The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality Charles Starkey Clemson University

The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2007) Vol. XLV

Abstract There has been significant debate over both the imiplications and the merit of Leopold's land ethic. I consider the two most prominent objections and a resolution to them. One of these objections is that, far from being an alternative to an "economic" or cost-benefit perspective on environmental issues, Leopold's land ethic merely broadens the range of economic considerations to be used in addressing such issues. The other objection is that the land ethic is a form of "environmental fascism" because it subordinates the welfare of humans to the good of the ecological whole. I argue that these objections are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of his theory by advocates and detractors alike. The land ethic is centrally a psychological theory of moral development and ecological rationality that advocates a shift in the way that environmental problems are conceptualized and approached.

Introduction In his land ethic, Aldo Leopold advocates a change in "the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain memher and citizen of it."^ The impact of his work on environmental thinking is immeasurahle, and it is perhaps the most historically important and influential articulation of an environmental ethic. Wallace Stegner has referred to Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, in which the land ethic is proposed, as a "prophetic."^ Research centers and foundations have heen named in Leopold's honor. However, its reception has been mixed, and there has heen significant dehate over hoth the implications and the merit of the theory; it is sometimes regarded as stirring hut impractical. Philosophical

Charles Starkey is assistant professor of philosophy and fellow of the Robert J. Rutland Institute for Ethics at Clemson University. His research interests include ethical theory, moral psychology, and emotion theory.

149 Charles Starkey criticism of the theory has been much more damning than this, and interestingly, the two most prominent philosophical criti- cisms of the theory are diametrically opposed. One of these objections is that, far from being an alternative to an "economic" or cost-benefit perspective on environmental issues, Leopold's land ethic merely broadens the range of economic considerations to be used in addressing such issues and is thus itself essentially an economic environmental ethic, albeit more subtle and complex than that provided by a traditional cost-benefit perspective. The other objection is that the land ethic is a form of "environmental fascism" because it subordinates the welfare of humans to the good of the ecological whole in such a way that it is incompatible with the idea of human rights. I argue that these objections are based on a substantial mis- reading of Leopold's theory: the land ethic is properly understood as a theory of psychological development. Regarded as such, it can respond to these objections because it is centrally a theory of moral development that advocates a shift in the way that environmental problems are understood and approached, rather than a simple expansion of the range of environmental considerations or an elevation of the ecological whole to the diminishment of human rights. What is called for in Leopold's expansion of the ethical sphere is not the adoption of a moral principle but a repositioning of the perspective from which the land is seen and understood—more specifically, the development of an ecological rationality constituted by a fundamental psychological reframing of issues involving land use.^ This is not however a simply exegetical essay. I argue that the claims of the land ethic understood in this way are borne out by ensuing work in psychology and cognitive science, and such work provides critical support for the land ethic as the basis of an environmental ethic. In section 1, I outline the land ethic; in section 2, I consider two central objections to the land ethic; in section 3, I argue for a new understanding of the land ethic; in section 4, I discuss the role of framing and ecological rationality in moral psychology; in section 5, I respond to the objections to the land ethic and outline other benefits of this interpretation of the land ethic; in section 6, I address two possible objections to the land ethic understood in this way. 1. The Land Ethic Leopold claims that the land ethic is a necessary development away from the predominant view that the land and its use are to be considered in terms of human economic self-interest. Many parts of the land community lack commercial value but are nonetheless important because of the interdependent

150 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality nature of its various components. The prevailing economic view of the land is myopic in that it discounts those parts of the land community that are of no immediate economic value to humans but are necessary to the healthy functioning of the other parts of the land community and the community as a whole. Leopold's central argument for the interdependence of the community utilizes a model of a hiotic pyramid, in which "each successive layer depends on those helow it for food and often for other services, and each in turn furnishes food and services to those above."* The lines of dependency for these services and food are food chains, and in this model each species is a link in many chains. Leopold's point here is that the relations between species are very complex, and this complexity obscures the dependence on cooperation between the parts for the stability of the system. Change is endemic to this intertwined biotic system, but when change occurs to one part of the system, the rest of the system must adjust to it. The natural changes to the system over time have been slow and local, but, Leopold contends, "Man's invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope."^ This ability on the part of humans to make sudden changes to parts of the system poses a threat to other parts of the system and to the overall stability of the system. Such power is particularly dangerous because the interdependence of the various systems in the biotic community is not recognized by humans, thus leaving the door open for use of the land that endangers the entire biotic community. To Leopold, an ethic involves a differentiation between social and antisocial conduct and a limitation on freedom of action and is, at its root, a "tendency of interdependent individuals or groups to evolve modes of cooperation."^ Coopera- tive mechanisms develop because they are necessary for survival and flourishing, and as populations evolve and environments change, so also does the ethic of a population change. Leopold identifies three successive developmental sequences in the course of the social evolution of human beings. In the first, ethics involves the relation between individuals, and in the second, ethics involves the relation between the individual and society. The third ethical paradigm, which has yet to come to fruition, involves the relation between human beings and the land. Leopold regards the development of this ethic as both a possibility for humans and an ecological necessity for the sustainability of the land community. The central characteristic of this progression of ethical paradigms is the enlargement, over time, of what we may call the boundaries of the moral community. This enlargement involves a broadening of the range of moral concerns rather

151 Charles Starkey than a shift in which some concerns are replaced by other concerns. The first ethic is based on the recognition of the interdependence of specific individuals and their need to cooperate with each other. The second ethic is based on the recognition of the moral standing of larger groups of people, rather than local collections of concrete others belonging to the same small community. The land ethic, in turn, further enlarges the boundaries of the moral community so that it encompasses "soils, waters, plants, and animals."' It is in the adoption of this third paradigm that the change in role from conqueror of the land-community to member and citizen of it takes place. To Leopold, this paradigm implies respect on the part of bumans for tbe other members of tbe land community and for tbe community as sucb.

2. Economic Motive and Environmental Fascism One objection tbat bas been leveled against tbis tbeory is tbat in tbe end it does not in fact propose an alternative to wbat Leopold refers to as "economic motive." Leopold's central argument for tbe land etbic ascribes an importance to tbe various parts of tbe biotic community because of tbe interdependence of its members (including bumans) on eacb otber for tbeir well-being and continuance and calls attention to tbe myopic ignorance of tbe empbasis on sbort-term economic self-interest. But bow different, one may ask, is tbis from a traditional economic approacb to tbe environment? Take for instance William Baxter's environmental tbeory. To bim, dealing witb tbe land and solving environmental problems is simply a matter of cost—benefit analysis. Devoting resources to one tbing—sucb as wildlife conservation—is to move resources away from otber tbings tbat are valued by bumans, and so decisions regarding tbe use of tbe land are reducible to tbe determination of tbe relative costs and benefits of, for example, producing consumer goods versus preserving wildlife. Tbus, "One builds a dam or cleans a river by diverting labor and steel and trucks and factories from making one kind of goods to making anotber" and "tbe costs of controlling pollution are best expressed in terms of tbe otber goods tbat we will bave to give up to do tbe job."^ So to Baxter, tbere are opportunity costs in all decisions regarding tbe land. Put in Leopold's terms, tbe cost of preserving a part of tbe biotic system can be expressed in terms of tbe forgoing of otber goods. Leopold's cbarge is tbat tbe range of considerations in determining cost is too narrow because it is restricted to economic value understood as commercial value, and be calls attention to tbe necessity of tbe uneconomic parts of tbe land

152 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationahty community for the functioning of the economic parts.^ However, this appears to be symmetrical with Baxter's approach to the use of the land. The myopia that Leopold warns of can be addressed by making the analysis of cost and benefits more subtle and more expansive, so that such analysis recognizes the multiple, far-reaching effects of land use and, accordingly, factors in the interdependent relations between members of the land community in determining the true cost of any instance of land use. Scott Lehman interprets the land ethic in this way, stating that: Although Leopold claims for communities of plants and animals a "right to continued existence," his argument is homocentric, appealing to the human stake in preservation. Basically it is an argument from enlightened self-interest, where the self in question is not an individual human being but humanity—present and future—as a whole.'"

Understood in this way, Leopold's theory is simply an enlightened economic environmental ethic—enlightened because it recognizes the interlinked "tangle of chains" that constitutes the relation between the parts of the land community that are of economic value in the narrow (commercial) sense and the parts of the land community that are of economic value in the broader sense. A radically different complaint raised against the land ethic is that, far from being too conservative, the theory is too radical and conflicts with some basic intuitions about human rights. This criticism has been articulated by Tom Regan as a charge that the land ethic is an instance of "environmental fascism."" Regan's claim is based on Leopold's assertion that "a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community" and "wrong when it tends otherwise."^^ In the spirit of Regan, Kristin Shrader-Frechette notes that the land ethic seems to sub- ordinate the welfare of all creatures to the welfare of the biotic community. Thus, human populations that disrupt the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community could, according to this principle, be done away with or at least culled up to the point that they no longer pose a threat to the stability of the biotic community." The land ethic, they claim, is thus fundamentally incompatible with the idea of human rights and human dignity because humans in the theory are only valuable insofar as they serve the ends of the biotic whole.

3. The Land Ethic Reconsidered So Leopold's land ethic has been attacked from both sides, as too conservative and too radical. These objections are circum-

153 Charles Starkey vented if the land ethic is understood as a psychocultural theory of moral development, that is, as a theory of psychological development operating at the cultural level, not merely at the individual level. 3.1 Moral Agency and Perspective In outlining this view of the land ethic, I'll begin by considering some intuitions about human psychology. What; would we think of someone with whom we live in close quarters (a sibling at home or perhaps a roommate at an academic con- ference) who shows no regard for our belongings, taking them at will as if the belongings were theirs? We would certainly be annoyed by their behavior, but in addition to this, it is likely that we would think that there is not only a moral failing of courtesy or respect but also an epistemic deficit— that is, that there is something that they just don't get, that they don't understand. This sense of a failure of understanding is worth considering. What is it that they fail to understand? A compelling possibility is that it is something like the fact of our intierdependence as people living in close quarters and our need to be able to rely on each other. Their failure to understand seems to be based on a deficient perspective on their relations with others. Similarly, consider someone with a clinical sociopathic disorder. Symptoms of this disorder include no sense of responsibility, impulsiveness, deceitfulness, chron- ically antisocial behavior, lack of guilt, and self-centeredness." Putting aside the similarity between this and a simple description of adolescence, we may note that in cases of this disorder their fault seems to be at least as epistemic as it is moral: they simply lack a real understanding of the reciprocal dependence of people on a minimal measure of good will toward other people. Again, part of the fault is their lack of a perspective that includes the recognition of the interdependence of their relationships and interactions with other people.^' The claim that they lack this perspective can be both descriptive and normative—we fault them for lacking the appropriate sort of perspective as well as observe that they lack the perspective. These considerations seem intuitively correct and correspond with a commonplace in developmental literature that human psychological development involves moving beyond an egocentric perspective and internalizing a recognition of the need for cooperation.^^ Two alternative explanations of the psychology behind the behavior are that the person simply does not apply a rule or set of rules regarding proper respect for other people and their property, and that the person does apply the rule and knows that what they are doing is wrong, but acts akratically, that is, acts against what they know to be the right thing to

154 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality do. Witb respect to tbe first, it seems wrong to claim tbat tbeir actions consist in not applying rules about respect. Our bebavior toward otber people and tbeir property isn't typically governed by explicit rules tbat we apply as we interact witb people. Granted, tbere are situations wbere rules are explicitly attended to in an effort to follow tbem (e.g., "Don't forget to say 'Tbank you.' before you leave tbe party"), but tbis is atypical and arguably tbe result of tbe awareness of a failure to automatically act in a manner mandated by tbe rule (sucb as consistently failing to tbank bosts before leaving a party). Of course, one may claim tbat to follow a rule can include following a rule tbat one bas internalized, so tbat following a rule can consist in acting according to a norm tbat one may or may not be explicitly aware of or articulate to oneself." According to tbis explanation, applying a rule regarding respect for otbers involves following norms of respect toward otber people, and tbe person can be construed as failing to apply a rule in tbe sense tbat tbey fail to act according to a norm. But following tbese norms does not involve explicitly following a rule. Ratber, tbe rule is internalized and tbe norm governs tbeir bebavior witbout any explicit tbougbt on tbe matter. Acting according to norms understood in tbis way is largely tbe same as acting witb a certain perspective, and conversely, failing to act is largely tbe same as lacking as certain perspective—to internalize and to accept a norm is typically to incorporate tbe norm into our perspective so tbat tbe norm affects bow we act even in situations wbere we do not explicitly follow a rule or tbink about tbe norm governing our bebavior. Certain norms of propriety can cause us to go out of our way to tbank tbe bost of a party before leaving, and norms of respect for person can cause us to act accordingly witbout explicitly tbinking about rules of respect or our attitudes about respect toward otber people. But again, tbese norms of respect can be understood as a perspective on our relation to otber people ratber tban as a set of rules, and tbis indicates tbat tbe failure to act in a respectful way is a matter of lacking a perspective ratber tban failing to apply a rule. Tbe otber possibility is tbat tbe person does apply a rule, but acts akratically. Tbis explanation is inadequate for reasons just given, namely, tbat it is incorrect to say tbat tbey are applying a rule. Tbe explanation migbt be reformu- lated as tbe claim tbat tbey bave tbe perspective at issue but act akratically, tbat is, against wbat tbeir perspective suggests is tbe rigbt course of action. So tbey migbt bave a perspective tbat includes norms of respect for people but, wben faced witb a decision, act against tbose norms because it is more convenient for tbem to ignore tbe promptings of tbe perspective. Sucb akratic bebavior is possible and presumably quite common, but

155 Charles Starkey it does not account for all instances of the behavior at issue. It is likely that some people simply do not have the perspective, so that respect for others does not enter into their thoughts about what to do. The decision of the captain of the Patna to flee the ship in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim is motivated not by fear for his life, but by a belief that the passengers on the ship, being no more than "cattle," are simply not worth trying to save.^^ The captain is not acting akratically because he sees no point in risking his own safety by assisting the passengers. In addition, in the event that someone incorporates a recognition of interdependence and respect in their perspective but such recognition consistently fails to sway their behavior, one may presume that they lack the perspective. In their perspective, the recognition is of such little significance that the perspec-tive can be said to be different in kind from a perspective in which the recognition of interdependency and respect is a significant and salient feature and resonates with the person as they go about acting. Accordingly, though such behavior is in some cases the result of akrasia, in many cases it is likely the result of the lack of a moral perspective that would mandate such behavior. The moral deficiency described above is thus justifiably characterized as the lack of a certain moral perspective. This moral perspective is the way in which one apprehends morally relevant situations and is conceptually prior to one's delibera- tive reasoning. The groundbreaking work by Lawrence Kohlberg on differences in moral "reasoning" provides empirical support for the role of perspective in moral judgment and moral development. His work reveals different perspectives behind explicit reasoning—subjects in his studies had different ways of picturing the moral issues, even when the answers to moral dilemmas posed to them were identical. On the basis of changes over time in the moral reasoning of the subjects of his studies, Kohlberg identifies three levels of moral thinking, the preconventional, conventional, and postconventional, and each of these involve "distinct views of the social-moral world."^^ The preconventional level involves an egocentric perspective, interpreting cultural labels of good and bad and right and wrong in terms of reward and punishment. Subjects at this level are responsive to these labels, but the labels are made sense of in terms of the effects of the act on the subject. At the conventional level, expectations and rules of family, group, or nation are perceived as valuable in their own right. Thus, when subjects move from the preconventional to the conventional level, the moral perspective of the subjects expands beyond the subjects themselves toward those people or social institutions that the subjects identify with. Right and wrong and good and bad are constituted by the norms and expectations of those groups. At the postconventional level, right and wrong and good and bad are seen as being independent of the authority or conventions of

156 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality groups tbat tbe subject identifies witb and independent of tbeir membersbip in a group. Here again, tbe perspective of tbe subject broadens so tbat it includes all of bumankind, not merely people belonging to groups witb wbom tbe subject identifies. Koblberg focuses on tbe researcb data being indicative of a progression toward tbe adoption of abstract principles sucb as buman rigbts, but tbe statements of tbe subjects clearly reflect an expanding moral domain underlying tbeir moral reasoning. As tbe subjects move from preconventional to conven-tional and postconventional levels of moral development, tbe domain of tbe moral expands from oneself to one's community, and on to a moral perspective tbat includes all people. Tbe abstract principles appealed to in tbe tbird level of moral development sucb as tbe intrinsic value of buman life or buman rigbts are indicative of an expansion of tbe range of moral consideration beyond one's community or nation to include all buman beings.^" Tbe reasons tbat are appealed to by tbe subjects are indicative of a perspective and are a means of articulating tbeir perspective, and tbe cbanges in tbe reasons are in turn indicative of cbanges in tbeir perspective. Indeed, Koblberg bimself believes tbat underlying eacb level of moral develop-ment is a sociomoral perspective, wbicb composes "tbe point of view tbe individual takes in defining botb social facts and sociomoral values, or ougbts."^^ Tbe function of a moral perspective is explicitly noted by Carol Gilligan, wbose work follows in tbe same tradition as Koblberg. Gilligan observes tbat tbe objects of perception are typically ambiguous and can be perceptually organized in more tban one way. A figure can be seen in several different ways, and past experiences and expectations can affect tbe perceptual organization of wbat is seen. Similarly, sbe adds, an object of moral perception can be organized in different ways or seen from different perspectives.^^ Her influential distinction between care and justice moral perspectives is connected to tbis observation, and tbougb sbe rejects Koblberg's specific model of levels of moral development, ber tbeory also involves tbe expansion of moral perspective.^^ Tbus, common to botb Koblberg and Gilligan is tbe idea tbat a perspective underlies tbe moral dynamic tbat is recognized by tbe moral agent as well as tbe moral judgments tbat are ensuingly made by tbe agent. Understood in tbis way, moral development isn't a matter of tbe adoption of moral principles or virtues but, ratber, tbe adoption of a new perspective from wbicb one makes sense of and articulates moral situations. Moral principles are articulations of wbat is salient witbin tbe moral perspective. 3.2 Cultural Perspective and the Land Ethic Work in developmental psycbology tbus provides evidence tbat moral development consists in an expanding moral perspective.

157 Charles Starkey

However, it regards the psychology of individuals rather than groups of people and in this way differs from Leopold's emphasis on a cultural perspective rather than the perspectives of specific individuals. The viability of the land ethic as a theory of cultural psychological development depends on the plausibility of cultural moral perspectives and on the ability of such perspectives to change. With respect to the first, there is evidence that morally relevant psychological perspectives can be attributed to cultures, that is, that perspective is a characteristic of cultural as well as individual psychology. Such perspectives play a significant role in the way that the members of the culture understand the world around them and, accordingly, in the way that they act. One example of a cultural psychological perspective is found in the conception of the self that is employed by various cultures. The psychologists Hazel Marcus and Shinobu Kitayama have conducted cross-cultural studies of the concept of self, comparing in particular Western and Japanese views of the self, and describe the Western view of the self as an independent construal and the Japanese view as an example of an interdependent construal. In Western cultures there is a "faith in the inherent separateness of distinct persons" and in the "uniqueness of each person's configuration of internal attributes."^* Many non- Western cultures, in contrast, conceive of the self in terms of "the fundamental connectedness of human beings to each other." The Japanese word for self, for instance, "refers to 'one's share of the shared life space'."^^ In this way. Western and Japanese cultures have a fundamentally different conception of the self. Work by Catherine Lutz indicates similar differences between Western conceptions of the self and relationships and those among Sufi Muslims and the Ifaluk of Micronesia.^^ These differing conceptions illustrate the simple but important point that psychological perspectives operate at the cultural as well as the individual level. Cultural psychological perspectives are constituted by a compound of conceptual paradigms, beliefs, and norms, and to live in a culture is typically to adopt the perspective of that culture, just as one adopts a language. The culture of course has a formative effect on the perspective of the individual members of the culture, including perspectives on the relation between self, society, and environment. These perspectives on the self are moreover relevant to the moral lives of those within the respective cultures in that they affect norms of interaction between people. There is evidence as well that cultural psychological perspectives can develop and change over time. These changes can include changes in the range of things that fall within the domain of the moral, such as the decline of honor culture in the American South, and changing norms, such as the relative importance of nuclear versus extended families.^' With each of

158 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality these there is not simply a change in what one considers right, wrong, or important, but also a perspective from which these cultural institutions are seen and understood. It is this sort of cultural psychological change that is at the heart of Leopold's land ethic, as well as a change that involves the expansion of the domain of moral consideration in a way much like the developmental path revealed in Kohlberg's studies. Consider Leopold's description of the historical expansion of the domain of the moral. He describes Odysseus' vision of slave- girls in his household as property, so that their treatment was not a question of propriety because "the disposal of property was then, as now, a matter of expediency, not right and wrong." This is not simply Odysseus' point of view: Leopold uses this example not to make a point about Odysseus' moral perspective specifically but rather about the moral perspective of the culture within which Odysseus lived, and of which Odysseus is a single example. Leopold notes "During the three thousand years which have since elapsed, ethical criteria have been extended to many fields of conduct, with corresponding shrinkage in those judged by expediency only."^® This is clearly an expansion of the moral realm, and to Leopold, the basis of this development rests in symbiosis, that is, the "tendency of interdependent individuals or groups to evolve modes of cooperation."^^ The extension of ethics that he identifies is brought about by changes in interdependency that result in new symbioses. As people and collections of people have become more interdependent, their attitudes have changed and their moral perspectives have expanded. The land ethic involves a change in perspective that expands the moral realm so that it includes the land and so that the "despoliation of the land is seen as not only inexpedient but wrong."^" He thus regards the land ethic as a possible evolutionary development, and one that is moreover necessary from an ecological point of view. What is advocated here is a developmental change in cultural psychology (and by implication, the psychology of those within it) that expands the domain of the moral beyond that of human beings, so that nonhumans are afforded moral consideration. Understood in this way, the land ethic is primarily a theory of human moral development. As human beings have become aware, to an increasing extent, of the breadth of their interdependence, so has the range of morality grown. A move to the land ethic is simply—but profoundly—another expansion of human moral vision. This moral development should not be equated with an evolutionary change in the sense of biological or psychological change resulting from group selection. Moral development in Leopold's sense is distinct from evolutionary conceptions of moral development, which center on the idea that a change in moral perspective is a product of an adaptive advantage that

159 Charles Starkey becomes a genetically based characteristic of the species. Such theories hold that socially beneficial psychological traits including altruism and loyalty develop through group-level selection, in which the traits are selected hecause they are helpful to that group. Evolutionary development has heen increasingly appealed to in explaining altruistic hehavior and the development of altruistic emotions.^^ Though Leopold refers to evolution in descrihing the land ethic, the focus is on changes in moral perspective—such as the expansion of the moral domain since the time of Odysseus—that are not evolutionary in this sense. They evolve in the sense that culture evolves. Thus, the development identified here does not consist in the evolutionary development of a new psychological module or capacity that makes possihle the expansion of the moral perspective. Rather, it is a development that is a product of the current psychological features of human heings. This shift in perspective is dependent on what is perhaps an evolved capacity to have such shifts—a sort of psychological plasticity—hut such shifts are not themselves evolutionary. Accordingly, a move to a land ethic does not consist in the development of a psychological "land ethic" module—rather, we use existing resources and structures within our hrain to recognize interdependency and internalize standards of conduct accordingly.^^ A poignant example such recognition and ensuing hehavioral changes is the spontaneous cooperation that occurred during trench warfare in WWI. Rohert Axelrod notes that initially the fighting was mobile and very bloody, but "as the line stabilized, nonaggression between the troops emerged spontaneously in many places along the front. The earliest instances may have been associated with meals that were served at the same times on both sides of no-man's land."'^ Troops on either s^de would cease to shell each other on a rigid schedule that enabled them to enjoy a hot meal and, in later cases, minimized casualties on hoth sides. The hehavior was reciprocal and thus beneficial to both groups; it is illustrative of the development of cooperative hehavior that is not evolutionary. Though the capacity to engage in such behavior may have evolved, the development of the cooperative relationship itself does not depend on further evolution.^* Note however that the shift in behavior in this example is temporary, whereas what Leopold is advocating is a cultural fixture that like individualist and social perspectives on the self is durable, stable, and widespread. 4. Framing and Ecological Rationality The importance of something like perspective in moral thinking is underscored in work on practical reason. Philosophers and psychologists have noted that our minds frame the situations

160 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality that we encounter, so that what is brought to our attention for consideration is a selection of a multitude of possible choices. Framing refers to the set of psychological processes that must occur in order to enable the focusing of attention on particular information (ideally, relevant information) and the dealing with a number of possible inferences that is narrow enough for the mind to be able to make decisions. As Daniel Dennett observes, "There must be ... some highly efficient, partly generative or productive systems of representing—storing for use—all the information needed" for comprehension and inference to take place.^^ It is at this point, after framing, that we consider the selected alternatives and decide between the alternatives or act upon one of them. This process of framing is necessary because thinking through all possible inferences and courses of action is, in practical terms, not possible. Part of what constitutes this framing is the possession of a certain perspective within which there is a limited range of choices. A particular frame serves as a heuristic that both limits the amount of information taken in and determines what information to attend to. With respect to perception, framing serves to organize and structure sensory information. Perceptual experience is not the awareness of "raw" sensory information. There is much more information in our environment and in our minds than we can deal with, and it can be organized in a multitude of different ways. Our ability to perceive objects and events is predicated on our selectively attending to and conceptualizing sensory information in a certain way. This is necessarily to the exclusion of other possible ways of attending to and conceptualizing the information. Thus, experience is not unmediated by cognitive processes; what is perceived is a product of the organization and recognition of certain percepts from the mass of sensory information taken in from the world around us. The information that is taken in is both reduced and given some measure of significance as it is conditioned by cognitive processes.^^ Framing also enables one to selectively attend to a narrow range of salient information and a limited number of inferences when making decisions. When things are cognized and decisions must be made, there is often an infinite variety of possible consequences and thus situations that must in principle be considered before coming to a decision, but there are significant computational constraints on the number of consequences that can be considered when a decision must be made. Thus for example, to perceive an object rapidly moving toward us neces- sitates the conditioning of sensory information, and to recognize that it presents a threat and deal with it requires selective attention. These two processes of forming perceptions and attending to particular information and possible inferences are distinct but intertwined. If a car makes a sudden stop in front

161 Charles Starkey of us, we notice the car instead of the beautiful vista to our left, and when approached by a snarling dog we are aware of the dog's bared teeth rather than the deft proportions that make it a specimen of a pit bull. When situations are cognized, some features that are recognized are more salient than others, and the salient features of the situation determine courses of action. So to perceive a situation in a certain way is often to be motivated to act in a certain way, and the course of action that one takes (or is strongly disposed to take) is in the perception itself.^^ The relevance of framing to morality consists in the role of framing in perception and practical reason. A moral perspective is a frame in this sense because the perspective serves as a structure that organizes and limits information about one's environment that is attended to. To see that a child needs help as s/he is about to walk into the middle of a busy street is to put aside the other information about our environment avail- able to us and to focus on action possibilities related to the child. The goal of a frame in the domain of morality is to direct attention to, and focus inferences on, information that is most conducive to thriving or otherwise morally appropriate attention, cognition, and behavior. The moral perspectives identified by Kohlberg can be seen as frames because they are ways of organizing and making sense of situations involving moral dynamics. Like internalized norms, these moral frames are ways of quickly and efficiently organizing information about the social environment, thus enabling a rapid cognition of and response to environmental conditions. In fact norms, once internalized, become part of the psychological repertoire that constitutes such frames. The value of perception, we might say, is to see the world as it truly is, but to attend to those aspects of what we encounter that are most relevant to our well-being, including our moral relationships. What Amelie Rorty writes about the rationality of what she terms "psychological attitudes" (such as love, joy, indignation, fear, and desire) is illustrative of the importance of framing. What is it then that we want, when we want psychological attitudes to be rational? There is often no one whose inferences are more logical, more formally impeccable, and often there is no one more truthful, than the local lunatic. It is because his impeccable and exemplary truth-preserving inferences do not serve him in the right way that the local lunatic is in trouble. No particular addi- tional truth or inference can help him.... We want more than that our attitudes be corrigible by considerations of truth and validity. We also want them to be appropriately informed to suit our thriving.^* In the same way, we want to properly understand and attend to aspects of our environment that are relevant to our thriving, and doing so involves having the appropriate frame. One way of

162 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality describing this process of framing directed at thriving is in terms of ecological rationality, as it involves the goal of success- ful cognitive and behavioral interaction of an organism with its environment. This approach focuses on "identifying simple, fast, and effective heuristics that work within the computational constraints of an organism and the informational constraints of the environment and still result in adaptively adequate behavior."^^ The concept of framing is purely descriptive—it refers to a process that must occur in order for humans to perceive and problem-solve in the way that they do. Ecological rationality in contrast is a normative concept in that it deals with psychological functioning that is appropriate to the interests of the organism.*" What Leopold is advocating can be described as a type of framing based on ecological rationality, that is, the extraction and conceptualization of information about the environment that is most conducive to the thriving of the individual, population, or ecosystem. The relevant environment is not merely the human social environment but the natural environment as well. Within this frame, the land is seen as worthy of respect and moral consideration, and certain choices are presented as possibilities and other possible choices and courses of action are simply not noticed. To Leopold, the land ethic is justified by considerations of ecological rationality because it is more conducive to proper decisions regarding land use than perspectives that do not include a recognition of the significance of the environment. So the concept of ecological rationality provides a normative specification for framing: having the appropriate frame in perceiving, cognizing and making decisions regarding the environment includes internalizing a recognition of the interdependence of humans and the land. The land ethic is not merely a descriptive theory of moral psychology. It is given normative force by the concept of ecological rationality. 5. The Viability of the Land Ethic This conception of the land ethic provides it with the means to respond to the two chief objections raised against it. First, the land ethic is not simply an economic model with a substantially broadened cost-benefit analysis because it involves a shift in the very way that the land is conceived. This is a fundamental change in moral perspective because it internalizes the recognition of interdependence and in doing so changes our vision of the land, not merely the scope of our cost-benefit calculations. Just as we "see" people differently if we consider people, as people, worthy of some baseline level of respect, so we see the land differently if we consider it worthy of a baseline level of respect. Similarly, just as a person does not become morally enlightened by adopting a policy of carefully weighing the long-

163 Charles Starkey term cost and benefits of robbing or hurting another person, so a culture does not become morally enlightened by adopting a policy of carefully weighing the long-term costs and benefits of despoiling the land. The difference between a sociopath and a "normal" person is a difference in perspective, not a difference in the range of calculations that they make regarding their behavior. We would think of someone as odd who constantly calculates just how much they can hurt and transgress against others without being punished, rather than internalizing norms of respect, and we should similarly think of someone as odd who focuses on calculating just how much environmental damage can be done without it coming around and seriously hurting them. As with a normal person interacting with other people, respect for the land is internalized and places limits on the range of options that are entertained. Thinking of the land ethic as a shift in perspective addresses the second objection as well. The charge that the land ethic advocates a sort of environmental fascism seems false. Leopold's claim that "a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community" is just the sort of view that is entailed by the adoption of the moral perspective of the land ethic. But the adoption of this perspective is as a guide, not the adoption of a categorical moral axiom. In other words, the land ethic consists of a change in vision, not a change in rules. In this way, it is no more anti-individualistic than a perspective that emphasizes norms of social cooperation. Accordingly, the land ethic need not involve the subordination of all species to the interests of the biotic community. Moreover, as care ethicists and others have noted, we might have special or priority obligations to certain relationships, in this case inter- human relationships, in a way that is compatible with universal obligations.^^ Just as giving greater weight to the interests of loved ones and those with whom we share close relationships is compatible with respect for all humans, so giving some greater weight to human beings is compatible with respect for other members of the biotic community and for the biotic community as a whole. This allows for holding that we have special relationships with humans, as humans, and that humans thus can have priority over other parts of the land community with respect to our treatment of them.*^ Thus, the land ethic accommodates the idea of human rights, and the adoption of this perspective does not entail the absolutist priority of the biotic whole that is attributed to the theory by those who claim that it is environmentally fascist. Moreover, Leopold's theory provides a powerful argument that environmental progress requires an expansive reframing of our cultural perspective on the relation between humans and the environment that will produce an ecological rationality more suited to the thriving of the biotic community, human and otherwise.

164 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality

In addition to circumventing the above objections, the land ethic has significant advantages over other types of environmental theory. This theory is superior to an economic cost- benefit approach because the latter has an unrealistic picture of decision-making, ignoring the framing that is the hasis of decision-making, including cost-benefit analyses. As a result of this, it ignores the need for a framing in which the environment has a significant place in order to be ahle to, in the aggregate, make appropriate choices regarding the environment. Moreover, the framing of environmental issues from a perspective of self- interest or social-interest encourages risking environmental damage hy allowing or encouraging the downplaying of evidence of risks of human practices and the seizing on any information that calls into question the risks, even when the preponderance of evidence suggests otherwise. The furious pace of glohal indus- trial growth only exacerbates this problem. One argument that supports this criticism is made hy Elliot Soher and David Sloan Wilson regarding altruistic emotions. Soher and Wilson hold that altruistic motivations are more reliahle than hedonistic motivations because they do not require the prodding of inter- mediary feelings of pleasure or pain that would he necessary to generate a self-interested response to heliefs that relevant others (i.e., one's children) need help. Altruistic motivation places one in a motivational state immediately when the welfare of relevant others is at stake, without the need for such inter- mediary feelings. Since pleasure and displeasure can inaccur- ately track the needs of others, a system that does not require them in order to act altruistically will he more reliahle. This argument can he applied to attitudes toward the environment. A traditional cost-henefit analysis is hedonistic hy nature: it relies on pleasure and displeasure regarding the effects on one's long term good in order to motivate. Following Soher and Wilson's argument, it is more reliahle to simply possess altruistic respect for the environment and to he motivated to act for the good of the environment than to develop a disposition to appropriate self-interested feelings of pleasure and displeasure regarding the environment. Thus, the same considerations that indicate that creatures with altruistic desires will make hetter parents than egoists suggest that creatures with altruistic desires toward the environment will do a hetter joh of maintain- ing the integrity of the environment than creatures motivated hy self-interested cost-henefit considerations."*^ In the case of glohal warming (among others), human pleasures, pains, and preferences fail to accurately track the good of the environment in the manner descrihed hy Soher and Wilson. A cost-henefit approach is hazardous in that it is more likely to lead to decisions that are detrimental to the environment and ensuingly to human heings and to fail in the long-term. Just as thinking solely in terms of self-interested

165 Charles Starkey cost-benefit analyses is inefficient and possibly self-defeating as a moral system, so thinking solely in terms of self-interest in environmental decisions is a less efficient and self-defeating way of addressing environmental problems. Moral perspectives involving altruistic motives toward the environment are more likely to aggregately ensure the thriving of the individuals within that environment. Bryan Norton has developed a view known as "weak anthropocentrism" that tries to circumvent this problem. Norton distinguishes between felt preferences and considered preferences, and he believes that an environmental ethic should be based on the latter. A considered preference consists of "any desire or need that a human individual would express after careful consideration, including a judgment that the desire or need is consistent with a rationally adopted world view" but is an idealization because it "can only be adopted after a person has rationally accepted an entire world view and, further, has succeeded in altering his felt preferences so that they are consonant with that world view."** Norton contends that considered preferences can serve as a standpoint for criticism of preferences that are exploitative of nature and that weak anthropocentrism is thus not necessarily conducive to the self- destructive results of a cost-benefit analysis, even though it is based on human preferences. The rational acceptance of a worldview is necessary for the possession of considered preferences, and the rational consideration preceding this acceptance will be based on and will make reference to human preferences. But to rationally adopt a considered preference and express a complementary desire is not to have them enter into our thinking and behavior—one may rationally believe that an attitude or course of action is preferable, but ignore it or act contrary to it nonetheless. One cause of this difference between preferences and action is that the perspective is not in line with the preferences. The problem with such preferences then is that they do not provide the motivation for action that the adoption of a perspective does.*^ What actually makes the perspective effective is the internali- zation of those preferences into a perspective that frames perception and inference, regardless of what the considered preferences are. Though the corrective effect that considered preferences provide is a good thing, perspectival change is necessary for effectively implementing whatever preferences one has. Moreover, the perspective involved in the land ethic typically operates at a level beneath both felt and considered preferences: it is the perspective that lies beneath and gives rise to felt and considered preferences. Further reflection can alter the perspective, but this alteration of perspective is once again operative at a more fundamental level than changes in preferences, be they felt or considered. Thus, the adoption of the

166 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality land ethic as understood here provides a more effective approach to addressing environmental problems than a weak anthropocentric view. In addition, the land ethic avoids the problems of biocentric theories that give the environment intrinsic rights or value while still bringing the land within the specter of moral consideration.*^ Theories that ascribe intrinsic value to the land encounter the problem of whether such a concept is coherent, because the concept of value-bearing so broadly applied makes it a property that is trivially true of everything. A problem with any theory ascribing rights to the environment include determining just what sort of rights nonhumans can have, the strength of such rights, and how such rights would be adminis- tered. At the same time, the theory shares the virtue of biocentric theories in that it gives the interests of the land community a much more significant role in both the appropriate human perspective on the land and in the morality of human decisions regarding land use. Though the land ethic does not confer strong rights or moral standing to sentient beings, it is compatible with the moral standing of nonhuman animals: within the perspective of the land ethic, animals can have some significant moral standing based on sentience or other criteria.*^ Such theories, particularly those attributing strong rights or moral standing, encounter problems including difficulty in collective decision-making with other animals, which may necessarily include the forsaking of some rights and the neglect of the ecosystem in such theories, including the potentially disastrous effect that overpopulation, overgrazing, etc. could have on the ecosystem. Threats to the ecosystem can be regarded as situations where two important values—the land and the moral standing of individual animals —come into conflict. Proposed solutions to such conflicts may be controversial, but the tension between the ecosystem and individual animals is one more point of conflict between important considerations, and it need not be resolved in this essay. What is to the point here is that the land ethic can recognize such conflict and the associated claims of other sentient creatures, but such conflict does not diminish the significance of the land ethic. 6. Objections Two prominent objections can be raised against the land ethic understood in this way. The first holds that the land ethic is fundamentally holistic and thus incompatible with this interpretation. The second is that the land ethic on this interpretation is simply another anthropocentric environmental ethic. J. Baird Callicott, the most well known advocate of the land ethic, characterizes it as a holistic theory where the biosystemic whole is the center of moral consideration, and "its summum

167 Charles Starkey bonum is the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community."'*^ However, this reflects what can be described as a top-down understanding of the value of the community rather than a bottom-up understanding, and it is the latter that is central to the land ethic. Contrary to Callicott's interpretation, the biotic whole has value because of the interdependence of its members, that is, the value rises from the bottom up. This is not to deny that the biotic whole has value but merely to assert that this value arises from the interdependence—the interdependence does not gain significance because of the prior value of the biotic whole that the interdependent activities of its members sustain.*^ Though interrelated, valuing the land and its component members should not be equated with valuing the biotic whole. Analogously, the respect due to other members of a city is not due to the value of the city apart from its members. Rather, the value of the city and its integrated functioning is due to the value of the integrative functioning of its constitutive members. Similarly, respect for other human beings does not entail that humanity as a collective is the center of moral consideration. The value of the collective good rises up from a recognition of one's status as an interdependent member of the community, not as a result of a prior recognition of an absolute sovereignty of the collective over individuals.®" Leopold does invoke the idea that rightness and wrongness is to be understood in relation to the preservation of the biotic community, and this might be taken to support the moral centrality of the biotic whole, but it can alternatively be seen as a guide rather than as a commandment. The larger discussion of the land ethic supports the latter, as it repeatedly invokes the interdependency of the members of the community and the purpose of an ethic as a means of cooperation among members, rather than an ethic as a subordination of all to the authority of the biotic whole. In articulating the land ethic, Leopold emphasizes cooperation, community spirit, and a shift in perspective— a "community instinct in the making"—much more than right and wrong.'^i The claim that good and right are to be understood in terms of the good of the biotic whole is not only philosophi- cally objectionable as a categorical moral axiom, but it also does not accurately reflect the dominant thought in Leopold's articulation of the land ethic. The second objection to this conception of the land ethic, that the understanding of the land ethic being proposed here is merely another anthropocentric ethic, is incorrect because within the perspective of the land ethic the locus of value is not one's personal interests nor general human interests but rather the interests of the land community. Even if the person generally benefits from the system of respect and cooperation, such benefits are not the direct cause of respect and cooperative behavior. Rather, the perspective where such respect and

168 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality cooperation appear appropriate is the motivator. In addition, regardless of whether from a historical or evolutionary point of view what produces the capacity for the development of the moral perspective is self-interest; the perspective itself is not self-interested. The value of the symhiotic relationship is internalized, and decisions are made based on this value, rather than on the basis of self-interest.^^ Analogously, our mutual recognition of human rights might on some level serve our interests, but the actual recognition makes our decisions and actions that spring from such recognition nonegoistic. The proximal motive here is human rights, not our own self-interest. Thus, to call this conception of the land ethic anthropocentric is misguided, just as is calling someone who has internalized beneficial norms of respect and cooperation with other human beings an egoist. A similar objection might be made on practical grounds that because the land ethic so understood does not confer intrinsic value on the biotic whole, environmental values will be pitted against economic values. Callicott has specifically criticized Norton's weak anthropocentrism on this point, charging that "If all environmental values are anthropocentric and instrumental, then they have to compete head-to-head with the economic values derived from converting rain forests to pulp, savannahs to cattle pasture, and so on."^^ Callicott regards this as a strike against a theory that does not make the biotic whole the categorical center of moral assessment; if implemented, such a theory would lead to unacceptable environmental destruction. This criticism might be extended to the land ethic. In response, engagement in self-interested projects, including those in which economic motive plays a significant role, is compatible with environmental responsibility under the land ethic, and there is not the competition with economic values that Callicott fears. Within the land ethic, economic values are framed in such a way relative to the value of the land that they are put in their proper place, and thus, though economic values are given some measure of importance, they will not portend a wholesale overriding of environmental values. Analogously, we engage in selfish projects (restoring an old car, perfecting an ice skating routine, etc.) in a society that recognizes the value of other people and their projects, but such selfish projects do not override the norms of cooperation and respect owed other people—we do not rob from or encroach on others to support our projects precisely because we have internalized these norms of cooperation and respect.^* Similarly, economically motivated projects will be framed in terms of the land, just as economically motivated projects are currently framed in terms of and constrained by consideration of human rights. It is a virtue of this theory that it recognizes economic value: denying its importance can burden a theory with justified

169 Charles Starkey charges that it is Luddite and unrealistic. This conception of the land ethic withstands the objection that the theory is not practi- cally workable and that it might have an appeal in the cloistered towers of academia but can have no practical import. The adoption of the land ethic does not demand adherence to an imprac- ticable moral rule but rather leads to the framing of decisions in terms of the land. Because framing is an intrinsic feature of perception and understanding, it is not per se impractical, and framing in terms of the interconnectedness with the land is not impractical either. Some environmental decisions may be complicated and difficult, but there is nothing inherently impractical with starting from a perspective that recognizes the interdependence of humans and the land, just as there is nothing inherently impractical with starting from a perspective that recognizes the interdependence of human beings. The latter perspective is regularly adopted, and the land ethic can be adopted in a similar way. Conclusion In conclusion, there is strong evidence in Leopold's writings that the land ethic is primarily a psychological theory of moral development that advocates a cultural shift in the human perspective on the land. Understanding the theory as such provides the most fruitful way of understanding the theory because it circumvents serious objections to the theory and accommodates the insights of other types of environmental ethic while not sharing their liabilities. A complete defense of this conception of the land ethic and its superiority to other environmental theories is beyond the scope of this essay but is quite defensible, and its groundwork has been laid Notes ' Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 204. 2 Stegner, "The Legacy of Aldo Leopold," 233. ' Note that here as elsewhere "land" is to be understood in Leopold's sense, as the air, soils, waters, plants, and animals. •• Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 215. ^ Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 217. " Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 202. ' Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 204. * Baxter, People or Penguins, 11. ^ Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 210. 1° Lehman, "Do Wildernesses Have Rights?" 131. " Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 361-2. '^ Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 224-5. '' Shrader-Frechette, "Individualism, Holism, and Environmental Ethics," 63. See also Zimmerman, "The Threat of Ecofascism." " Now known in DSM-IV as Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) (American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

170 The Land Ethic, Moral Development, and Ecological Rationality of Mental Disorders). ^^ This is perhaps illustrated on a larger scale by former Secretary of State Colin Powell's concerns that political decisions he was involved with were being made without regard to, and seemingly blind to, the interdependent relations of the nation he was serving and other nations. ^^ See for example Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child. " For a discussion of internalized norms, see Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. '* See a discussion of this event in Wallace, Virtues and Vices, 67-8. '^ Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development, 16. ^° See Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development, 22. 21 Kohlberg, "Moral Stages and Moralization," 33. ^^ See Gilligan, "Moral Orientation and Moral Development." 23 Note however that the claims made in this paper are not dependent on Kohlberg's specific claims about the content of the three levels of moral reasoning, particularly the controversial idea that justice and separation are the hallmarks of the highest moral level, nor is it dependent on Kohlberg's structuralist view of cognitive development. 2^ Markus and Kitayama, "Culture and the Self," 226. 25 Markus and Kitayama, "Culture and the Self," 228. 2^ See Lutz, "Culture and Consciousness." 2' See Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, and Shorter, The Making of the Modern Eamily. 2^ Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 202. This claim regarding a progressive expansion is disputable as historical fact, but its question- able veracity does not affect his more fundamental descriptive claim that symbioses do develop or his normative claim that a symbiotic relationship with the land should develop. 2^ Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 202. ^° Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 203. ^1 See Sober and Wilson, Unto Others; Frank, Passions within Reason; and Ruse, "A Darwinian Naturalist's Perspective on Altruism." 32 Granted, a population that develops such altruistic desires may be reproductively fitter than a population lacking such desires, but such desires can be fostered without the evolutionary development of a specific capacity for them. 33 See Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, 77. 3'* There is some debate over whether there are psychological modules dedicated to particular social reasoning tasks, or whether there is enough plasticity in existing brain structures such as the cortex to generate social reasoning though social learning. See Tooby and Cosmides, "The Psychological Foundations of Culture" and Panksepp, "The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology." The claims in this essay are independent of this debate; in either event, our brains have the capacity for developing symbiotic behavioral norms. 35 Dennett, "Cognitive Wheels," 49. For discussions of framing, see Damasio, Descartes' Error, 169-89, and De Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion, 192-96. See also Kaneman and Tversky, "Choices, Values and Frames," and the "script theory" described in Nisbett and Ross, "Judg- mental Heuristics and Knowledge Structures." De Sousa correctly notes that framing involves both the determination of what is perceived and the limitation of inferences drawn from that perception. 3'^ See Pinker, How the Mind Works, and Dretske, Knowledge and

171 Charles Starkey the Flow of Information. ^' This view of the relation between perception and action has been suggested by Aristotle and defended by John McDowell. See McDowell, "Virtue and Reason," 345. '8 Rorty, "The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes," 132. ^^ Ketelaar and Todd, "Framing Our Thoughts," 185; see also Churchland, "The Neural Representation of the Social World." The concept of ecological rationality is related to the concept of ecological psychology put forth by J. J. Gibson. See Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. For a discussion of the relation of ecological psychology to ecological science, see De Laplante, "Toward a More Expansive Conception of Ecological Science." '"' Framing that is consistent with ecological rationality can be regarded as a species of moral perception. See Starkey, "On the Cate- gory of Moral Perception." •^ See for example the "differential pull" argument in Hoff Summers, "Filial Morality." One may conceptualize this in terms of differential rights where human rights outweigh animal rights (see Warren, "The Rights of the Nonhuman World"), but this is not necessary to establish the broader claim that some beings have stronger or more robust moral claims on us than others. *^ Leopold sometimes talks in terms of "biotic right," but the larger context of his work, particularly his discussion of noneconomic value, suggests an emphasis on value rather than rights. Moreover, even if rights are granted to nonhumans, either individuals, species, or the biotic community, the defeasability of such rights make them compatible with human rights. •"^ Sober and Wilson, Unto Others, 317-21. Note once again that this altruism does not require the development of a specific psychological module (what Sober and Wilson call a device)—it only requires the utilization of existent psychological mechanisms. " Norton, "Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism," 134. *^ Granted, one may act contrary to the dictates of their perspective, but the motivation provided by a perspective—the world "looking" a certain way to them—has more motivational power than acts that are dictated by rational reflection, in part because the rational reflection is not needed to act in line with the perspective. ^* For such biocentric theories, see Rolston, Environmental Ethics, and Taylor, "The Ethics of Respect for Nature." *'' For sentientist theories, see Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, and Singer, Animal Liberation. Callicott discusses a complementary approach to animal welfare theories and the traditional formulation of the land ethic (see "Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics"). Similarly, Warren argues that it is a false choice between biocentric and individualist environmental theories, as the needs and interests of both biosystems and sentient creatures should be taken into account as moral considerations. •** Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic, 25. ••^ Leopold's references in his text to the biotic right of species supports this claim—were the biotic whole the morally central concept, any such species claim would not exist. ^° Callicott has provided a limited modification of his articulation of the land ethic in response to skepticism about the accuracy of the holistic conception the ecological community and its interdependence.

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See Callicott, "Do Deconstructive Ecology and Sociobiology Undermine Leopold's Land Ethic?" Here, Callicott characterizes duties to the environment as an expansion of the altruism toward kin posited by sociobiologists, and though its focus is moral sentiment, this articulation resembles a bottom-up view of environmental value. However, this doesn't clearly supplant his prior claim about the locus of value and duties residing in the holism of the biotic community. Indeed, he defends the idea of a biotic community and duties that are engendered by its existence. Relatedly, he dismisses moral impartiality (the root of the environmental fascism objection) but does not provide reasons for this other than claiming that sociobiology provides an explanation and legitimation of moral partiality. However, the claims of sociobiology are descriptive, not prescriptive, and thus the questions remain unresolved of why, on his reading, the duties that arise from a land ethic are not universal and absolute, and why the stability of the ecological whole does not stand morally paramount over the rights of individuals and species. ^' Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 203. ^^ Michael Ruse among others argues that this sense of "oughtness" that is distinct from self-interest is evolved and is indeed altruistic. See Ruse, "A Darwinian Naturalist's Perspective on Altruism." ^^ Callicott, "Environmental Philosophy is Environmental Activism," 22. ^^ Granted, these norms can be violated, but norms based on the intrinsic value of nature are just as capable of being violated, so such possible violations are not a strike against the land ethic. ^^ Thanks to Kevin De Laplante for reading a full draft of this paper and providing valuable comments and observations. A portion of this paper was read at the 2005 meeting of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum and I have benefited from audience questions and comments. Thanks are also due to Steve Smith for working with me during the time that several of these thoughts on moral development came about. Bibliography American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. Washington, D.C.: American Psychia- tric Association, 1997. Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Baxter, William F. People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974. Callicott, J. Baird. "Do Deconstructive Ecology and Sociobiology Undermine Leopold's Land Ethic?" Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 353-72. . "Environmental Philosophy is Environmental Activism: The Most Radical and Effective Kind." In Environmental Philosophy and Environmental Activism, ed. Don Marietta and Lester Embree, 19-35. Baltimore: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995. -. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philoso- phy Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989. Churchland, Paul. "The Neural Representation of the Social World." In Mind and Morals: Essay on Ethics and Cognitive Science, ed. Larry

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