico would probably not he a "rational" choice even for proponents of "political rationality"— that form of rationality which Lindblom, Diesing and others claim to be the only valid criterion for the political process.
Because a trick was played which prevented debate on the Tellico amendment which finally passed (Congressmen did not even know that the rider concerning Tellico existed because the bill was not read.) the political process did not effectively serve as an evaluator of the 25 policy. J
Even if the Tellico project had been approved through a selection of the alternative which would maximize utility for society— the
2^Por an alternative to be politically rational it must yield a ratio of l/l or greater for the following equation:
# of supporters X their power
# of opponents X their power
(Wildavsky, 1966: 307)*
If the supporters of a policy carry more weight in the political process, their policy wins. The assumption here, is that the preferences of society are reflected in the makeup of the government. Therefore, a policy which makes it through the political process is one which is desired by society.
25 'This is not to argue that the political process is irrational. I merely contend that the political process was subverted in this instance so that even a "politically rational" choice could not be made. See Pierce and Doerksen (1976) for a discussion of water projects and public interests. definition of rationality being used here— the question of rationality would not have been resolved.
An assumption used in evaluating the project was that society's utility is maximized by the alternative which contributes most to the
GNP. It can be asked, is the choice of that goal/objective— maximization of GNP— a rational choice? This assumes of course, that it is a societal end/objective. The rationality of a choice at the level of the Tellico decision could be undermined by the judgement that the objectives behind that choice are irrationally held.
The primary objective under discussion with regard to Tellico is economic growth (GNP is a measure of economic growth). However, there is a great deal of conflict over that particular goal. Although opponents of Tellico can argue convincingly that Tellico does not contribute in any way to economic growth, there are still other opponents who contend that economic growth is an "irrationally held" goal.
Every policy choice reflects some judgement of value. Objectives determine what measurement of utility is most appropriate. If, for example, unsurpassed military strength is an objective (goal) of the society, utility would have to measured in weapons and armies which the alternative provided. Using contribution to GNP as a measure of utility reflects the opinion that economic growth is an objective of society.
Fischer's level of validation asks whether the policy is consistent with the goals of society. If it is not, it should not be adopted. This 32 debate should occur within the political process. Next, however, one can legitimately ask whether the goals society holds are "rational" ones. Are they goals which society prefers to the other possible goals which could have been chosen? Do they maximize societal "utility"? To determine the "rationality" of a particular choice of goals, a decision tree could be used, such as that in Figure 1).
The relevant attributes are selected by the decision maker, but some examples here would be (1) number of jobs produced, (2) conservation of resources, (3) preservation of a diversity of life forms, or (4) quality of life. These are difficult to measure, but utility theory provides a method for assigning value (For a full discussion of utility theory and decison trees, see Keeney and Raiffa
(1976).) The value with the highest expected utility in terms of all relevant attributes would be the rational choice.
Goals are, of course, not selected this way. This is true partly because an evaluation of such attributes as quality of life depends upon the beliefs and preferences of the participants. For one member of society, a large number of material possessions may represent a high quality of life, while the availability of wilderness areas may be the most important component of "quality of life" for another. A rational objective for society would be one which reflected the attitudes which the society held. As Arrow has demonstrated, however, there is no way to aggregate societal preferences while meeting several normatively innocuous criteria— unrestricted scope, independence of irrelevant Figure 1: Hypothetical Decision Tree for Choosing Societal Economic Goal.
(.30) better econ. (+5>+5,+5)*
(.50) same econ. (+5, 0.+5)
Steady- (.2 0 ) worse econ. ( 0.-U.+5)
State Economy (.10) better econ (+5,+5,-5)
Economic (.70) same econ. (+2,+2,-5) Growth
(.20) worse econ. (-U.-5.-5)
* These scores are hypothetical scores, representing utilities. The first score represents "quality of life", the second is for "Jobs", and the third is "diversity of species". This is not meant to be an accurate representation of Decision Analysis or Utility Theory. 54 alternatives, nondictatorship and Pareto principle (MacKay, 1980:
103- 104).26
The choice of institutional structure constrains the set of policy choices to those which meet the criteria for that structure. Similarly, the goals of the actor (either individual or collective) limit the choices to those which are directed toward achievement of that goal.
Beliefs— about the relationship of goals to preferences— constrain the set of goals which can be considered.
Actions (choices) are made from an alternative set which reflects goals and preferences. A goal is "chosen" (if it i£ in fact chosen) because of a belief that the goal reflects one's preferences in some meaningful way. What then can we say about the "rationality" of those beliefs?
26 Note however, that Arrow discusses a narrow set of aggregation procedures— within the realm of microeconomic empirical and normative assumptions. Other aggregation procedures (including our present political process) are certainly possible, and in fact do exist, although they do not satisfy the normative criteria. Chapter 3
nationality and Belief
We have been examining what Jarvie and Agassi call "weak" rationality— that of action.^ Rationality of action is often problemmatic. The debate over the choice of policy analysis versus incrementalism has never been resolved. Techniques, which allegedly are rational because they order preferences according to some measure of utility, leave out important considerations. The goals policies are designed to achieve may be irrational, thus undermining the policies themselves. Actions which seem rational from one perspective seem totally "irrational" from another. There are so many problems with determining rationality with regard to action, is it possible to ever determine the existence of "strong" rationality— that based upon rationally held beliefs?
Selection of the technique, the policy, the goals, and even the process can, at least hypothetically, be done. Beliefs, however, seem more difficult to assess. Beliefs about the consequences of certain
^^Jarvie and Agassi have defined weak rationality as that which consists in a person acting rationally; and strong rationality as that which consists in persons acting rationally on the basis of rationally held beliefs (jarvie, 1970).
35 actions often provide the reasons for actions. There is no logical connection however, between belief and action. One might "believe" that pushing an open door will close it, but along with that belief there must also be a preference (pro attitude) for a closed door (or a belief that a closed door is desirable). Beliefs then underlie actions. They pQ provide the reasons which can be the "causes" of actions. One chooses economic growth over a steady-state economy because she believes that economic growth will allow people to improve their lives in some way.
Because she "values" (prefers) a society which allows individual lifestyle mobility, the belief that economic growth contributes to this
"desired" type of society makes the choice of economic growth a rational one— if consistency can be considered a valid criterion for rationality.
Beliefs about the world have been debated for many years, with the only conclusion reached being the observation that the ability to accept certain statements as "facts" is related to those beliefs about the world. These beliefs reflect an ontology held by the actor. Debates over economic growth versus steady-state have a similar problem of beliefs "coloring" the facts about each goal.
Values (preferences) fall into the crack between beliefs and actions. One values individualism, for example, as much because he believes it is good, as because there is evidence that individualism
See Davidson (1968) for a discussion of actions and causes which examines the relationship of reasons to actions. 37 leads to economic growth. Such values, as those which form our ethical principles seem to fall into this area also. For some, ethics are used as a guide for behavior because the expected consequences are better for those behaviors (perhaps a "heavenly" reward is one consequence, but simply a better society is another). These teleologists can make decisions about such controversial issues as abortion, by determining the expected societal, or perhaps even individual, benefits from each course (in a manner perhaps similar to decision trees), and selecting the "best" alternative. Other ethical actors, however, hold their principles from a belief that those actions are "good", regardless of their consequences. Killing is always wrong, for example, so those holding an "ontological" position contend that one does not kill, even if killing one person will save another (this is, of course, an exaggeration. There are many variations of both positions, and even some very different ones— emotivism, for example. See Stevenson,(1944))
Because teleological principles are determined in a "rational" manner, they can be evaluated on that basis as easily as other actions.
The ethical principles which influence behavior, but are just deeply held beliefs are much more difficult to examine. Ve must, it seems, fall back on less strict criteria of evaluation than rational choice.
How do we establish the rationality of those . beliefs which determine what "facts" are acceptable to us? If the acceptance of certain facts has a connection with actions, the rationality of beliefs is an important issue. The rationality of action may be— in that case— 38 somewhat dependent on the rationality of the underlying beliefs.
The rationality of actions is not always easy to establish. The rationality of goals is likewise difficult to establish. But there are beliefs which seem to be not even amenable to such discussions. Why do we believe, for example, that resources should be exploited— either for individual gain or societal gain? Do we choose our beliefs, or are they simply "there" as subconscious determiners of our actions?
One person who has addressed this question in an interesting way is
Jon Elster (1979). In Ulysses and the Sirens, Elster asks whether one can choose to believe, but concludes that " 'belief' is a very particular kind of action, in that it cannot be performed just on the will's saying so (Elster, 1979b: 52)." The "decision" to choose is not the same action as "believing". It is possible, according to Elster, to
"set up a series of actions that will have the predictable result of
(one's) coming to believe". This is comparable to "acting as if one believes" in order to generate the real thing (Elster, 1979b: 48-52).
In the example of religion, it is only the "utility" of believing which
Pascal was able to establish. Although a person could act in ways which could lead to a belief, there is no action which can guarantee that the belief will occur. As Elster notes, the best way to choose to believe, and to then believe, is to will oneself to forget that he had made the
"choice" to believe. In that way the belief would exist in a form similar to all other beliefs. Such elaborate strategies do not convincingly resolve the issue of rationality of belief however. 39 One might assess the rationality of "choosing a belief" through the use of some tehcnique, such as the decision tree below.
If she can will herself to believe, we might argue that the failure of someone to believe was an irrational decision. If, however, we have no "Real" choice in the matter of our beliefs, some other criteria should be applied.
Rather than requiring that a belief have greater utility than another, it might be sufficient to establish that the holder of any particular belief has good reasons for holding it. Pacts are considered to be good reasons, but what counts as a fact is not always agreed upon.
Miraculous cures provide evidence of the existence of God, for example.
To a believer, a miracle would be a fact that provides sufficient reason for believing in God. To a non-believer, no "alleged" miracle would provide sufficient reason for believing. The "Pacts" which might be used to evaluate the truth of a belief are simply not the kind of empirical evidence which would dissuade a firm believer.
A comparison of cultures runs into the same problem. The "fact" that souls are contained in wooden boxes is accepted by one tribe, but is certainly not accepted by western cultures. The "fact" that unbaptized babies reside in "limbo" is accepted by American Catholics,
^®As Hume noted with regard to Christianity, "it not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity (Hume, 1982: 131). 40 Figure 2: Decision Tree for Beliefs
29
(.50) True (+5,+3)*
(.50) False ( 0,+3) Belief
(.50) True ( 0,+5) . No Belief (.50) False (-5,+5)
* Utilities here are 1. eternal life 2. life style The utilities are scored from -5 to +5* This tree is not intended to accurately represent utility functions.
OQ ^Again, the tree is completely hypothetical, and does not accurately represent a decision analysis project. 41 but not by American Protestants. If facts are statements whose truth is undisputed by the holders of underlying beliefs, then these qualify.
Plantinga, however, argues that truth is an inadequate criterion for evaluating rationality of beliefs. Because truth on some levels is impossible to ascertain (it may well exist, but is unknowable now), it cannot serve as a good reason for either accepting or rejecting a belief. Eather, he contends that a belief held with no good evidence against it is rationally held (Plantinga, 1979).
Lacking evidence of irrefutable truth, a simpler criterion is falsification. If a belief can be proven false, it might be considered irrational to hold that belief. If not, it seems rational to continue holding that belief. Although we cannot prove the worth of either steady-state or growth economies, it is possible to prove either belief false. When it is demonstrated that economic growth does not lead to a better standard of living (if that can be done), the belief that economic growth does lead to a better standard of living is falsified.
How do we falsify a belief in God however? If we prove that an act ascribed to God was actually caused by some natural phenomena, does that falsify the belief in God? Certainly not in the eyes of believers.
They might counter that God created the earth and natural phenomena are expression of His will, or even that we are incorrect in attributing the events to natural causes. I feel certain that any evidence against God would be cited as an expression of His will. What about revelation as a source of information? If revelation tells us there is no God, the 42 source of the revelation must be a force greater than ourselves. Some would argue that that source itself was God, so we would be in the paradoxical situation of believing a source which told us not to believe. In the case of such deeply held belief as religious ones,
Wittgenstein has argued that evidence which would be sufficient for scientific proof would be insufficient. He contends that such beliefs are outside the realm of rationality (Smith, 1979s 52), and cannot be evaluated in this manner.
Perhaps another criterion would allow us to determine rationality of beliefs however. Probably the simplest criterion which could be found would be consistency. If one belief is consistent with the person's other beliefs and actions, so that intransitivities do not occur, it is rational. If actions are consistent with beliefs, a low level of rationality can be ascribed to them. The action must be shown to be consistent with the beliefs and perceptions of the actor. One can then explain how a project like Tellico was adopted without terming any of the actors "irrational". One knows that Howard Baker likes to be re elected, and that re-election depends to some extent on the number of jobs, and the economic benefits he can bring to Tennessee. Tellico did bring construction jobs into Tennessee for a short while, so it provided benefits to Baker. As other members of Congress were not even aware that they were voting on it, their actions were not irrational. They were in a hurry to leave for vacation, and found the time spent on reading legislation to be too costly for them. 43 These statements are probably not the deepest beliefs most people hold, but there is a class of beliefs which are so important to the higher beliefs, values, and actions that they cannot be ignored.
Everything else depends upon acceptance of these beliefs. ¥. K.
Clifford and Alvin Plantinga refer to such beliefs as "foundational"
(Plantinga, 1979, Clifford, 1879). Clifford defines such beliefs as those which are "self-evident and incorrigible for that person"
(Clifford, 1879: 10). These beliefs are simply "known" immediately.
Although we can know nothing for certain (sights, sounds, and smells could be nothing more than illusion), foundational beliefs are those which are held so deeply that their truth cannot be questioned by the holder. The belief in God seems to be such a case.
For a person to believe in something's existence— God, demons— that entity must inhabit her world. Beliefs may entail many things— that God is merciful, that God wants people to act in certain ways— but all of these depend upon the existence of a God entity. An ontology in which a
God entity exists can be connected to many different beliefs. For example, Mormons, Catholics, Jews and Moslems who "believe" in God hold ontologies in which God exists. Their beliefs about God are, however, very different.
It might be possible to falsify a belief in God, by convincing the believer, for example, that her belief was actually in an entity which was not a God. Perhaps scientific information which proved to a primitive tribe that lightning was a natural act would convince them 44 that their belief (that lightning was a God) was false. That does not mean that God no longer exists, only that that belief about God is now believed to be false.
Those beliefs which Plantinga calls "foundational" beliefs, seem to be beliefs about the existence of certain entities— God, Truth, "Good".
If such beliefs are the premises upon which people make decisions, or form opinions, a rationality criterion of transitivity would require that every other belief the person holds must be cognitively consistent with the foundational beliefs. A person who believe in God and who also dislikes another race of people, for example, often justifies his dislike by quoting scripture. Even economic growth has been justified in terms of Christian religion.These beliefs can only be "rational" if they are consistent with the person's ontology. To believe in an entity which, for the believer, does not exist is irrational.
The existence of purgatory, limbo, hell, souls, or God could be an ontology. There is no known way to distinguish between a person's beliefs about existence and her ontology. The ontology could be one which allows for beliefs in these entities, or the entities could be part of the ontology. One strives to avoid hell or attain heaven only if he believes it exists. For that belief to be rational, some entity must exist which makes that belief plausible.
^ A television interview with citizens in Columbus regarding the recession of 1981 produced the comment, "God put us here to make money". Although much of this discussion has centered on the existence of, and belief in God, God is not the only entity which can populate a person's world. For a person to believe that he is separate from non human nature, at least two different entities must inhabit his world.
For some, one entity might be souls; for another intelligent, reasoning entities could exist apart from non-reasoning entities. To some, God and nature are synonymous (pantheists, for example). "What is" for each person is her ontology. As John Smith argued that discussions of God should be ontological, so I argue that discussions of the human-nature relationships are ontological. These commitments to a particular form of existence serve as the basis for other beliefs, values, and actions.
They are as beyond evaluation as is the belief in God.
Rousseau's "noble savage", living a natural life as do all animals, is just one expression of a commitment to the oneness of living creatures. Pantheism, in which all objects have spirits, is another expression of this commitment. Even St. Francis of Assissi, who saw everything as an expression of God's love, was similarly committed to the oneness of creation (one assumes that a non-created entity, i.e.,
God also existed for him.)
There are several versions of oneness, but this is not the only human-nature commitment possible. Christianity has been "blamed"
(White, 1973) for creating a division between humans and non-human nature which has led to an arrogant attitude toward nature (See also,
Ehrenfield (1981) ). In the following chapters, I will provide some evidence for the existence of different ontological commitments, both in the past and the present, and will establish a relationship between these commitments and environmental attitudes which have a strong affect on policy actions. Chapter 4
Historical distinctions
Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine--
The advent of civilization predated the rise of institutions designed to govern its products and wealth. Tribes gave way to super tribes, super tribes to states, and states to super states. Nationalism grew apace, and with nationalism the typical refrain of Kipling— dominion over palm and pine became the standard of Christian civilization, and the subsequent rape of nature in the name of God and country a disguise for greed.
The recent research on environmentalism, by Stephen Cotgrove
(1982), Lester Milbrath (1983), and Timothy O'Riordan (1982) concludes that the environmental movement is evidence of a "changing social paradigm" in which environmental values play an important role. They may be correct in their judgement that the "dominant" old social paradigm of individualism, human domination over non-human nature, and
Lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Recessional". It was first published in the London Times in July, 1897. 47 48 free enterprise, is losing out, but the ontological core (of man existing as a separate entity) still apparently exists.^ The differences in ontological commitments are not at all new. At least two major ontological positions have existed throughout known history, one
in which all of creation forms a single entity, and a second in which at least two separate entities exist— humans and another type of existence.
The Deep Ecology movement-^ in the U.S. has its roots in ancient history. Eastern people have always accepted the humble role of being a part of nature. To them, humans were— and are— an "integral part of the cosmos with its seasons and changes" (Hendry, 1980: 198). Eric Ashby
contends that civilization brought the sense of superiority, and that
primitive societies have recognized "intuitively" that humans and the
environment are indivisible (Ashby, 1978: 4).
Although historians under the leadership of Lynn White Jr. (White,
1967) have accused the Judaeo-Christian religions of teaching an
arrogance toward nature, such an attitude also existed in other parts of
the world and before Christianity. The Greeks may have been the first
to articulate a belief that humans were somehow different from other
forms of creation. Clarence Glacken suggests that the Greek mythical
(Cotgrove, 1982), (Milbrath, 1983), and , (O'Riordan, 1982), use basically the same distinctions between the dominant social paradigm of modern capitalism and a new paradigm of environmental reform.
•^Arlo Guthrie once called four people singing together a movement ("Alice's Restaurant"), and there are at least four Deep Ecologists. 49 figure Prometheus, who stole fire and mechanical arts from the god3, may have been an early attempt to explain the differences between humans and other aspects of nature in terms of possession of qualities and skills derived from gods (Glacken, 1967: 41)• Later examples of this attitude are found in the writings of the Stoics. According to Chrysippus, "all things in this world which man uses have been created and provided for him" (Glacken, 1967: 56). Even Aristotle, in Politica argued, "Now if
Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man" (Glacken, 1967:
47).
Although it is difficult to discern a difference between ontological distinctions and simple beliefs regarding human roles, this difference is important. Ontology is what is— the entities which populate a person's world. Some religious scholars tell us that belief in God is not necessary for His existence. He simply is. A belief in an entity presupposes that entity's existence, although that existence does not necessarily commit one to a belief in that entity.
Religion has traditionally been the force which gave both ontological explanations as well as ethical injunctions. For that reason, many of the references in this chapter are religious.
Ontological commitments are the bases though for political activity as well.
In the nineteenth century, for example, Fourier, Saint-Simon, and other Utopian Socialists made explicit efforts to obtain a general 50 recognition of the distinction between nan and animals; and of man's lordship over inferior species. Their aim was to replace the exploitation of man by man with exploitation of nature by man (Thomas,
1985: 50).
There are no clear patterns in history which allow us to say that humans before 400 B.C. accepted a oneness to the universe while humans after 100 A.D. separated humans from nature. Instead, both beliefs seem to have existed through most of history. "Ideal types''^ can at least be traced.
In order to demonstrate the relationship between ontology and policy positions, an understanding of the categorizations which seem to evolve from the ontological commitments is important. The ontology is just the objects which exist. Beliefs, relationships, and even ethical principles can develop because certain entities exist. Although belief in the existence of "truth", "goodness", or even "purgatory" does not require that those exist as entities, the existence of some entity which allows these beliefs to exist is imperative.
^ 1 am using Max Weber's definition of "ideal type" here (Weber, 1968a).
An ideal type is formed by one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena. 4.1 Oneness
The commitment to the oneness (interconnectedness) of the universe does not obviate religious belief. One belief is the existence of a
"purpose” or design in nature. For some, that purpose is individual salvation; for others it is fulfilling a role in a larger entity.
Taoism praises harmony as its central theme. There is no personal salvation, nor is there a personal God. "Shangte", the Chinese "God", is never described in human form or credited with human emotions. Lao-
Tzu described God as "nothing but an abstract infinite, out of which all things came, to which all things must return... All things come into being for a set purpose and lasting a given time, become old, and return whence they came" (Underwood, 1910: 24-25). For Taoists there is no belief in an ability to conquer nature, but instead there exists a requirement for moderation. Humans must not "drill wells", overuse the land, overeat, use alcohol, or eat "not in accord with the seasons".
Taoism is a way of life which requires its adherents to fit their lives into the design which exists (Taoism, 1979)•
Taoists talk of circulation— the idea of a continuing flow in which all parts come from one source, serve their purpose, and return to that source. Humans are not distinguished from other creatures even though its adherents are all humans, and individualism does not seem to exist.
According to The Wisdom of Laotse, humanity, justice, and the accoutrements of civilization such as government are not part of the design of nature (Laotse, 1948). Humans have a duty to give everyone 52 the place which fits them, and to accept that place when assigned.
Efforts to change— to progress— are not met with favor. According to
Laotse, "When a gentleman is unavoidably compelled to take charge of the government of the Empire, there is nothing better than inaction.
Efforts to provide "justice" or to better man's position are, according to eastern thought, at odds with the requirement of central harmony.
Although this belief in harmony, oneness, and human insignificance is found in Taoism, Easterners are not alone in these views. Thoreau and Emerson are perhaps the best known Western nature lovers, but one of the staunchest proponents of harmony was Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy, most notably in Resurrection, urged repudiation of civilization and technology (Sibley, 1977: 54). Life should reflect the values of proximity to nature— in particular, the soil. He opposed division of labor, for example, as being unnatural. Tolstoy has been called the first ecologist by some because he urged a return to a lifestyle more in tune- with the natural order. Although a professed Christian, Tolstoy's version of Christianity appears to have extended to other forms of life.
His writings show "the acceptance of a chain of being extending from brute matter to the stars"— all matter emerging from the cosmos and eventually there returning (Tuan, 1974: 49)* Another writer with a similar view of nature was Bertrand Russell.
Russell, in History of Western Philosophy condemned the anthropocentrism of modern man. "Since Copernicus it has been evident that man has not the cosmic importance which he formerly arrogated" 53
(Russell, 1945).
Sociobiological literature which attempts to explain man's behavior, puts it into the context of his "nature". This often leads to positions regarding man's necessary relationship to nature. If humans are, as Mary Midgely, Trivers, Russell and others claim, animals who deal with nature in terms of their own needs, their health and happiness depend upon a certain relationship with nature (Midgely, 1978, Trivers,
1978, Russell, 1945)* The sociobiology literature places man within the animal world, and thus implicitly promotes a view of "oneness".
Many American Indians shared the ontological commitment to one divine entity. The earth and all living creatures were "brothers" as the same spirit flowed through all. In Black Elk Speaks, John Neihardt presented the philosophy of one American Indian whose views derived from a sense of oneness with the world around him. Black Elk spoke of visions in which he, the wind, and the earth shared experiences
(Neihardt, 1961). According to Navaho and Zuni beliefs, the sense of
"sacred power" is widely diffused among humans, animals, places, and mythical beings (Tuan, 1974: 69).
More recently, the biological sciences have produced a growing number of people convinced of the oneness of existence. I refer not to the writers who bemoan the loss of beautiful scenery, but to those who see a necessary and natural connection among all parts of the universe.
Farley Mowat in Never Cry Wolf provides one such example. (Mowat, 1963)
A biologist is sent to the Alaska wilderness to obtain evidence that 54 wolves are destroying the caribou herds. Instead he discovers that humans are the destroyers and that wolves are a necessary part of the ecosystem. They weed out weak caribou, but live mostly on mice— which apparently would take over Alaska without their intervention. Human hunters, however, kill wolves, caribou, and anything else within reach of their weapons. In the end, the biologist elects to stay in Alaska with the old Eskimo who shares his understanding, and love of, nature
(Mowat, 1963)*
Mowat writes fiction. But not all such writings are fiction. Aldo
Leopold wrote deeply moving essays about the biotic community, and his personal relationship with non-human entities (Leopold, 1949)* E.F.
Schumacher was another writer of non-fiction which described the oneness of the earth (Schumacher, 1973); as were Stephen Clark (Clark, 1977) and
John Rodman (Rodman, 1977)* These authors stressed the interconnectedness of all living things, and the evils of a belief that humans can conquer nature. William Devall, the founder of EarthFirst! and author of several articles on Deep Ecology, is now one of the best living such spokespersons.
Although Lynn White's contention that Judaism and Christianity have been responsible for the separation of man from nature, oneness is a basic belief for many adherents to these religions. Many Hebrew writings place humans within nature rather than above it. Man is to be 55 the "steward" of nature— its servant. According to Rabbi David Huber-^ in orthodox Jewish literature, the word domination is not used. The fall of mankind (eating from the Tree of Knowledge), according to some interpretations, placed mankind within nature rather than above i t . ^
Those committed to Oneness, share several attributes. One is a disdain for civilization and its trappings. None are very concerned with political matters, nor are they social activists. As Laotse argued, one must fit into his natural role. Efforts to grow more food in order to feed the world's hungry only disrupt the natural system.
All of man's attempts to change the world are harmful rather than helpful. Preservation of an important species may be a goal for ecologists, but preservation of any one life is not. Preservation of flora is as important as preservation of fauna, and even mountains, rivers, and other natural formations are worthy of respect— as equal partners in the "one" system. For this reason, one would expect to find a vague opposition to technology, economic growth, politics; and a lack of concern for social issues. If all lived in harmony with nature, life
^^Rabbi Huber is the Rabbi at Beth Tikvah in Columbus, Ohio. In an interview on November 20, 1983, he discussed the way in which he believes the scriptures are presented to many, not all, Jewish congregations.
^This same view was expressed by one of the respondents to my interviews. This respondent is a "born again" Christian, but his views are very similar to those expressed by people committed to "oneness". 56 would be better for all the earth.
In addition, individualism is contradictory to the commitment to one entity. A belief that the system can be dissected, or reduced to
its individual parts implies an ability of each part to stand alone.
Those committed to "Oneness" are likely to concur with W.H. Thorpe in his commitment to emergence theory— the whole is greater than the sum of
the parts (Thorpe, 1974: 361).
The "ideal" acceptor of apartness, who I call a Deep Ecologist, has has a primary attitude, an acceptance of the oneness of existence. He values harmony and does not value individualism. Economic growth is not a value to him, and is, in fact, generally not even a factor to be considered during decision-making. Government is generally not liked, but the form it takes is unimportant.
4*2 Apartness
The view that humans are but one species among many— a microcoosm in the ecosystem— is not commonly held. Although many people have found beauty, peace, or even salvation in nature, they also see a nature which exists separately from humans. Accepting the existence of humans as
separate (and dominant) entities allows a belief to develop that humans can use other objects as they please (I do not contend that this belief must develop from that ontology, only that it can.). Xenophon used
Socrates to explain that animals are produced and nourished for the sake of man, the sun provides light and nourishes crops for man, water 57 provides refreshment, and man tames animals for other uses. (Glacken,
1967: 42-43) Lucretius, a poet of ancient Greece (around 1 B.C.), also believed that man had the power to reshape the earth for his own needs.
Early Greek thought placed man apart from the rest of creation, but did not consider humans to be the same type of entity as God.
Everything else existed for humans, but they were not yet God. Although some people could become gods, this was not normal. It took
Christianity to put humans into God's image, and to give them dominion over all the earth.
4.2.1 By Spirit
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them... (Genesis 1:26-28)
What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; (Psalms Till:6-8)
In the Biblical version, humans are God-like due to their creation in God's image. Of course, the clearest example of this is the deification of Jesus by Christians. Some sects believe that Jesus was born man and became God while others contend that Jesus was a God which became man. Nevertheless, all Christian sects, by definition, believe 58 in the divinity of Jesus. Christians are not the only people to deify a great leader, or to imbue themselves with Godlike qualities. Prometheus gave man skills which were stolen from the Gods, and other Greek and
Roman characters were reputed to be children of Gods. Even Alexander the Great was reputed to have been fathered by Zeus (Glacken, 1967).
In The Domination of Nature, William Leiss examined the roots of the belief in human apartness from nature. One source was the belief in
Spirit. As he noted, ancient cultures almost universally believed that natural objects and/or places possessed spirits. He contends that
Judaism differed in its belief in a spirit— "Separate from nature and ruled over it from without", and in its teaching that man shared God's transcendence over nature— "Only man of all earthly things possessed spirit" (Leiss, 1972: 30).
Although possession of spirit does not necessarily imply apartness from elements lacking spirit, many Christian religions take the concept further. Ascendence of the spirit to heaven separates humans from those elements which exist only on earth, for example. Heber C. Kimball, a member of the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, explained,
When we escape from this earth, we suppose we are going to heaven...You will never leave it until you become qualified and capable and capacitated to become a father of an earth yourselves (Ludlow, 1976: 225).
The tone of Kimball’s remarks indicates a definite separation of man from earth— at least at the time when one can become a lord himself.
According to Keith Thomas (1983), the country-house poems of early 59 seventeenth century England portrayed animals as finding their
fulfillment in being eaten by man. Until the 19th century (some might
say even later than that), some humans were believed to be animals while
others were a separate type of entity. Slaves and beggars are the
clearest examples of this distinction. Slaves, 'colored' races,
beggars, and even women were often considered to be creatures incapable
of normal human feelings. A qualitative difference between humans and
other species was generally accepted in Tudor and Stuart century
England:
A transcendent God outside his creation, symbolized the separation between Spirit and nature. Man stood to animal as did heaven to earth (Thomas, 1985: 55)*
When the commitment to apartness is expressed by a belief in the
existence of spirit— or indeed by any religious belief— there is often an implicit responsibility. Humans are to care for or protect the
creatures Tinder their domination. The Christian concept of stewardship generally includes dictum regarding responsibility toward lesser
creatures, and situates humans within an ethical framework. However,
this ethical framework does not necessarily provide protection for lesser creatures. According to Keith Thomas (Thomas, 1985: 44), the
separation of man from other creatures was completed in order to justify domestication, meat-eating, vivisection, and extermination of undesirable species. Also, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
there existed a separation among classes of humans. The greater debate in the eighteenth century concerned the status of blacks, women, 60 beggars, and the insane— "creatures" which were not truly "human" and so did not deserve full ethical consideration. One wonders how procreation ever occurred with only male humans in existence!
The existence of separate entities, and the concommitment belief in spirit tend to be found in conjunction with some other attributes.
Although certainly not universal, there is some concern for humane treatment of other creatures. The concern is more likely to be directed toward individual creatures which are suffering than toward a species.
There is no reason for those who believe "spirit" to be the differentiating property for humans to have any particular attitude toward technology or economic growth, except those conforming to their particular religion or culture.
Environmental attitudes need not reflect a concern for the ecosystem unless the well-being of mankind was affected. Little concern for the future is likely because of faith in mankind’s ultimate survival.
Although there is what we might call a "metaphysical discontinuity" between humans and the rest of nature, the predominant attitude from this perspective is one of "enlightened anthropocentrism" (Passmore,
1974 chapter 7))» Although non-human nature has no rights, a responsibility for the rest of humanity leads to concern for long-term consequences of actions. The ethical principle is utilitarian.
This is expressed in several ways. One is in a consideration of the effects of an action on humanity— a species which can benefit mankind should be allowed to exist. Another is a concern for the effects of any action upon the perpetrator. Mankind should treat lesser creatures— including perhaps women and blacks— decently because cruel acts harm the actor. Kant developed this view in his Lectures on Ethics
(Kant, 1930). This is a concern, not for the victim, but for the
"criminal". Even if kicking a dog is morally equivalent to kicking the pop machine, somehow one's spirit is damaged by such actions.
Acceptors of apartness through Spirit— what I call Dominators— are generally religious. They are social activists and are concerned with many humanitarian issues. The form government takes is very important to them, as are the values society holds.
4.2.2 By Reason
Although "separateness" of existence is still expressed through religious beliefs, there is another set of beliefs which can develop from the same ontology. This belief is that human ability to reason is the differentiating attribute.
For some of the early Greeks— Cicero, for example— humans were given a mind to understand, and sense to feel. This separates them from other animals to some extent, even though they are still part of nature.
The ability to reason is the determining factor. For the Ancients, humans were able to master nature, but could not completely separate themselves from it. With the growth of science came a greater
"arrogance" regarding man's position in the universe. 62
Descartes is credited with developing the epistemological and
ontological ground for viewing scientific thought as the basis for the
human mastery over nature (Leiss, 1972: 178).
By ascertaining the force and action of fire, water, the air, the heavenly bodies, and the skies, of all the physical things that surround us...we can apply them in the same way to all the uses for which they are fit, and thus make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature (Descartes, 1960: 84).
Yet Descartes went even further. He created an absolute break between
man and the rest of nature. Although he regarded all bodies as mere
mechanisms, reason and'will were to him "an immaterial substance not
subject to dissolution at death, and in which human immortality was
located" (Attfield, 1983: 55). Animals were insensate creatures which
were incapable of fear, pain, or thought. The present day analogy would
be robots. Because mechanisms do not reason, or even FEEL, there is no need to have any ethical concern for them. Only humans, entities
separated from the earth by immortal substance, deserved such
consideration (And what objects were human was a separate topic!).
Francis Bacon saw the cultivation of arts and science as a means
for conquering nature through greater understanding.
Natural science has no other goal than to more firmly establish and extend the power and domination of men over nature. But the domination of men over nature rests solely on art and knowledge (Leiss, 1972: 46)..
To him, man could be regarded as the center of the universe— "if man were taken away from the world, the rest would seem to be all 63 astray, without aim or purpose" (Thomas, 1983: 18).
For man by the fall, lost...his empire over creation...which can be partially recovered...by the arts and sciences. Now the empire of man over things is founded on the arts and sciences alone (Bacon, 1 901).
H.G. Wells in earlier times, and Arthur C. Clarke today have presented visions of humans conquering not only the earth, but the heavens. The best delineation of this view is provided by Tim O ’Riordan in his book, Environmentalism:
Cognition is the all embracing process by which man separates himself from his environment, conceptualizes it, and behaves within it according to his own inner logic. Man and nature are not, and cannot be, one and the same, for man is a thinking, feeling and purpose-seeking organism to whom his surroundings are something apart (O'Riordan, 1982: 200).
Even W.H. Thorpe, a strong proponent of "Oneness", conceded that the ability to reflect on one's nature, and the ability to develop concepts of right and justice may separate man from other animals (Thorpe, 1974:
363).
From this ontological position, a great faith in technology and man's ability to conquer nature was easily developed. It was the age of the industrial revolution, and the problems of urbanization and industrialization were not yet so clear. Now the computer age may be producing the same attitude.
A separation of man from nature by virtue of "spirit was generally placed within an ethical framework which gave other creatures some consideration. The Cartesian placement of humans apart by virtue of 64 "reason” implies no such ethical framework, nor does it include a necessary consideration of other parts of the system (which does not even exist). Although a concern for social issues or politics does not contradict this position, the more likely attitude is technocratic, a view which says, "let the scientists provide solutions to human problems".
As Daniel Bell has noted, a general consensus on social values will occur when decisions are based upon knowledge rather than property, or other concerns (Bell, 1973)* Technical "fixes" will be the solutions, rather than changes in human behavior. This is not only a view of the past, but is also one of the future. Technology, and/or reason are the liberators of man from nature.
"Ideal" acceptors of apartness through reason are individualists.
They are pro technology, economic growth and the market place. These people have a greater faith in human ability to "conquer" than any other group.
4.3 Conceptual Differences
From the above discussion, two different ontologies can be distinguished, with further subdivision into belief sets which can develop from each ontology. Because different ontologies exist
(different entities populate people's worlds), their concepts and language also differ. Words, which are in fact only labels, can be used by different people in the same context, but with very different 65 meanings attached. If, for example, a Taoist refers to his search for harmony, he probably refers to a desire to find his true relationship to the universe; Christians are more likely to be seeking inner peace.
One concept which is used in very different ways by people from different ontological positions is that of "wilderness". Lucas states that motorboaters and canoeists have very different definitions of
"wilderness". They have, he says, different spatial as well as contextual perceptions of wilderness. The word "wilderness" does not even fit the perception of some people because it refers to "untamed",
"savage", or less negatively, "undeveloped". For Eastern cultures,
American Indians, and deep ecologists, the same geographic area is a place of peace, naturalness, and undisturbed area where everything fits together as it should. The motorboaters and canoeists have no basis for communication. They live in worlds populated by very different entities— they have different ontologies. Chapter 5
Ontology, What?
There is that stone wall when someone has a totally different concept of the world and it's very hard to break through...It's like the sea wall. The breakers come in and crash and the water rushes over the wall but the sea wall remains...
Ansel Adams said that he felt he and the President (Ronald
Reagan)had not communicated, even though they talked for almost an hour.
Adams said he felt they were in "different worlds". Such encounters provide fuel for both environmentalists and policy makers who say that the other side is unwilling to listen or negotiate. Clearly, Ansel
Adams and President Reagan did not come to an agreement, even though
President Reagan's spokesman Larry Speakes presented the encounter in a different way. According to Speakes,
Adams came in initially with strong concerns about the environment. His concerns were met head on and dulled.
Such statements can only lead to frustration on the part of environmentalists.
^®Ansel Adams, after an interview with Ronald Reagan (Washington Post, July 3, 1983). 66 67
In this chapter, an explanation of the term "ontology" and its usefulness for this research is provided. Some of the implications of differing ontologies are described, and a short argument against the ideological approach to environmental problem-solving is given.
5.1 Ideological answers to environmental problems
In a February 1983 speech, James Watt contended that environmental groups were using environmental concerns as a tool to pursue a more insidious agenda of centralized planning and control of society (Watt,
1983). Watt was characterizing the disagreement between the Reagan administration and environmental groups as an ideological one about the political future of our country. Sometimes the rhetoric went the full distance to criticize the communist, nay fascist, intentions of the environmental movement. If the environmental movement was indeed a
Fascist or Communist movement, the differences could certainly be considered to be perhaps purely ideological. Ideology, as used here, refers to "systematic patterns of political thought which contain both normative and empirical elements" (Christenson et al, 1981: 5)»
Ideology is a "system of beliefs which explains and justifies a preferred political order and offers a strategy for its attainment" (Christenson et al, 1981: 4). There is a definite normative component which serves as a guide to action for an ideology's adherents.
There is reason to believe that ideological differences between present policy makers and environmentalists in fact do exist. For 68 example, prominent writers on environmental policy have stressed the need for wholesale political and economic changes in order to deal with environmental problems. As such, many of their proposals are anti capitalist, and sometimes even anti-democratic. As proof of the latter extreme, Garrett Hardin (and to some extent, William Ophuls) argues that a centralized, even authoritarian political institution is required to enforce needed changes in our behavior toward the environment and its resources. Taking a different tack Barry Commoner has stated that he believes it would be more feasible to impose ecological considerations in a socialist society than in a capitalistic society (Commoner, 1972).
On a broader front still, E.P. Schumacher, in Small is
Beautiful (Schumacher, 1973) and other works, seems to be calling for a new political philosophy altogether in which community values are of great importance. He proposes the eventual development of a decentralized society of small communities. This vision is a far reaching one, even though it is a far cry from Hitler's Germany or
Stalin's Russia— pace Watt's charge against the political imagination and intentions of environmentalists.
Watt and others like him rely on capitalist beliefs and values, and so appeal to ideological arguments now two hundred and more years old.
They appeal to Adam Smith's idea that an invisible hand ensures that social betterment and harmony is the effect of individuals pursuing their own self interests. This is generally disputed by environmentalists. For example, Garrett Hardin intimates that the 69 harmonious invisible hand is actually a tyrannical fist because overuse
and exploitation in fact occurs when each individual is free to use
resources as he chooses (Hardin, 1972a)Since capitalism stresses
this pursuit of "free enterprise", it is often seen as the culprit.
However, this is not always the case. Other environmentalists argue for
even more decentralization than Watt would like, and still others (Amory
Lovins and Paul Ehrlich for example) propose policy changes which can
occur within the present capitalistic system (Lovins, 1977, Ehrlich &
Ehrlich, 1981).
Recent studies (Milbrath, 1983, Cotgrove, 1982) show that the left-
right dimension commonly used to describe political differences does not
explain the differences among environmental positions. Instead,
Milbrath uses a matrix (See Figure 3) which places the centralized-
decentralized continuum in the lower half of the matrix. Although
different groups inhabit different spaces on this continuum, the greater
differences exist between the upper left and lower right sections of the matrix. These sections represent different views of nature itself
rather than political differences.^1®
•^This idea, known as the "tragedy of the commons" is not a new idea. William Forster LLoyd first described it in 1833 (Hardin & Baden, 1977), but Hardin is the most prominent present-day proponent of this view.
^Because Milbrath uses "advocates of social change" as his measure of political attitude, his Nature Conservationists are similar to my Deep Ecologists, and his Deep Ecologists actually describe my Activists. 70
Figure 3: ' Matrix of Political and Environmental Positions (Milbrath, 1984: 12)
Valuation on a Safe and Clean Environment
DEEP
ECOLOGISTS
NATURE
CONSERVATIONISTS
ENV3 RO: 'AL SYMPATHIZERS
PRO ANTI
SOCIAL CHANGE SOCIAL CHANGE
SOCIALISTS CAPITALISTS COMMUNISTS
Valuation on Material Wealth 71 Milbrath's findings do not totally destroy the contention that environmental conflict is primarily ideological however (Milbrath,
1983). Many of the changes proposed by environmentalists are straightforwardly political. Thus the relationship between ideology and environmental policies must be examined. Why is capitalism cited by some as a cause of environmental problems? Conversely, what is it about socialism that would produce better policies, as some allege? One answer might be that capitalism stresses individual freedom, minimal government control and private ownership of property, all of which have irrational and dysfunctional consequences for the environment.
Socialism, on the other hand, provides for a planned society with centralized control over resource allocation. This , so the argument goes, will lead to better management and a more equitable distribution of resources. William Ophuls, for example, argues that our present structure ignores long-term goals and caters to the interests of dominant groups, rather than to the interests of society as a whole (Ophuls, 1977). As Mr. Watt desires better management of resources, the argument that socialism would provide for better management shouldinterest, if not annoy him. However, even this doesn’t exhaust the ideological issues at stake. He could argue, as he has, rather forcefully, that better management of resources is a subordinate objective to the preservation of human liberty. Watt stresses individual liberty while many environmentalists see liberty for man in terms of community or society. The term "liberty" has different connotations for Watt and environmentalists. Democratic socialists, for example value human liberty, but desire a re-education of the citizens with the goal of placing higher priority upon public needs than upon private advantage (Christenson et al, 1981 ).^1
Watt's ideological commitments aside, there are other reasons to suspect a neat alliance between environmentalists and socialists. For there is no reason to assume that a socialist economic structure will better protect the environment as opposed to the interests of society as such than would a liberal economic structure developed to preserve individual freedom. Consider as evidence that Marxists have not attempted to develop an ideology which seeks to protect the environment.
For many Marxists, capitalism was wrong because it exploited people, not nature. Capitalists extract surplus-value from workers and so exploit them. But to Marxists, nature has value only insofar as labor is put into it. Nature, valueless in itself, is not even a candidate for exploitation.
The real issue here, is not socialism versus democracy, despite
^Democratic socialism is a more "low-keyed, adaptable ideology than orthodox Marxism", and is becoming an important force in the U.S. Democratic socialists desire public ownership of many industries and only small income differentials, but also are often involved in environmental issues such as the selling of national parkland or the proposed changes in policy toward American Indians (Christenson et al, 1981: 224). Members were involved in the February, 1983 demonstrations against Watt which were held in Columbus Ohio. Their objective is political change, environmental issues are tangential to their philosophy. 73 James Watt’s contention. It is a change in political structure which would lead to better environmental practices. Watt mistakes the means for the ends of environmentalists. Environmentalists are concerned about environmental issues. They seek a range of solutions, some of which are political or economic. Why does he argue this way? One obvious reason is that signalling a death threat to democracy will cause good Americans to support him. This is undoubtedly Watt's primary polemical motivation.
However, there is another and far more fundamental reason. James
Watt simply cannot understand why anyone would want to preserve an object for its own sake when it has such great instrumental value as building supplies, fuel or the like. Here then the destruction of nature is construction for humankind. Watt's speeches constantly allude to the "management of natural resources". (Watt, 1983) In short, he sees trees, streams and mountains as nothing more than "resources". They do not have the same qualitative attributes as man and so there is no reason for him to believe in their "right" to exist independent of their potential usefulness, their resource-hood. This is the point of greatest difference between Watt and environmentalists like David Brower
^ What environmentalists principally desire is a change in the way
^David Brower, Chairman of Friends of the Earth and now a Director of the Sierra Club, 1983. 74 natural objects are valued. For example, Aldo Leopold (Leopold, 1949)^ proposes a community approach to environmental problems where
"community" includes all parts of the earth. There is no qualitative difference among objects, human and natural. Although humans possess unique capabilities to change the environment, "community" and human membership thereof imposes limits on human actions.
The difference between Watt and the environmentalists is, I argue, ontological. It is not merely that political economic structures lead to differing policies, but the very objects those structures are meant to consider are ontologically different.
5.2 Ontological Distinctions
Ontological differences, I argue, are conceptually prior to ideological differences. Ideological differences occur in beliefs about the relationship among social, political and economic factors but they do not necessarily differ in their underlying man-nature ontologies.^
Natural objects other than man himself are resources for man's use because they are qualitatively inferior to man. Both capitalist and
43Aldo Leopold was a professor of Game Management at the University of Wisconsin from 1933 until his death in 1948.
^Ontological commitments encompass more than man-nature relationships. As Carol Gould describes (Gould, 1980), Marx has a definite social ontology which does differ from the capitalist ontology. 75 socialist ideologies share this fundamental ontology. In order to
elucidate what is at stake here, a short explanation of my use of
"ontology” is in order.
The term "ontologia" was first used by scholastic writers of the
seventeenth century. Christian Wolff and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten
used ontology as the study of being. To them ontology was concerned
with the proof of existence from being (MacIntyre, 1980).
More recent use of the term refers not to proof of existence, but
to commitments to certain forms of existence. In reference to ontology,
W.V. Quine, for example, asks, "To the existence of what kind of thing
does the belief in a given theory commit us?" He answers, "To be is to
be the value of a variable: we have to admit the existence of that range
of possible entities for which names could occur as the values for these variables without which we could not state our beliefs" (Quine, 1953).
An ontology is a commitment to (acceptance of) a certain range of values
or particular kinds of entities.
The use of the term in this research is closer to Quine's than to
the more classical usage. Here no attempt is made to establish a proof
of existence for any type of entity. Ontology here refers to the kinds
of entities which make up a person's universe. For example, purgatory
could be a place or state of being which exists for Catholics but not
for members of other religions. Demons and angels may exist for many
fundamentalist religions but be merely metaphorical to others. Limbo is another state of existence which is accepted by only some groups. To a 76
Catholic, the unbaptized infant, as well as "heathens", goes to this state, which is neither heaven nor hell. It does not suffer except in the inability to be near God. Every other Christian sect vigorously denies the existence of such a place or entity, and has no concern at all for the fate of unbaptized infants. Understandably, Catholic parents have sick or even stillborn children baptized, while other religious sects place no importance upon, or even totally reject such rites.
Within the social sciences there are differing conceptions of man himself. One conception of man is that of a separate entity which can exist apart from society. The opposite conception is of man as a part of a social entity which has goals, desires, and preferences just as individual men do. What community is— an entity itself with rights, responsibilities and goals, or a geographic area in which a number of individuals live, is determined by the ontological position regarding man.' Although some radicals and capitalists share the same man-nature ontologies, they differ on this social ontology. For capitalists, man is an individual, who acts in his own interests. For others, a more deterministic view of man as a creature who can be shaped by his environment and the forces of production is held.
The ontological positions which are of interest here, are those concerning man's relationship to nature. One view is that humans are qualitatively different from and superior to other entities, while another is that all living things fall within the same class, and are 77 the same kind of entity. The most extreme position is that there is no qualitative difference between inanimate and animate objects, so that all parts of nature fall into one class. Ontology is the classes which exist as well as the objects which fall into those classes.
Community could be the label given to the class, of which man is a part, but the label "community" can mean different things depending upon the ontological attributes which are attached to that label. Aldo
Leopold included all of nature in his community, because community had the attributes of inter-related objects. Man, plants, animals, and even minerals are objects which exist in relation to each other, and so are part of community. Community more commonly refers only to the people with certain political, religious, or geographic relationships, excluding other objects. This is because a distinct difference between humans and other natural objects exists for some people. Ontology, then, refers to the values which we assign to variables (or labels), and those values refer to the types of entity which we exist for us.
Because of these ontologies, particular beliefs can occur.
A more familiar although belabored example is the differing conceptions of "person" which have emerged on the polemical asides of the abortion issue. Ontological differences are more readily apparent in this area because the conflict over abortion policy reflects the ontological differences about who— and when— an entity is a person. The
Catholic church, for example, argues that a person is an entity with a soul, and that a soul enters the fetus at the moment of conception. 78
Therefore, a fetus is a person, and destroying that fetus constitutes murder of a person. Judith Jarvis Thompson argues instead that the fetus is a parasite, and cannot be considered a person until viability, if not later (Thompson, 1974)* A parasite is something which the mother can have removed if she desires without any moral consequences. She can abort the fetus, just as she can have her appendix removed, or have cosmetic surgery.
Note well that in instances such as this, the moral rules we choose
to apply are distinct from the ontological beliefs. If killing persons is acceptable, killing a fetus-person would be acceptable to either ontology. If murder is condemned, then such a charge depends upon whether the fetus is a person or not. Even though ontology is not morality, this suggests the moral implications of ontological commitments. Peter Singer, for example, has attempted to extend the moral argument to non-humans, arguing that every attribute used to define "person" can be applied to non-human objects also (Singer, 1979).
The discussion of attributes is one way of making ontological distinctions. Another is to question what classes of objects actually exist. Do "persons", "love", "responsibility" exist? W.V. 0. Quine questions the existence of abstract objects, and makes an ontological distinction between the belief in, and the rejection of, existence of abstracts (Quine, 1960) There is generally agreement that physical objects exist because the senses perceive them, although Hindus and radical empiricists among others would disagree. We know a table, an individual, or a book exists because we can feel them and see them.
Music is known to exist because it can be heard. Constructs however
cannot be empirically discovered. One does not feel, see or hear
"social status” but can only sense manifestations of it. Can it be said
to exist then? Some ontologies may admit the existence of abstracts,
while others reject such a notion. When the reference is made to an
abstract object then, only those who believe in its existence take the
reference to be more than an emotive device. Stephenson, for example,
argues that the word "good" has no reference to anything which exists, but is merely used to indicate a pro attitude. There is no "good" for
him (Stevenson, 1944).
When a person refers to an object, the label she uses points to a
particular object for her. Exactly what that object is, involves
ontological commitment to the existence of certain classes of objects.
Another person, with different ontological commitments may conceive of very different entities. The problem is one of "inscrutability of
reference" (Quine, 1981: 2). The object we call a "rabbit", to use
Quine's famous example, could be variously interpreted in light of different ontologies as "a slice of meat", "God's messenger", "a concept of rabbithood", the long-eared, brown, furry, physical object, or any number of things. We have no way of really knowing whether the use of
identical words or semantic labels indicates understanding and/or agreement, or a complete lack thereof. Context is sometimes helpful, but it can also be misleading. Because there is a platter of rabbit 80 meat before us does not mean that we are all referring to that physical entity when the label "rabbit" is used. One could, instead, be making reference to the "spirit" of the creature which was destroyed to produce that meat.
Quine, in Theories and Things, provides a good description of the way in which ontology is used:
The assuming of objects is a mental act, and mental acts are notoriously difficult to pin down.. .little can be done in the way of thought processes except when we put words to them...If we turn our attention to the words, then what had been a question of assuming objects becomes a question of verbal reference to objects (Quine, 1981: 2).
Later on he states that, "To say what objects someone is talking about is to say no more than how we propose to translate his terms into ours"
(Quine, 1981: 20). It can never be known whether the speaker and the listener actually have the same entity in mind even though the words are accurately spoken and heard.
To ask whether one can truly understand another person is to ask a philosophical question. Ontological differences have more than philosophical importance however. They also have political and ethical importance. The type of entity we take an object to be affects the way in which moral rules are applied, and it may also affect the moral rules which we choose to apply. A growth in your body, as some take fetuses to be, (Thompson, 1974) lacks the moral consideration that a person would receive. A separate, responsible, individual generally receives more consideration than a being which exists only as a part of a larger 81 entity "society". If only Caucasians, or Caucasian males are "persons" in the fullest sense, only they deserve the full moral consideration which persons are due.^ The whole history of political thought can be looked at in this way. Democracy is rule for the people, but who are
"the people"? When the Constitution of the United States was written, the people who were guaranteed political rights and freedoms did not explicitly include blacks, Indians or women. Different political theorists through time have included different entities in the class
"people", and policies have reflected these changes. Ontological commitments to certain types of entities underlie the ethics or ideologies which have developed, but— I repeat— it is not synonymous with them. Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State and Utopia (Nozick, 1974), discusses a similar difference in his move from form to content. The ontological commitment is to "separate individuals, and no social entity which is more than an aggregation of individuals". Nozick argues that the commitment to this belief about humans leads to a rejection of ever using people as means, and to an acceptance of side constraints rather than end-state ethics.^ The belief about the separateness of
^ 1 owe much of this discussion on abortion to Roger Wertheimer's article, "Understanding the Abortion Argument" in The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion, edited by Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon; 1974. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 23-51.
^Nozick goes into even greater detail on ethics in Philosophical Explanations (1981). 82 individuals is not in itself prescriptive, although normative views develop from the ontological commitment. The bioethic espoused by many environmentalists has an even stronger relationship to an ontological view— that the earth is a complex whole, an ecosystem, in which parts necessarily interact. The bioethic prescribes behavior for man as a member of this ecosystem, but the commitment to humans as part of such a system has no ethic necessarily connected to it.
Ideologies are related to ontologies in a similar way. The ontology tells us what exists, and the beliefs about relationships among social, political and economic factors can develop from this
"knowledge". Ideologies are more complex than the ontological commitment, but each has an underlying ontology. Socialism is generally considered to be an ideology. Within Socialism are beliefs about the relationship among social, political, and economic factors, and an implicit ontology regarding the entities which exist— humans and other entities. While an ideology is generally fairly well-stated, the ontological basis is assumed rather than explicitly stated. The acceptance of certain types of entity underlie any ideology, but are assumed as "truths" and are not described, discussed, or proved themselves. They are the "primitive terms" which are both basic and necessary to the development of the ideology.
Against Socialism, Capitalism advocates different beliefs about the relationship among social, political and economic factors. But, on inspection, we find that the underlying nature-man ontology is the same 8 5 as Marxism's— namely, nature has only instrumental value. The ontological belief about society apparently differs between Socialism and Capitalism, with the Socialist man being a social creature,^ and
Capitalist man being an individual who is completely free to choose his own course of action. Ideologies integrate these ontologies, ethics, and other beliefs into a systematic body of thought, but the ontologies themselves form the underpinnings. Carol Gould, in fact, brings out several ontological commitments in Marx's work, and shows the way they underlie his ideology (Gould, 1980).
The term ''ideology'' is generally used in reference to a set of political beliefs and strategies. A much overused term which is sometimes used almost as a synonym for "ideology" is "social paradigm".
Research which is now being published regarding different environmental perspectives uses "paradigm shift" in reference to the emergence of radically different perspectives. Stephen Cotgrove, for example
(Cotgrove, 1982) sees the possibility of a shift from the dominant, capitalistic paradigm to a more environmentally aware belief structure.
He uses "paradigm" in a way which differentiates his use of terms from mine:
Paradigms are not only beliefs about what the world is like and guides to action. They also serve the function of legitimating or justifying courses of action. That is to say, they function as ideologies. Those who do not share the
^ I n at least some versions of Socialism. 8 4 paradigm will question the justification for the action it supports (Cotgrove, 1982: 87).
By contrast, "ontology" refers only to commitments to particular categories of existence. Although Thomas Kuhn has used the term paradigm to refer to "understanding terms "by sets of attributes that all games, or chairs, or trees share" (Kuhn, 1962: 43)» that is only one of his many ways to describe paradigm. More commonly the term is used to describe an entire world-view or set of beliefs, as well as the theories which develop from those beliefs. Ontological commitments form a part of a paradigm, in the same way they form the underpinnings of ideology.
For early Greeks, only four forms of matter existed— fire, wind, earth, and water (Glacken, 19679-10). Theories developed to explain all natural phenomena in terms of these entities, and an entire body of scientific thought was based upon that ontology. The entire system of ontology, beliefs, and theories is what Kuhn generally refers to as a paradigm, whereas the ontological commitment is only "what entities comprise the universe" (Kuhn, 1962). Because of misuse and overuse of the term paradigm, I prefer to ignore it, even if my use is similar in some respects.
48I am indebted to Lester Milbrath, State University of New York, for his guidance and suggestions in this area. 85 5-3 Conclusion
An important question is forced on us as we conclude our semantic and foundational investigations. Why should we use the distinction between ontology and ideology or paradigm? Robert Heilbroner, Karl Marx and Milton Friedman are only a few of the advocates of paradigm— or ideology — change in order to change the direction of policy. I am arguing that there is a much more fundamental ontological dimension to our views about politics and policies. We can bring it out by way of contrasts. Changing from democracy to socialism, however thoroughgoing, does not change the commitment to man as the center of the universe, the dominant creature of our planet. James Watt may accuse environmentalists of being communists, and environmentalists can argue that capitalism leads to environmental destruction, but these arguments are made because the protagonists inhabit different worlds, and so are trying to resolve very different problems. Watt is trying to obtain the best instrumental value from resources, and David Brower is trying to save objects with intrinsic rights to exist. Their differences are very probably ideological, but the real source of their conflict is their ontological commitments to different kinds of entities.
As the abortion issue shows, the range of alternatives admitted for consideration depends very much on the values which are applied to the label "fetus". Using the same moral rules leads to different policy positions when different ontologies exist, but with most issues, the ontological differences are not known or understood. Ontology says what 86
"is" rather than what should be, and so is the person's conception of reality. To know a person's ontological commitments is tantamount to seeing through his eyes, or thinking his thoughts. We can never be sure that we understand unless we do inhabit that person's thoughts.
It is possible to examine a person's beliefs, and to infer from those beliefs, the ontology which makes that belief reasonable. As I have provided historical evidence for some ontological differences, I will also provide evidence that ontological differences exist today.
Furthermore, these ontological differences are connected to different beliefs, and different policy positions. Chapter 6
Research Resign
From textual discussions of the relationships between human and non-human nature, as well as from historical evidence about the attitudes and behaviors of people toward non-human nature I have inferred the existence of different ontologies. For one ontology the world is a single entity and everything we perceive is a part of that entity. For another, there are different entities, and humans are separate from other forms of life. Humans are different in one view because they have souls (souls inhabit that world). For another, humans are different because they have an ability to reason. Both of these views stem from an ontology in which at least two entities exist— humans and another entity. Whether the ontology is exactly the same for both views cannot be established, but it is clearly different from the ontology of one entity.
One purpose of this research is to establish that similar ontological differences exist today. It is not sufficient, however, merely to demonstrate the existence of differing ontologies. To be important to political scientists, the ontological differences must have an impact on political differences, here expressed as positions taken on
87 88 a variety of environmental issues. The primary objective here, then, is to understand the relationship between ontologies and positions on policy issues.
How can we "know" whether different ontologies exist? It is unlikely that close-ended questionnaires, given to a random sample of the U.S. (or even Ohio) population, could get at ontologies by asking people to choose between ontologies— "oneness" or "apartness". It seems almost as fruitless to ask such questions in personal interviews. As
Andersen and Thorson point out (1981), people respond from their "frames of reference", so should be given the opportunity to describe their
"frame" before being asked questions which depend on that
"frame" (Andersen, 1981). Although I am not referring specifically to
"frames", an ontology can be seen as the core of a person’s frame.
For this reason, I have used a two-part interview of 35 Ohioans who are actively involved with environmental issues in some way. The results from these interviews were compared to the responses which could be expected from ontological "ideal types” as derived from a literature review (Weber, 1968a). The first part of the interview consisted of a series of scenarios about various environmental issues and a few open- ended questions about the respondents foundational beliefs— religious beliefs and views about the relationship betwen humans and non-human nature. Respondents were asked to react to the scenarios, giving their opinions as well as their reasons for holding such opinions.
The second portion of the interview was a Q sort which provided the 89 data for a Q factor analysis.^9 Because I wanted to understand the way in which people's opinions develop, simple correlations between some measure of ontology and some measure of policy opinion were not sufficient. The way respondents structured the environmental arena (the problem area) was very important to this analysis. Q methodology allows one to examine this structure, and to define clusters of respondents who structure the arena similarly.
A Q sort consists of a set of items which represent the theoretically established components of some attitude, in this case, environmental attitudes. Each respondent orders the Q items according to his own preferences or values, although the ordering is somewhat constrained.
The respondent is strongly urged to categorize items so that only two fall into category one, three go into category two, four fall into category four, and so on, but the assumption is that a person's feelings do form a sort of normal distribution with only a few factors having great significance, and the majority of the factors having less
^ S e e Brown(l980), Milburn (1977), and Stephenson (1955,1949,1964,and 1979) for a more complete discussion of Q sort methodology.
^®See Appendices for a list of the items and a copy of the form used to record rankings. The respondent was required to order all 46 items within eleven categories. In category one, the respondent placed the items upon which she placed the most positive value. Category six supposedly contained items of no real significance, and category eleven contained the items of highest negative value. 90
significance. Additionally, Q sorts assume that the items with negative
connotations have the same degree of significance. The mean for each Q
sort has "relatively the same meaning from subject to subject, i.e. the
statements receiving (on my scale) a score of 6 tend to be of equivalent
insignificance from individual to individual (Brown, 1980: 22).-^
The way a person orders the Q sort items provides information about
the structure of his world. A very positive score for an item such as
"Man was made in God's image" allows us to infer that there is a God in
that person's world. A neutral ranking for the same item could mean
that the concept of God has no significance, so it would be less likely
that a God inhabited that respondent's world. No one item provides
sufficient information to infer either an attitude or an ontology. The
way the items are placed in relationship to each other is the important
information.
The ordering, and the placement of key items may allow us to infer
ontologies. They also provide information about the relative importance
of different factors to each respondent. Because there is no evidence
of a direct connection between an ontology and a particular policy
51 Although this generally seemed to be true— that the middle point contained items which generally had no real significance to the respondent— it is also true that at least one respondent felt the majority of the items had negative connotations. The middle point may have been much less important than the extremes, but it could not be said that the middle items were neutral for that respondent. Fortunately, Q methodology does not assume neutrality, but merely assumes a lack of significance for the items placed in the middle category. position, we can assume that priorities also affect opinions
(positions). The Q sorts tell us a person's priorities, if we can assume that an item with greater significance than another will play a greater part on the development of a decision.
Because of the importance attributed to the general structuring of a person's views, Q methodology was preferred to more traditional R methods. As Brown notes,
One of the features of an R factor analysis is that it breaks up a phenomenon (e.g., the human body) into separate components.
He quotes a study by Wilson and Banfield which used R factor analysis to infer attitudes about the appropriate scope of government action among subcultures. This approach deduced likely correlates (ethnicity, scale items measuring attitudes), obtained responses with respect to these correlates and made inferences (Brown, 1980: 20-21). For Q sorts, on the other hand,
Associations among respondents rather than among variables is the objective. Such research attempts to discover individuals with similar characteristics. There is no attempt to discover relationships among the characteristics. For example, we do not ask whether height is correlated with intelligence. We ask instead whether person A and person B resemble each other...in Q, one is dealing fundamentally with the individual's subjectivity which takes meaning in terms of the proposition that person a values trait A more than trait B (Brown, 1980: 19).
In Q methodology, we look at an individual, and try to understand his views. Associations tell us which individuals are similar in their structuring of items. R types of analysis tell us only that certain 92 items are correlated, but tells us nothing about the individual respondents. Traditional R methods, such as various factor and cluster procedures are used, but with an matrix which is very different from the
R matrix.
In addition, R analysis tends to assume that people responding in the same way to an item mean the same thing. It assumes a common frame of reference. As von Wright argues, however, this is not always true:
It should be pointed out that two people responding in the same way to the 3ame questionnaire item may actually mean different things, or that two people responding differently may actually mean the same thing. For example, does "Agree strongly with President Carter" expressed by respondent A necessarily mean that A is stronger in his agreement than B who checks "moderately agree with President Carter”? Their frames of reference may differ in- a way such that in reality B has a stronger agreement than A. But if A says he prefers "bicycle riding (a) to "baseball" (b), we can be relatively more certain that a is preferred to b because of the common frame of reference involved. From the start, therefore, Q technique remains closer to the facts, and in most respects, is in closer conformity with the logic of preference (von Wright, 1963).
Because Q sorts are accompanied by in-depth interviews, this method provides more data than an interview alone can. It establishes priorities and attitude direction, but gives responents also a second chance to clarify positions, provide reasons, and even to change their Q rankings if need be. Reliability then might be similar to a survey with multiple questions on the same factor, but there is the additional strength of frame-setting capability.
Temperature scales which ask people to place different factors or items on a scale is another attempt to resolve this issue. It has 93 limited applicability however, due to the limited number of items which could reasonably be ordered. Q sorts limit the categories, so gets around the problem of limitations on the distinctions people are able to make.
6.1 Selection of Q sort respondents
For this method, respondents should be representative of the range of opinions which would be likely to occur. Because the focus is on individuals, and associations among individuals, it is only necessary that each expected type is represented. The analysis tells us the differences which exist on the issue under examination. This is not generalizable to any other issue, so a large sample would provide no further information.
On Ohio environmental issues, the concerned parties might include legislators, industry lobbyists, bureaucrats, environmentalists, and political activists. Representatives of all these categories are included in my analysis. Environmental issues tend to evoke positive responses on surveys even though voting behavior often does not reflect such opinions. Therefore it is necessary to limit the study to those who are interested in environmental concerns to avoid the problem of non-opinion.-^ For this reason, I chose only respondents who had an
-*^See Cannell and Kahn (1968) for a general discussion of response problems. 94 interest in environmental issues, and would therefore he more likely to
"have" opinions.
My sample was selected from a list of environmental organization directors, lobbyists, officials of the Ohio Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), and environmental activists. Agency officials who might be expected to represent divergent interests were selected. ODNR was over-sampled because the agency deals with the interests of natural areas, coal, oil, and gas industries, farmers, hunters, and fishermen. Virtually every type of environmental issue is handled by some division of the department, so I sampled from each of the six divisions which deal with environmental issues. In addition, conflict does exist within the agency because of these divergent concerns and interests, and for this reason, ODNR provided a large number of the respondents. The background of respondents for the Q sort is as follows:
1. 3 Legislators (House Energy and Environment Committee)
2. 7 Bureaucrats (2 EPA Division Chiefs, 5 ODNR Division Chiefs)
3. 6 Environmental Activists (Greenepace, Friends of the Earth, Nature Conservancy, EarthFirst!, and Ohio Environmental Council)
4. 3 Industry Lobbyists (Manufacturers, Oil and Gas, Coal)
5. 4 Activists (2 Indian-rights activists, 2 political 95 activists) . ^
6.2 Selection of Stimuli
Also important for this type of analysis is the representativeness of the questions or items used. The items should represent the variety of factors which contribute to opinions on the issue (Brown, 1970). The categories selected for this analysis were developed from a review of environmental literature, environmental attitude surveys, policy statements from the Interior Department and from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, environmental newsletters, and conversations with environmental activists (who did not participate in the survey).
Two hundred statements were originally selected from these sources, representing attitudes about ecology, economics, political mechanisms, technology, the role of values, and human relationships with nature.
A draft version was pre-tested, using graduate students, family, and members of one environmental organization. Statements were eliminated which respondents found to be ambiguous or poorly worded.
Forty-six statements were selected for the final version of the Q sort, which was administered to 23 respondents. Each statement was typed on a separate card. The respondent was asked to sort the statements into
-^Respondents will be identified only by category— bureaucrat, legislator, lobbyist, or activist. This is done to protect the privacy of respondents who talked very openly. In addition, when individuals must be referenced more specifically, randomly developed initials will be used. those which fit his personal views; those which were furthest from his views; and those on which he had no opinion. The first group (those
fitting personal views) was then subdivided by the respondent into the
two items which fit his views the best, the three which were the next best fit, the four remaining which were still a good fit, and so on.
Each group was subdivided in this manner until all items were ranked
into one of eleven categories. The distribution approximated a normal distribution, with the most positively and most negatively viewed items at the two tails.
One concern with any method of data collection is that the data collected can be sensitive to the preconceptions of the researcher.
Only questions relevant to the researcher's theory may be asked, for
example, or the wording may lead the respondent in particular directions. In this case, one might contend that a structuralist would have placed different items in the Q sort and therefore would have developed different types. As can be seen in my list of items (See
Appendices ), items regarding political and economic structures are included among the items. An attempt was made to incorporate the various viewpoints which might exist, and the various extant theories
about the source of environmental behavior were used in developing the
categories for inclusion. A more valid point would be that the meaning
ascribed to each grouping ofrespondents may depend upon the
researcher's preconceptions. 97 6.3 Constructing Ideal fypes
One way to determine whether the meaning is solely in the eyes of
the researcher is to determine the similarity between actual
respondents' rankings and those which "ideal types" might be expected to
produce.
Ideal types are not necessarily a representation of reality, but are only models against which reality can be compared. Here, the ideal
types were drawn from the literature. Statements about the human- nonhuman relationship were found in the writings of Lao-Tzu, the Stoics,
Aristotle, Tolstoy, and many other philosophers and writers. Other
items, such as man's ability to conquer nature, the role of government,
the existence of God, and technology were obtained from the same
sources, and were combined to develop three "ideal types". The types are:
1. Ecologists. They see the world as one, and do not think government has any role. Harmony is the most important value.
2. Dominators. They believe man can conquer nature because he was given dominion over it by God. Individualism is important, apparently because of a corollary belief in personal salvation. There is no so much a faith in man's ability to conquer. Instead the faith is in God.
3. Rationalists. They believe humans are separate from the rest of nature because of their ability to reason. This also allows humans to conquer nature. In addition, there is a strong faith in technology. These are the people who believe man's intelligence will allow economic growth to continue, because problems will be solved by technology.
For each type, items from the Q sort were grouped into the three 98 categories of positive fit, no significance, and negative fit. Further delineations were more troublesome, but relative priorities were inferred from the degree of importance indicated in the literature.
After examining the scores of respondents, it appeared that a fourth type existed. Some' respondents had strong feelings of stewardship (an attribute of the Dominators), but also expressed a deep sense of oneness of the universe. They expressed greater faith in the political system than did other respondents, and were more concerned about human welfare issues. As a result of this perception, a fourth
"ideal type"— Activists— was developed:
1. Activists. They believe humans are only part of a larger system, but this is not their strongest belief. Much stronger is their belief that humans have an ethical responsibility toward all forms of living creatures. They are most concerned about other humans, so decisions which affect more than one species are likely to made in favor of humans.
6.4 Pattern matchings
To measure respondents’ fit into these "ideal types", a pattern matching program was developed using LISP (List Processing Language).
Each respondent's set of scores were compared to the set of scores for each ideal type. These "ideal" rankings were developed from the literature. The sum of the absolute differences were computed between each respondent and each ideal type. The respondent was then grouped into the type with which she had the smallest absolute difference.
As a further check against the possibility that preconceptions had influenced the results, a Varclus clustering procedure was also used.
This procedure showed only minor differences— two respondents who moved among types when the rotation changed— so I feel confident in concluding that my respondents do fall into four, fairly clearly defined types. Chapter 7
The Reality of Ontological Differences
INTRODUCTION
Ontological differences exist. Differing ontological commitments lead to different policy positions. Because the differences stem from different conceptions of the world, they are not easily resolved, if indeed they ever are. Attempts to negotiate in the face of such differences may even increase the conflict because there is no possibility of mutual understanding. Frustration increases, and actions are likely to become more desperate rather than less so.
The different ontological commitments described above were discovered through an investigation of philosophical, religious, and environmental literature. The "Ideal Types" are composites of views expressed in this literature. In this chapter, I will provide some evidence that these ontological types do indeed exist in practice, and I will examine the relationship between these commitments and other beliefs.
To discover ontological differences, however, is not an easy task.
For most people, a commitment to particular types of entities is generally unreflective: a feature of the taken-for-granted world. They
100 101 simply make decisions based upon basic premises which are not questioned. To discover these commitments requires probing responses to the most basic level possible. Although it is very possible that the process actually moves from policy position to beliefs (one develops his policy positions and then reasons backward to a set of basic premises or beliefs that are consistent with the selected position), I argue that an individual's conception of the makeup of the world, which allows the beliefs to exist is more fundamental still. It is not developed as a function of reason, but simply "is". Ontology defines the range of acceptable beliefs. A person can change her beliefs, but she is constrained to the set of beliefs defined by her ontology.
Unfortunately, ontologies cannot be "measured", and so their stability cannot be examined. Determination of the development or pre-existence of the ontological commitment is a task for long-term research. But that is not the intent of this research.
As discussed above, the Q sort, applying a pattern matching algorithm, categorized respondents into four types. In this chapter, these types will be discussed, using also data from open-ended interviews. In the four types, two very different ontological commitments are found to exist, and each of these has two sets of beliefs which are connected to it (two subcategories). The belief in
"stewardship", or responsibility, as an ethical principle is a belief which occurs with both ontologies, so is apparently not directly connected to either. 102
In the following sections I will describe the ontological positions, associated ethical principles, and the policy views of the respondents. My purpose is to establish a relationship between the ontological commitments and the range of policy positions which might be considered for each type. I have labelled the four types: Deep
Ecologists, Activists, Dominators, and Conquerers. The reasons for each label can be found in the description ox that type.
7-1 Type 1 - Deep Ecologists
These respondents often describe themselves as disciples of Aldo
Leopold.There is also a deep commitment to the unity of the universe, and to man's need to fit within his niche. Unlike the transcendentalists who see God expressed in Nature, or the pantheists who believe everything in Nature is God, the Deep Ecologists have no necessary religious beliefs. The earth simply exists as an entity and humans are a part of that. These views were expressed in varying detail by members of this group of respondents. Harmony is the primary goal rather than stewardship or dominance. The need for a change in social
^Aldo Leopold was a Professor of Forestry at the University of Wisconsin until his death in 1948. He expressed his thoughts about the relationship between humans and non-human nature in his book Sand County Almanac. For Deep Ecologists this book almost seems to fill the role of Bible. It was listed as a primary motivating factor by more than one of my respondents . Leopold talks about the biotic community and an ethic in which man recognizes his obligation to all members of that community. 103 values gets high priority from these respondents (Many Leopold disciples speak in terms of the need for a "land ethic"). Political concepts are less important to them than the need to change societal values and lifestyles. This was the only cluster for which the open-ended question was consistent with the Q sort rank for the items regarding humans' relationships with their environment. All five respondents said that humans are, and must be, a part of their environment. "Man is one of many species - superior in some ways, but not in other ways. Every species is master of its own niche", says one person while "Man is just a part of the 'environment - but an incredibly destructive part.
Elephants are another destructive animal", is another response. There is generally no attempt to argue that people have no special attributes, but there a more humble attitude about the relationship of people to the rest of the world.
The idea of oneness however, seems to refer only to the oneness of natural objects, or perhaps of God’s creation (in St. Francis’s sense).
Creatures or objects developed by man— domestic animals, dams, and other objects which have been manipulated or "created" by man do not fit into this system, and therefore do not count.
In doing this analysis, I have assumed that people feel strongly about factors which influence them profoundly, and that neutral responses reflect a lack of importance. If economic growth, for example, is a factor which plays a definite role in the development of a person's policy opinions, items reflecting that factor should receive 104 fairly strongly rankings, either positive or negative.
Table 1 lists the items for which respondents in the Ecology cluster have given with extreme scores (1-3 and 9-11). Items liked most
(scores of 1-3) are at the top, those liked least (scores of 9-11) at the bottom. The statements are given in the Appendix.
In this cluster are: (1) an ecologist, age 40, member of
EarthFirst!; (2) a former environmental lobbyist, now a high ranking bureaucrat and environmental activist; (3) the state director for an environmental agency; (4) a Division Chief with an environmental agency;
(5) an Osage Indian who still fqllows the religious practices and beliefs of her tribe, and (6) a Buddhist student activist.
Within the group, Deep ecologists are similar in some ways, but different in others. RN is an ecologist, bureaucrat, and environmental activist. He enjoyed being alone in the woods as a child and now considers "development" of natural areas to be terrorism against nature.
Small communities such as those proposed by E.F. Schumacher, with ecocentric values, are his solution to environmental problems. He considers conventional political action such as lobbying or voting to be a waste of time.
cc ■'■'The Buddhist is not a clear member of this group. He shares the world view of this type, but also favors the political activism of the Activists. Although his cultural background has taught him that humans are a part of nature, and that they should seek harmony with their environment, he states that the younger Japanese are politically active. This may be a problem for many young Japanese - the conflict between culture and politics. Table 1: Ranking of Q Items for Deep Ecologists
Highest Rank Item 33 Man is part of Nature;
Item 15 Solution in Lifestyle Change;
Item 42 Solution in Values;
Item 31 Values more impt than pol.-econ.;
Item 38 We shld preserve environ.;
Neutral Item 41 Qual. of life- relationships;
Item 40 Stewardship;
Item 46 We must exploit resources;
Item 6 There are no limits to growth;
Item 25 We should rely on the market;
Item 36 Man was made in God's image;
Item 37 It is man's destiny to control;
Lowest Item 5 Econ. growth more impt than env.; 106
DQ shares RN's feelings about being alone in nature, and had similar childhood experiences. He also considers non-political (or unconventional) action such as buying natural areas to be more effective than conventional political action - but he also works within the political system. Neither RN nor DQ propose a different political or economic system.
AP came to her beliefs later in life, but seems to hold them almost as deeply. Education and an association with people like David Brower have had a greater impact than experiences in nature. She refers to a natural and intellectual progression. AP has more faith in political mechanisms than the other members of this group and she is active in many organizations.
JD is another who credits access to natural areas with influencing his views. Seeing a loved area destroyed by strip mining intensified these feelings. JD hunts and fishes as an excuse to be in the woods, and gets great pleasure from such activities. Like the other members of this group, he dislikes voting, but believes other mechanisms such as writing to legislators or policymakers can be effective.
LS is an American Indian who still practices the religion of her people. she was also close to nature as a child, and expresses anger toward the developers who have destroyed so much of the land. She has very little faith that any action within the present system will do any good, but has no interest in changing the political or economic system.
TR is a nominal Buddhist who, although rejecting the religion, 107 still has strong cultural ties to that set of beliefs. Harmony with one's environment is a value which is expressed throughout his interview, although he credits his interest in citizen participation with leading him in the direction of pro-environment positions. TR is as closely tied to Type 2 as he is to Type 1 because of his deep interest in citizen movements.
All of these respondents belong to at least one environmental organization, and most belong to several. Nature Conservancy, Earth
First! and Friends of the Earth are the leaders, although Audubon is a group which most of these people also support. All of these respondents share a sense of empathy with the non-human world. They get as much pleasure from being alone in the woods as they do from mixing with other people. This love of nature is not mere sentimentalism however. The idea of feedlots was not disturbing. As the ecologist noted, "Domestic animals are not part of the natural ecosystem. They are almost half machine and don't have the same intrinsic value as wild animals. The most negative comment was that the eating of so much meat is unnecessary, and it's therefore wrong. Another negative comment was that people should eat lower on the food chain - for their own health, and to reduce the use of grains in an efficient manner.
Damming of wild rivers is an issue which clearly delineates the views of U^rpe 1 people. Respondents were asked to describe their feelings about a dam which would destroy an endangered species and a wild river, a dam which would, in addition, provide hydroelectric power, 108 and a dam which would not destroy any endangered species. For this group, the type of dam or particular circumstances made no difference.
The river has a right to its floodplain - True terrorism is what we are doing to the environment. Outside of direct violence, anything to stop any such project should be done. We should subtract not add dams - People should not live on floodplains, nor should they farm where there is no water. I'm against dams for any circumstance - There is no reason to dam. Water is not there forever - The value to the ecosystem is what counts!^
Voting is not considered to be very effective by any of these respondents, but none advocate violence as the only alternative. None preach an overthrow of this government, nor do they suggest socialism as an answer. Although more skeptical than other respondents, they do not refuse to consider political mechanisms - they simply doubt their worth.
If ecocentric values were addressed, it seems likely that deep ecologists would engage in activities to promote those values.
Although O'Riordan (O'Riordan, 1982) contends that the ecocentrism which dominates deep ecology is an outgrowth of transcendentalism, intense attitudes about democracy, and a respect for nature; the relationship does not seem to be that close. None of these respondents expressed any deep feelings about democracy, and in fact, were fairly neutral about both political and economic systems. These people are also not social activists, as O'Riordan's work would suggest. They are
56 These quotations were taken from the responses made by several members of this group. 109 well educated and trained in ecology or biology rather than philosophy or theology. To find romanticism such as that in transcendentalism, one must look to the Activists.
7»2 Type 2 - Activists
This type is less clear than the Deep Ecologists. Although they do not believe people are apart from or above the environment, they do have strong feelings of obligation. These obligations include other people, but extend to other living things. Because of a sense of obligation or
"Stewardship", they are more concerned with social issues, and less concerned with environmental issues. As social activists, they tend to use conventional political actions which have been fairly successful in creating change. We find in this group people who successfully demonstrated against the Vietnam war and now view demonstrations as a viable political alternative, for example.
Their commitment to a single entity is not as clear as it is for the Deep Ecologists. The statement, "Man is part of nature - nothing more" is seventh in their ranking, while it was first for the Deep
Ecologists. The value of citizen participation, stewardship, and protection of our resources are ranked highly. It is very likely that these people have no deep ontological commitment to Oneness, but simply fall into this type due to a lack of belief in apartness. Their ontology cannot be clearly inferred from the interview evidence. Their feelings certainly do not appear to be very strong. 110
Table 2 provides a ranking of the most relevant items for this group:
The respondents who fall into this category are: two legislators, three bureaucrats, a lobbyist, and three activists. DM and BR are both educated as political scientists. BR became involved in environmental issues as the result of employment with an environmental organization.
DM has always been a social liberal ,and became involved as a result of being appointed to an environmental issues committee. Both believe in evolution and man's necessary relationship to the rest of the earth.
CA and DG are both religious people who believe one has an obligation to care for others, and this extends to non-human nature.
Although deeply committed to his Christian faith, CA believes that the fall of man placed him within nature rather than above. We must strive to rise above nature through acts of caring and protection for the world around us. For him, and the rest of the Activists, environmental positions appear to have developed from an ethical sense rather than from the feeling of necessity which permeates the Deep Ecologist's philosophy. Mary Midgely describes this motivation as man-centered in that the desire is to improve humans by increasing their concern for other creatures (Midgely, 1978).
While Deep Ecologists want to live in harmony, Activists want to preserve, take care of, and manage the environment. Although they still rank values highly, Political participation is considered to be very important. They are less concerned with the environment for itself than Table 2: Ranking of Q Items for Activists
Highest Rank Item 41 Qual of life in relations w people;
Item 27 Citizen Participation is impt;
Item 40 We should be stewards;
Item 42 Solution is in values;
Item 35 All parts of ecosystem impt;
Item 33 Man is part of environment;
Neutral Item 44 Prob is eff manage of resources;
Item 7 We must exploit resources;
Item 6 There are no limits to growth;
Item 37 It is man's destiny to dominate;
Item 26 Individualism is good;
Item 39 Extinction is natural - no prob;
Item 46 Must exploit for high qual of life;
Lowest Rank Item 29 Centralization is required to solve; 112 with the environment for people. This is one case in which it seems very possible that the reasoning went from position to commitment.
Although the policy positions are often similar to those of the
Deep Ecologists, their reasons are often very different. "Elevators detract from the view", was one Activist response to the proposal to put elevators in the Grand Canyon. The more typical one for this group was however:
The whole idea of the Grand Canyon is to see it and make the trip. It would be ridiculous to mess things up with elevators. People need some things to remain the way they age. They need to make the effort in order to fully experience it.-5'
With regard to feedlots, the positions for Activists and Deep
Ecologists are very similar. Neither group is deeply troubled.
However, one Activist says, "The treatment of animals is not an environmental concern", while the Deep Ecologist feels that domestic animals are not "really" animals in the sense of being members of an ecosystem.
On acid rain, Activists are concerned with the social costs. They tend to see it as a national problem rather than an Ohio one. Because the deep ecologists saw any possible threat to the environment as something which should be taken seriously, their reaction to acid rain was generally more violent than the Activists. The "Activists" seem to feel something should be done, but human considerations should take
■^The view expressed by CA. 113 precedence.
The issue of damming wild rivers shows the differences between Deep and Activist respondents more clearly. Activists believe any dam should be multi-purpose. They aren't really in favor of building dams because there isn't any need for them. This is in sharp contrast to the Deep people, who "in the privacy of my home would support illegal activities to stop dam projects".^® Both groups would be likely to oppose most dams, but the degree of opposition would be very different, and the willingness to actively oppose it would also differ. They do not support illegal activities. They are believers in the system
- political, not eco.
7*3 Type 3 - Dominators
The Dominator is a rather clear type also. James Watt made speeches espousing this viewpoint, and many members of the "Moral
Majority" would also probably fall into this group. These people are the oldest of my respondents - with an average age of 50. They also classify themselves as strong Christians, when asked to describe their religious beliefs. Religion is given as a primary factor in the development of their environmental views also. Two are division chiefs with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency concerned with water pollution and air pollution. Both are engineers, but say they work for
^®This was the statement of a member of the environmental bureaucracy. 114
EPA from a desire to' contribute to society. The other two cluster members are a lobbyist for manufacturing industries, and a state representative.
TJ is an engineer. He never gave any thought to the environment at all as a child, and did not spend time enjoying nature. Boy Scouts were important, but it was the association with other boys which he enjoyed.
Employment has changed his views somewhat, but he still believes strongly in individualism, protection of private property, and a need for economic growth.
Although CH is an engineer, he is slightly more sympathetic to environmental issues than other members of this group. He picked an environmental agency because of a desire to do something positive with his life. CH is not a preservationist, but does believe in effective management of the resources we have. As are all members of this group, he is a devout Christian, and believes that non-human nature was placed on earth for us to use. "This does not mean for us to waste though", he says.
BC grew up in a small river town. He loves farming, and talks of his "beef", and crops with pride. BC believes that everyone should be concerned about the environmental, because it is God's gift to humans.
He also believes that the market place will keep use of resources within bounds. "Inefficient use of resources will push the cost too high, so companies doing that will fail". Everyone can "make it" through hard work and good behavior, according to BC. 115 JW deeply believes that the American way of life is an expression of God's will. HE gave us capitalism, and the ability to win if we work. Social liberals with their programs to help the needy only provide incentive for laziness, in JW's view. Resources exist for us to use, and God’s gift was dominion over all the earth. We are where we are through God's plan, and HE will not allow us to suffer.
Although many of their responses resemble those of the Activists, these people react against destruction of property much more, and are also strongly pro individualism. They are not opposed to economic growth, do not believe that there are too many people on earth, and rank as most disliked the statement that man is part of nature, nothing more.
This is the group of people who might be expected to accept traditional values, and support development over environment if the benefits are sufficient. The resemblance to Activists lies in their sense of stewardship, but the Dominator seems to mean controller while the
Activist seems to be referring to the word more in the sense of
''caretaker'' or "servant". One Activist did use the expression caretaker in his discussion of his world view. Ey contrast, a Dominator said that
God gave us "Dominion" over all the earth. This is a subtle difference, but it could make a significant difference in their policy positions.
For people, as well as non-human nature, God's plan rules. These people do not believe that a person's status, country of birth, or intelligence is an accident. It is God's plan. People are expected to work hard to achieve their ends, and this seems to extend to nature also. Nature is 116 expected to "produce" food, clothing, and shelter for man. One
Dominator quoted the parable of the talents to me as an example of the meaning of stewardship. In this parable, a master gave his three servants money. One servant took his money, invested it, and made a small fortune. Another took his and buried it. The moral of the story was that stewardship requires and active role and "wise use" of the resources provided.
Table 3 provides a relative ranking of the items for which a fairly strong opinion was expressed. As in previous tables, the most positively ranked is listed first, and the most negative ranking is listed last.
An examination of the in-depth interview responses shows that these people may disagree about facts, and so may present opposing opinions, but their differences are not philosophical. For example, three of the four feel that feedlots are necessary. As one says, "They smell, but we have to have them to feed the population". The needs of society outweigh any discomfort to the animals. The one feedlot opponent explains that feedlots are not cost effective. "I have 29 head of beef out in pastures, and this is cheaper than forcefeeding on closed lots."
Another respondent noted:
5^A1though I prefer to avoid religious connotations, the Dominator respondents speak in Biblical terms and use religious references. Religion seems to provide the basis for their beliefs. Table 3 s Rankings of Q Items for Dominators
Highest Rank Item 41 Qual of Life in Relations to People;
Item 38 Preserve environ much as possible;
Item 21 Can't condone destruct. of property;
Item 40 We should be stewards of the environ;
Item 26 Individualism is important;
Neutral Item 9 Good effects of tech. outweigh bad;
Item 18 Defense of nature is moral act;
Item 2 Limit to Number of people;
Item 29 Centralized authority is solution;
Item 4 Pavor limits on growth;
Lowest Rank Item 33 Man is part of the environment; 118
God gave us dominion over all creatures. If feedlots are mishandled, they won't make a profit, so they will go out of business".
On elevators in the Grand Canyon, these people saw nothing really wrong with the idea. "People have a right to see it", was the view
- clearly different from the desire to protect a natural setting at all costs.
The most controversial issue discussed in these interviews was acid rain. Ohioans might be expected to be less concerned about the issue than residents of New York or Canada, but it has become an issue with which Ohio is being forced to deal. The responses were varied, although no one advocated shutting our coal mines, or even applying strict regulations. They were all concerned about jobs and about the cost to
Ohio. The consensus was that the federal government should solve the problem - that it is not an Ohio problem. This view was in agreement with the Activists, who also considered the social aspects to be very important.
Where this group differed greatly from other types, was in their attitude toward non-human life. Whaling did not bother these respondents, nor did the whale-watching activates which intrude upon whaling breeding areas. As to damming wild rivers, the typical response was,
Dams are all right. They should all have hydrogenerators though. and 119 I do put human life ahead of a fish. If we don't dam, we won't have water. Even recreation is an important reason for creating lakes. With common sense, however, we could reduce the impact".
Although Activists are much less favorable toward illegal activities than the deep ecologists (who view natural law as the highest priority, rather than man's law), the Dominators are strongly opposed.
"I would shoot the anarchists!", was one — not atypical— response.
Private property, individualism, and God's role in creation are very important here. Although not specifically asked, capitalism often crept into the discussion. As one Dominator said, "God set forth capitalism".
A big difference between the Activists and the Dominators is that
Activists are very concerned about society, and other citizens. They want government to help the poor and needy of the world. Dominators, on the other hand, say that
We have no responsibility toward those who can work. Giving won't end poverty. Capitalism gives everyone the opportunity to improve their lot, so only the truly disabled deserve our help. It should be an individual charge to have a burden for the poor - it isn't government's role.
Because of the belief that we are on earth by design, the need to preserve environment is less pressing. The famous James Watt statement,
"The second coming of Christ will occur before our resources are destroyed" is very typical of this group. They are not opposed to the environment - merely indifferent. These people believe in stewardship, but this refers as much to rights as to responsibilities. Managing resources efficiently is the goal rather than preservation of anything. 120
7-4 Type 4 - Conquerors
This final type is farthest from the others. A belief in man's dominance, and ability to conquer nature is held deeply, but no religious beliefs temper that. In fact, the statement, "Man is made in
God’s image" is disliked only a little less than "Man is part of nature". To these people, man is dominate due to his ability to reason.
Technology gets the credit rather than God. These people believe that, although technology does produce problems, its good effects outweigh the bad ones, and permanent solutions can be found through its use. They do not believe that there are limits to growth that cannot be overcome.
Values are not important at all here, and no changes in the present system are seen as good.
The members of this cluster are: (l)the attorney-lobbyist for the
Coal industry;(2) the attorney- division chief for oil and gas at ODNR; and (j) a member of Greenpeace, political activist, and computer analyst.
GK loves cars, good food, and making money. He believes technology can create problems, but that it is also our best hope. He says that growing up on a farm gave him all the contact with nature that he ever wants. City life is much more interesting to him. He has no patience with what he sees as "emotionalism" about trees or animals. They are just objects for us to use. Our ability to reason is our greatest asset, although he says most people do not use their abilities. For that reason, he prefers lobbying and legal action to citizen 121 participation. If people would take the time to learn the issues, he says, better decisions would be made. Since they don't, decision making should be left to the experts.
RS is a little more moderate in outlook than GK. She, in fact, fits no group very well. She believes man is above the rest of nature, that his intelligence allows him to progress, and that technology has the answers for the future. She also, however, is concerned about people, and approves of citizen participation. She believes in the concept of stewardship, and sees God as the provider of human intelligence. She fits best in Type 4 mostly because she believes technology can solve our problems, but she is likely to side with Type 3 on social issues.
JZ also has more of a social conscious than GK, but he shares the view that we are above nature due to our intelligence. He has no religious belief, and has no interest in stewardship. If he sides with environmentalists, it is usually because he thinks technology could provide better solutions than are currently being utilized. Solar energy, for example would be better than fossil fuel consumption, so JZ would join those protesting the use of oil over solar.
Their more intense rankings of Q items are as follows in Table 4*
Their lack of concern even for people is shown in their views on elevators in the Grand Canyon. While Activists feel they might be good for helping people see more, Conquerors don't see any need. Their responses are neutral on this. Their attitude about acid rain is more Table 4s Rankings of Q Items for Conquerers
Highest Item 1 Shortages are likely;
Item 9 Good in technology outweighs had;
Item 11 Solution is better science and tech;
Item 22 Industrial societies- high well-being;
Item 24 Computers prove we can conquer nature;
Item 10 Science and technology3 best hope;
Item 23 Resources valued acc to usefulness;
Neutral Item 41 Qual of life in relations to people;
Item 2 Approaching limits to people;
Item 15 Solution in lifestyle change;
Item 28 Small communities are solution;
Item 12 Nuclear energy is safe solution;
Item 36 Han is made in God's image;
Item 16 Tech solutions only temporary;
Item 21 Approve destruction of property; 123 positive than other types because "we could solve the problem if we put more money into it", is one expression of their attitude. If technology will resolve the problem, it isn't really much of a problem. In many ways, this group is freer to be pro-environment than are the religious believers, and the political activists. These people have no extreme attitudes about any environmental issue. They are fairly neutral about dams, whaling, elevators, acid rain, and feedlots. A belief in technology apparently allows them to believe that other energy sources can replace dams and high-sulphur coal; more aesthetically pleasing routes can be found to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and watching whales is a perfectly nice way to spend an afternoon. As one person said, "We are the crown of creation - the sex organs of life force. It is our destiny to take life to the stars."
Arguments about God's will would turn these people off; but arguments regarding our "need to live in harmony" would fail equally. "
If you like it, do it" may be the motto for Conquerers. It seems doubtful that these people would react very strongly in either direction on issues such as wildlife preservation or preservation of natural areas. Because of a belief in technology, and in man's ability to conquer nature, there also seems to be a desire to find new technologies. Traditional methods such a dams, elevators, or other
"mundane" methods are unlikely to receive much support. The use of computers, lasers, and perhaps even solar technology may receive support because it is new technology. 124 7.5 Ontologies and Policy Positions
If one examined only policy positions, it might appear that there are few differences among these groups. Because Deep Ecologists and
Dominators share a lack of opposition to feedlots, for example, one might believe that they would be able to agree upon the relative worth of snail darters also. However, these two groups differed strongly and perhaps even violently on this issue. Demonstrations were held in defense of snail darters, and lawsuits were filed. Many bureaucrats were dumbfounded by the "extremist", "emotionalist" attitude of those who would save a worthless 2-inch fish at the expense of a large dam designed to provide a lake and some hydroelectric power. This project is still cited by those who argue that environmentalists are "irrational crazies".®®
The possibility of compromise, mediation, or consensus lies not in the positions people assume, but in their reasons for those positions.
Deep ecologists will never value a fish or even a mountain according to its productive capability or its usefulness for man. The statement which reflected this view was rated very negatively by them. If the snail darter is part of the ecosystem, it is valuable. If a cow is not part of a natural ecosystem, it lacks that same value. A Dominator, however, may love his cow because it is attractive, provides him an
®®See the discussion and cites in chapter two for a fuller description of the Tellico controversy. PLEASE NOTE:
This page not included with original material. Filmed as received.
University Microfilms International 126 responded to the in-depth issue questions, hut did not do the Q sort task. They did, however, answer the four questions which can he used as an alternative way of measuring ontological commitments and beliefs ahout stewardship. These questions are:
1. There are many factors which contribute to the beliefs or attitudes people hold about the relationship between man and nonhuman nature...describe the primary sources for your beliefs regarding man’s relationship to nature.
2. The world is seen differently by different people...What guiding principles, if any, do you believe people should follow with regard to nature?
3. What are your religious views?
4. There are several theories of justice...describe your views about justice with regard to America's poor.
According to the responses to these questions, the 7 "test" respondents can be categorized according to which of the four types (see above) they most resemble.
Three of these seven respondents are close to Deep Ecologists (Type
1) in their beliefs. PM is a naturalist, who has spent his life teaching others about the interdependence of natural objects. He has no particular religious beliefs, but believes very strongly that humans have outgrown their niche. Overpopulation is a serious problem to him.
CO and SM are also trained naturalists. CO and PM fit very definitely into the category of Deep Ecologist, although PM also
61 For a complete listing of all questions, see the Appendix. 127 believes that citizen participation is important. This is not an attitude which is common to the deep ecologists. PM is not, however, an activist. He simply believes that people are intelligent enough to make their own decisions about issues, without politicians' help. All three of these men say that they spent a great deal of time as children alone in the woods - walking, hunting, or fishing.
SM falls between the Activists and Deep Ecologists. He believes in stewardship, although says his religious belief is that God created life and let it evolve from there. The interdependence of all living things is a deep belief for all three, and their chief concern is the ecosystem rather than the species homo sapien. Their responses, place them in type 1, although SM fits less closely than the other two.
The policy positions of these respondents should then, resemble those of Type 1 respondents discussed previously. Table 5 compares the 62 consensus of Deep Ecologists to the views of these respondents.
Although it is impossible to tell clearly from these short answers, there is a consistency between the answers of Deep Ecologists and those of the predictor group. For both groups, the proposals regarding dams and elevators evoke strong negative responses. The attitudes about
feedlots are slightly negative. A belief in eating lower on the food chain is expressed by both groups, but neither feel domestic animals are
62 There are, of course, variations in the opinions of respondents even within a group. This is therefore, not a precise comparison, but is an attempt to compare philosophical positions. Table 5: Deep Ecologists versus CO, PM, SM
Deep
Issue Ecologist CO, PM, SM
Positions Positions
Elevator Move existing structures/ Have to abide by
carrying capacity/
100$ opposed/
Do away with burros/
Make people crawl/
Peedlot Eat lower on food Eat lower on food
chain/ chain. More concerned
Domestic animals are about wild animals/
not a concern/
Dams Rivers are impt/ Would be ecoguerilla/
Damming is wrong/ We have enough dams/
Whales Whales have right May be unethical to
to exist/ kill them. It is
simply killing/ 129 as important as wild ones. There is not clear predictive ability, but there is at least an ability to understand the context from which answers were given.
Two of the seven "test" respondents are closest to the Activists
(Type 2). CR is an activist who ranks stewardship very highly. He also gives a positive ranking to man as part of nature, and a strong negative ranking to the statement regarding man's dominion over nature.
Solutions to environmental problems are seen in values and in citizen participation. He also describes technological solutions as temporary, and gives a negative ranking to individualism.
TT is less clear. Shs places humans within nature - not apart from it - and is slightly positive regarding stewardship. Individualism and effective management of resources are ranked highly, but the rest if her rankings resemble those of the Deep ecologists. The positive ranking for stewardship places her more in the Activist fold, so there are components of each type in her ranks. This provides one opportunity to examine the relative effect of various components. If man in nature is most important, the issue positions should resemble either Activist or deep ecologists. If individualism and management values are more important, her positions should more closely resemble those of the dominators.
Table six provides a comparison between these two and the
Activists.
TT's answers are closer to those of Deep Ecologists than Activists Table 6: Activists versus TT and CR
Issue Activists TT/ CR
Elevators People need to make Only for handicapped
effort to see it/ if no other option/
Feedlot Pollution may be Pollution is problem/
problem. Domestic Animals are not a
and wild differ/ concern/
Acid rain Should be national Consumers must pay
solution/ cost/
Dams Should be multi Only for flood control
purpose/ plus other uses/
Whaling Oppose but not Would do anything
high priority/ legal to stop/ 131 on many issues. She is fairly neutral about feedlots, for example, but gives a deep ecology reason - domestic animals are not the same as wild animals. She, however, would allow elevators and dams under some circumstances, while the deep ecologist vigorously opposes these activities.
The difficulty in predicting responses for TT and CR indicates that the relative rankings of ecocentrism and stewardship may have an effect on the policy positions. Because TT is a trained naturalist, her deeper appreciation of nature gives her a deeper ecocentric view, but her sense of stewardship leads her to attempt a balance between human and non human interests.
SC, a director of an environmental organization, and lobbyist believes that humans have dominion over the earth, but they must also be stewards. She comes closest to the Dominators, Type 3. Objects other than humans have "no intrinsic rights". Table 7 shows the Dominators versus SC.
There is some disagreement here, but there is also a great deal of agreement. Many of these responses could come from Activists also, so there is overlap among the types on many points.
Type 4 also has a "test" respondent for comparison. KC is an astronomer and environmental activist. He says, "Man is the universe itself coming to consciousness. We are star stuff." We are animals, so act naturally in everything we do, but we are also dominant. KC has no stated belief in stewardship, but he does believe that technology can Table 7s Dominator versus SC
Issue Dominator SC
G Canyon People have right Need special places/
to see it/ accomplishment of
climbing/
Feedlots If mishandled Need feedlots. Cows
no profit/ exist only because meat/
Dams OK if needed/ Many are not needed/
OK if needed/
Acid Rain Fed govt We will have to do
should solve/ something about it/ 133 solve environmental problems. This faith in technology places him in the camp of the Conquerors.
Again, there are no outstanding similarities, and no glaring differences. Because Conquerors are not concerned about many environmental issues, it is difficult to compare their answers to others. KC does not appear to have any extreme views either, and he does share a belief that technology provides answers.
It is obvious that the prediction of particular policy positions is unlikely unless further information is provided. It is also clear that there are no deep inconsistencies which would serve to refute the contention that ontological commitments affect policy positions. Table 8: Conquerors versus KC
Issue Conqueror KC
Elev Mundane - better Keep them small
methods exist/ out of main area/
Feedlots No real opinion/ Keep pollution
under control, but
favor larger areas/
Acid Rain Technology can Cleaning coal is
solve problem/ not a problem/
Dams Not really needed/ OK/ Chapter 8
Ontologies and Policies:
Commitments, Beliefs, Values, and Actions
Advocates of "nomological" explanations would contend that this research is worthless. Nomological (law-governed) explanations are based upon an assumption that there are laws which govern human behavior— even if they can only be developed as statistical generalizations when it comes to the social sciences. I have discovered no laws of human behavior, found no causal relationships, unless "having a reason" can be considered a cause.
An important conclusion can be made from this study. It is not that ontology A is highly correlated with position B however. The important discovery is that ontology A allows belief sets 1 and 2 to develop. Both belief sets require the existence of the entities of ontology A, for the beliefs to be "rational".
Because different ontologies structure the world differently, beliefs and reasons for actions develop which are quite different, and in fact could be seen as "irrational" by someone with a different ontology. To preserve a wilderness, for example, is to Les (our construction worker) somewhat akin to "preserving an oil well", or
135 136
"burying your money in the backyard". Destroying that same wilderness— developing it— is, to Ken (the EarthFirst! member) analogous to burning down your home to obtain ashes for your garden. Each position seems
"irrational" to the other, because the label "wilderness" refers to such very different objects. Ken and Les cannot even talk about wilderness to each other. We knew that this conflict existed. Now, perhaps, we understand why it existed. Only if we understand a situation, can we attempt to improve it.
I have not tried in this research to develop a model which posits a causal relationship between ontologies and opinions. Nor am I claiming predictive capability. Rather than a behavioral model which looks for statistically significant relationships, mine is a cognitive model which seeks an understanding of the process through which alternative sets are developed for people. This is an attempt to see into the "black box" section of a system which is typically ignored by behaviorist research.
I have been looking for insight into the structure of thought processes.
What has this research accomplished? For one thing, it has shown that differences often occur below the surface even when superficially there seems to be agreement. The feedlot issue is a good example of this. Deep ecologists are no more likely— perhaps even less so— than
Dominators to care about feedlots, but their reasons are very different.
Dominators see animals as nothing more than resources, so have no special reason for concern, unless they have sympathetic feelings in general. Ecologists have no particular interest in individuals, but are 137
concerned for species. They also have little interest in feedlot
animals, which have never been a part of the ecosystem. If animals are
bred solely for human food, and have no part in the natural order, there
is little room for concern. Ecologists who are also vegetarian tend to be so out of a belief that humans should naturally eat lower on the food
chain than they do. This may be due to overpopulation which is
straining resources, a belief that humans are herbivores, or general
sympathetic feelings which are unrelated to their basic views. Although
the ecologist and the dominator may agree to keep foodlots, that does not mean they will agree on anything else.
What does an ability to understand reasons for behavior mean to us?
At the simplest level, behavior based on "good reasons" can be
considered rational, so an understanding of the reasons for an opponents actions may allow actors to at least see each other as "rational"
individuals. Understanding of reasons does not make the action comprehensible necessarily— one may not understand how anyone could have
such reasons— but the possibility for understanding is greatly increased.
Secondly, "understanding" provides a deeper form of explanation
than we are usually able to provide with attempts to discover "laws"
about human behavior. Explanation can occur at more than one level. It
is possible to explain a situation by referring to race, income,
religious affiliation, or other demographics, for example. Many of the
"classics" of modern political science are devoted to just such forms of 138 explanation^ They seek "nomic" connections, race or education as a determiner of vote, for example. Such explanations in political science do not meet the requirements of causal explanation, because there is no necessary and sufficient connection between race and vote. Instead, we are able only to produce statistical generalizations — 75$ of those whose race is black will vote democratic. Whether such generalizations can serve adequately as explanations is a source of conflict in the discipline.^ The issue is more than, do statistical generalizations meet the requirements for a law-governed explanation, but instead is, do we want to make generalizations which tell us nothing about individual behavior— do not allow us to ever predict the behavior of any one individual— and tell us very little about the possible motivations for behavior? To improve situations we must first understand them, and understanding requires a different approach.
^-*See Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes; Wolfinger and Rosenstone; and Verba and Nie for examples.
^ S e e Hempel (1965) and Weber (1968b,1968c) for an in-depth discussion of this issue. 139 8.1 Methodological Implications
The methodological approach used in this research reflects an interest in understanding why people act in a certain way, rather than in predicting what they will do. In-depth interviews are an important part of the research design, hut the Q sorts are perhaps even more important. They provide "objective" data— as much as any survey data can provide— while focusing on associations among individuals rather than correlations among variables. The cluster analysis used, provided information about individuals. Which individuals have similar patterns of response? It is then possible to examine demographics, or other data, to seek reasons for their similarities.
The Q sorts do even more than that, though. They allow us to examine the relative strength, as well as direction among the items used. Sometimes, the fact that one view, for example a view about economic growth, is held much more strongly than another view, say one about "stewardship", tells us a great deal about that person and his frame of reference. For one thing, it tells us which factor is likely to be the determining one in a decision involving both factors. An understanding of the priorities used in decision making is an important strategic aid as well. 140
8.2 Implications for the Environment
If Dominators represent the dominant paradigm, as Milbrath,
Cotgrove, and O'Riordan all argue, certain consequences are very likely.
Since these people are committed to an environment which exists only as a resource for man, other objects can only be valued instrumentally - in terms of their usefulness for man. Cost-benefit analysis, decision trees, or other "rational” techniques make sense as aids to decision making from this perspective.
Although there is conflict over the techniques to be used (how much should future human generations count, how much oil is actually left, can other fuels do a better job, how much is human life "worth"), the most violent conflicts (over the rights of trees to exist (Tribe, 1974,
Stone, 1972), for example) do not occur within this paradigm. If the dominators, dominate, trees, other species, and perhaps even the Grand
Canyon will disappear if there is greater benefit in letting that happen.
If the Club of Rome models (Meadows, 1972, Mesarovic, 1974) and the work of Schumacher, Hardin, and other "catastrophists"^ is even partly
^Garrett Hardin is one "catastrophist" who sees little hope for mankind unless we change our ways. His works: Nature and Man' 3 Fate,;Exploring New Ethics for Survival; "Living in a Lifeboat" all express the idea that doom is coming unless we change, and that an authoritarian government which uses "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon", is our only hope. Other doomsday writers are Robert Heilbroner, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect ; William Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity; and E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. Schumacher has perhaps a more positive outlook, but appears nevertheless to be convinced that immediate change is necessary. 141 correct, a resolution of this conflict, and an appropriate solution is imperative. This suggests that the work of Amory Lovins, (Lovins, 1977) or Garrett Hardin who seek solutions within present society, or William
Ophuls (Ophuls, 1977) who suggests a political answer, may be misleading. If ontological commitments determine, in a weak sense, our choices, solutions which ignore these commitments may not be successful.
All environmental activists did not fit neatly into one "type”, and politicians did not fit into another. This has important implications for the future of the environment, as well as for the different interest groups involved in the debate. There are some active participants in the political process (bureaucrats in this instance) who are committed to the oneness of existence. They are likely to be supporters of pro environment legislation, and should be courted by environmental interest groups. All bureaucrats and legislators are not "enemies" of the environment— nor are all environmental activists committed to oneness.
The lines of battle may have to be redrawn to reflect these deeper views rather than the surface affiliations. For interest groups— especially those which seem to be in disarray— it is time to question the motives of the membership. It may very well be that a loose coalition of people who share only one or two views is useful, but coalitions should be developed with that understanding. Often it is possible to assume deeper agreement from surface ones. 142
8.3 Implications for Policy
Deep Ecologists and Dominators are still at war. We haven't found a way to stop that, although we might reduce the level of frustration.
Unfortunately, one conclusion is that people from different commitments may never completely understand their opponent's position, because the entities with which they are dealing even differ. Knowing this may allow policy-makers the freedom to investigate other options however.
If some arguments can never be resolved, it is better to understand that than to continue to struggle.
Understanding the likely range of alternatives which are acceptable to each position allows a quick search for compromise solutions. If none apparently exist, the search can move to another level. Perhaps discussion should focus on concerns rather than goals or specific policies, for example. Although some present mediators (Bilder (1981), for example) argue that mediation can not work when value conflicts exist, it may be that this is only true because those conflicts are so poorly understood. Mediation is a flexible tool, which should be able to use any viable information to improve the debate. [See Fisher and Ury
(1981), and Bilder (1981) for more on mediation as a conflict resolution strategy.]
There are no set rules, except those decided upon by the mediator and participants. The negotiations need not focus on specific policies, but can instead address the fears, or concerns of the actors. It can also use "objective criteria" which define a "meta" level of goals, in 143 order to reduce the specific conflict. One mediator argues that mediation cannot occur if there are value differences, but this seems to be true only if the value differences are unknown. An understanding of the relationships posited in this research can perhaps allow the mediator to discover more precisely, the positions, and reasons for that position for each participant. Understanding can only aid in negotiation.
8.4 foundations and the future
Although a computer model of this information has not yet been developed, this is a next step for the research. A model is a representation of one's theory. Objects or ideas exist in some relationship to each other. Our theory, and our model, demonstrate the form in which we believe those relationships exist. If a model airplane, for example, represents an incorrect representation of the relationships between lift and thrust, it will fail to fly. We then can know that our theory is incorrect. In the same sense, a theory about the relationship between race, education, and vote can be tested through the use of a statistical model. If no relationship is discovered, the theory is incorrect.
A static model— an input-output model such as those developed by statistical research, provides information about the inputs which lead to particular outcomes, with some statistical frequency. How these factors interact is not known, although causal modelling and probit analysis seek such answers also. By an attempt to model the process
itself, Artifical Intelligence modelling tries to look in the "black
box" of inter-reactions and relationships. It seeks "understanding" of
behavior rather than explanation in the statistical, predictive sense—
process validity rather than only outcome validity.
Why is such modelling worth doing? Abelson pointed the way with his Ideology Machine (Boden, 1977) which provided a crude simulation of an idealogue such as Barry Goldwater; and Carbonell added another piece with POLITICS (Carbonell, 1978). If such models as these succeed,
strategists would be able to test proposals on the model rather than on potential protagonists. They would be able to test counterfactuals.
Proposals could be examined in the light of more than one context and more than one type of protagonists. This would reduce some of the uncertainty in planning. Knowing the likelihood of conflict over any proposal gives the strategist a tremendous advantage over his opposition. This would be true for environmentalists as well as policy makers.
8.5 Conclusions
Different ontological commitments have existed in the past and continue to exist today. An ontological commitment structures the world
(or at least allows that structure to be formed in a particular way), and constrains beliefs to those which reflect that structure, or the existence of those entities. Although it cannot be proven that actions 145
(in this case policy positions) are "causally" connected to beliefs, we are willing to believe that an action is rational— for that actor— if it can be linked to her beliefs.
Understanding the relationships between ontologies, beliefs, and actions allows us to now take a further step toward the resolution of conflict— a computer model of conflict situations, using the ontologies and beliefs of the involved actors.
cc There is no evidence that an ontology leads to one belief which leads to one action. We can say however, that ontology limits acceptable or reasonable beliefs, and those beliefs lilmit the range of acceptable actions. Hermeneutics, and situational analysis, using the assumption that people generally act in a rational manner, have looked at the beliefs and reasons of an actor in order to "understand" his actions. To understand someone's behavior means that it seems reasonable (rational?), in the light of the actor’s beliefs and reasons. Appendix A.
Guide for Structured Interview
ENVIBOHMEHTAL ATTITUDES
1. The following descriptions are hypothetical but feasible scenarios. Please give your opinion regarding each situation, giving your reasons as completely as possible.
a. The Department of Interior is considering a system of elevators from the rim to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The objective is to increase the numbers who can travel to the canyon floor. Friends of the Earth is protesting this proposal on the grounds that the canyon walls would be damaged and the increased numbers of tourists to the canyon floor would destroy the wildlife in that area.
b. A female whale struck a whale-watching boat which had come between her and her calf. The boat was destroyed
146 and two people were killed. As a result, the Whale Protection Fund is asking the Mexican Government to restrict the number of boats which can enter the area, and to impose fines on boats which come within 100 feet of the whales. The Mexican government argues that such restrictions would damage their badly needed tourist trade.
By utilizing feed lots which maximize the number of animals per acre and eliminate the need for costly pasturing, the cost of meat is kept low. The American Humane Society argues that such treatment of animals is cruel, and should be stopped. 148
d. Acid rain is killing fish in many streams and lakes in New York and Canada. The acid rain has been found to come from Ohio. Ohio claims that the use of high- sulfur coal is necessary to their economy - providing jobs in mining and keeping fuel costs low. New York and Canada claim that justice requires the creators of pollution to pay the cost. Attempts to dam the Wagomi River have been thwarted by environmentalists who have picketed, and who have even blown up the partially completed structure. The dam would change the ecosystem and destroy the "snakefish", a species which is only found on that river. Other rare wildlife would also be destroyed. The purpose of the dam is to provide a recreational lake for tourists and residents.
- Would your opinion differ if the dam were meant to provide a small amount of hydroelectric power to the area?
- If it would provide a large amount of hydroelectric power? If no species were actually endangered?
f. Greenpeace members recently sailed their ship Rainbow Warrior into Russian waters in order to obtain evidence that Russians were using whale meat as food for minks rather than people. They were arrested by the Russian government and now face long prison terms. What is your opinion of Greenpeace activities? 151 2. There are many factors which contribute to the beliefs or attitudes people hold about the relationship between man and nonhuman nature. Some people cite experiences such as camping, others point to parental guidance, books, or their culture as the source of their present attitudes and beliefs. Others point to their religious upbringing as the factor which gave them particular views about man's relationship to other objects on earth. As much as possible, describe the primary sources for your beliefs regarding man's relationship to nature.
3. The world is seen differently by different people. Man’s role, and the rules for his behavior are defined as a result of his perception of his universe. How do you see man's role with regard to non-human nature? What guiding principles if any do you believe people should follow with regard to nature? 152
4. There are several theories of justice. One predominant one argues that people are entitled to whatever they honestly earn, so governments should not take away from them, another argues that intelligence and other qualities are accidents of "birth so justice requires equality of distribution. With- regard to the poor, what do you would be a just solution?
5. "What are your religious views? For the following mechanisms to promote a policy, please tell me how effective you think they are in dealing with environmental problems.
a. Voting
b. Lobbying
c. Demonstrating or picketing, within the law 154 d. Extralegal activities
e. Legal action
f. Environmental mediation
g. Letting the market decide Changing the political institutions
Writing Congressmen or public officials For the following organizations, please tell me whether you belong and if yes, why you belong to this particular organization.
a. Greenpeace
b. Sierra Club
c. National Wildlife Federation
d. The Ohio Sportsmen Association Earth First! Appendix B.
Items Used in Q Sorts
1. There are likely to he 2. We are approaching the serious and disruptive shortages limit of the number of of essential raw materials if people the earth can things go on as they are. support.
3* There are limits to growth 4. I favor a society that beyond which our industrialized limits economic growth. society cannot expand.
5. Economic growth is more 6. There are no limits to important than environmental growth. protection.
7. To alleviate scarcity, we 8. Economic growth is should exploit resources more essential if society is vigorously. to continue to progress.
9. The good effects of 10. Science and technology technology outweigh its are our best hope for the bad effects. future.
11. The solution to the 12. Nuclear energy is a environmental problem is safe solution to the better science and energy crisis. technology.
158 159
13. A nuclear accident 14. Technological solutions resulting in the contam often create more severe ination of the environ problems than the ones they ment is increasingly likely. solved.
15. The solution to the 16. Although we can find environmental problem is a solutions to environmental lifestyle change and a problems through basic change in society. technology they are only temporary.
17. Individuals/groups should 18. Property damage in act in defense of the environ defense of living things ment whenever it is threatened. is a moral act.
19* Tourism should never be 20. A simply lifestyle is promoted at the expense of preferred to one with high natural objects. consumption.
21. The destruction of dams, 22. Industrial societies bulldozers, or other property provide a high level of can never be condoned. well-being for their members.
23. Resources should be valued 24. Computers, medical break according to their usefulness throughs, and space flights for man. are proof of our ability to conquer nature.
25. We should rely on the market 26. The good for society is to make societal decisions. best served by allowing each individual to pursue his own interests. 160
27. Citizen participation in a 28. Small communities with democratic system is important shared values are the best for solving environmental hope for solving environ problems. mental problems.
29* Only a global, centralized 30. Government should ensure authority can effectively that private property is used deal with "public good" issues in such a way that it benefits such as air and water pollutio and does not injure the or allocation of commonly community. owned resources.
31• A change in values is more 32. A market system encourages important for the resolution the exploitation of natural of environmental issues than a resources for profit. change in the political or economic system.
33. Man is part of the environ 34. Community refers to inter ment - nothing more. relationships, and as such, includes all parts of the ecosystem.
35* All parts of an ecosystem 36. Man was made in God's are important. image and has dominion over all the earth.
37. It is man's destiny to 38. We should preserve the use science and technology to natural environment to the dominate nature and produce greatest extent possible. material wealth.
39* Extinction of species 40. Because we are dominant is a natural process, and we should be stewards of the not something to worry about. lesser creatures. 41• Quality of life ia related 42. The solution to environ to relations with other people mental problems lies in the and the world around us. values people hold regarding nature.
43* I get a deep sense of 44. The major environmental satisfaction from close problem today is effective contact with nature. management of our natural resources.
45- I prefer to do things 46. We must exploit resources in the city rather than in in order to maintain a high rural settings. quality of life. Appendix C.
Form Used to Record Q Sort Scores
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
I 1 i 1 I I i i ! I 1 J 1 ; i i j ; i ! 1 I
1 1 t i I ? i t » 1 1 1 ! i i . I I j i 1 I 1
i ! i I T i i f 1 ! 1 t j 1 i r ! I
t i i 1 i r 1 1 ; i r ; j 1
i i f i i i ; ; i i
i i » j i j
NAME
OCCUPATION
RELIGION
ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS BELONG TO:
162 163
AGE Appendix D.
Cluster Scores
R-squared With own Next R**2 Variable Cluster Highest Ratio Cluster 1 RM 0.5887 0.2468 0.4192 LV 0.4625 0.1962 0.4242 RS ' 0.4262 0.2139 0.5020 DL 0.6547 0.3546 0.5417 BN 0.7010 0.4140 0.5906 JS 0.7420 0.4515 0.6085 BW 0.5041 0.3290 0.6527 SS 0.5595 0.3806 0.6803
Cluster 2 TL 0.4968 0.0940 0.1892 JH 0.7415 0.1363 0.1838 BC 0.5067 0.1829 0.3610 CT 0.6004 0.3325 0.5538
Cluster 3 GK 0.3765 0.0214 0.0568 JJ 0.7556 0.1655 0.2191 RH 0.6067 0.2998 0.4942
Cluster 4 RN 0.6774 0.2992 0.4421 LS 0.6081 0.2733 0.4494 AT 0.4819 0.2400 0.4980 AW 0.6245 0.3489 0.5587 JM 0.7810 0.5209 0.6669 DH 0.6882 0.4738 0.6885
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