Salons What does ’s Land Ethic tell us about our public policy decisions concerning the environment? At the home of Connie and Steve Segner 5 - 9 p.m., Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Featured Speaker and Salon Facilitator Salon Facilitators

Dr. Joan McGregor Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University, Dr. Andrea Dr. Matthew GIOS Senior Houchard Goodwin Scholar Director, Philosophy in Senior Lecturer in the Public Interest, Philosophy, Northern Assistant Professor of Arizona University Joan McGregor is an ASU Professor of Philosophy Practice, Northern and a GIOS senior sustainability scholar. This Arizona University summer, with Dan Shilling, she is co-directeing an NEH summer institute in Flagstaff: “Extending the Several environmental scholars from around the Land Ethic.” McGregor serves on ASU’s steering nation participating in the NEH program will be committee for a Mellon-funded project “Humanities joining in on the Salon. in the Anthroprocene” and also directs the project Dinner 2040: The Future of Food. She is the author We will consider how the questions below relate to of dozens of works. practical policy considerations like the Endangered Species Act, and other federal protections.

How does an environmental ethic NEH: “Extending the Land Ethic” challenges 1 differ from a social scholars to engage and test the belief systems that (human-centered) ethic? underpin sustainability, through the lenses of contemporary humanities disciplines such as What do we preserve, and why? environmental ethics, , and 2 environmental history. When we preserve, should we 3 focus on individuals, or wholes? Questions

How does an environmental ethic differ from What do we preserve and why? What do we social ethics? What does an environmental ethic value and why? Why do we preserve Sedona’s 1 say about this relationship? 2 red rocks and not the Midwest’s grasslands? Public Policy Issue Public Policy Issue Tension in the National Park Service’s mission: Should we preserve Midwestern grasslands? parks are supposed to preserve, but also be for What is the basis for preservation? Is the basis human access and enjoyment. for this human preferences, references, biodiversity, rarity, recreational value, or National Park Service Organic Act something else? Do these represent different en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service_O reasons or values for preservation? rganic_Act What is the locus of value, the individual or Section 1: the whole? Should we preserve individual “The service thus established shall promote and 3 animals (Cecil the lion, for example) or the regulate the use of the Federal areas known as species? national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and Public Policy Issue measures as conform to the fundamental purpose Endangered Species Act, one of the most of the said parks and reservations, which powerful tools of conservation, is about purpose is to conserve the scenery and the preserving species. Why are species natural and historic objects and the wild life important? We don’t make similar therein and to provide for the enjoyment of judgments about humans, we focus on the the same in such manner and by such means as individual. Should public policies focus on will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of wholes, ecosystems, species, or individuals? future generations.” (emphasis added)

Aldo Leopold (1887 - 1948)

Why Aldo Leopold? What is his significance to Environmental Ethics?

Over the past half century Aldo Leopold’s , has become an indispensable cornerstone of environmental ethics, as well as related studies like sustainability. Philosophers J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston III, early voices in the field, suggest that Leopold’s ideas launched the discipline of environmental ethics. Leopold’s philosophy of our moral relationship to nature was defended in his essay “The Land Ethic,” he argues “In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” (continued on next page)

Integrating America Excerpts from Leopold

What is an ethic? What does it mean to be part “An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of of a community? action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from “All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise anti-social conduct. These are two definitions of one that the individual is a member of a community of thing.” interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his “That land is a community is the basic concept of ethics prompt him to co-operate (perhaps in order , but that land is to be loved and respected is than there may be a place to compete for).” an extension of ethics.” “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and What is the ethical sequence? animals, or collectively: the land.” “This extension of ethics, so far studied only by “In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo philosophers, is actually a process in ecological sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to evolution. Its sequences may be described in plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for ecological as well as in philosophical terms. An his fellow-members, and also respect forAfter the September ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of community as such.” action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, Eleventh philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct. These are two definitions of one thing.” What deserves moral consideraton? “There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow “When god-like Odysseus returned from the wars in upon it. Land, like Odysseus’ slave-girls, is still Troy, he hanged all on one rope a property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, dozen slave-girls of his household whom entailing privileges but not obligations.” he suspected of misbehavior during his absence. This hanging involved no question What is a land ethic? of propriety. “A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an The girls were property. The disposal of ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a property was then, as now, a matter of conviction of individual responsibility for the healthof expediency, not of right and wrong. the land. Health is the capacity of the land for Concepts of right and wrong were not lacking from self-renewal. Conservation is our effort to understand Odysseus' Greece: witness the and preserve this capacity.” fidelity of his wife through the long years before at last his black-prowed galleys clove “The ‘key-log’ that must be moved to release the the wine-dark seas for home. The ethical structure of evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this: quit that day covered wives, but had thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic not yet been extended to human chattels. During the problem. Examine each question in terms of what is three thousand years which have ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is since elapsed, ethical criteria have been economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends extended to many fields of conduct, with to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the corresponding shrinkages in those judged by biotic community. It is wrong when it tends expediency only.” otherwise.”

nau.edu/ppi