Heikkurinen GHW 2017

The Relevance of von Wright’s Humanism to Contemporary Ecological Thought PASI HEIKKURINEN Introduction There is relatively little doubt that the Earth is now in the middle of an enormous ecological crisis that has come to be known as the Anthropocene, the age of humans (Waters et al. 2016). In this new geological epoch, humans have become a global force, transforming the natural environment into human-made-objects to a greater extent and at a faster rate than ever before. This homo faber species, as Georg Henrik von Wright aptly called humans ([1960] 1993, p. 175), has already used over half of the planet’s ice-free land, mostly for pasture, crops, and production forestry, built hundreds of megalopo- lises around the world, and constructed extremely complex transportation and energy systems that are in constant use. And for many futurists, this is just the beginning. As a consequence of this change in lifestyle and the rapid mutation of the natural environment, ecosystems and their species have undergone radical changes. The reshaping of the human–nature relationship, manifesting in the human inter- ference with almost all biospheric processes, has come to sig- nify that there are few objects today outside of the human sphere that can still be labelled as belonging to nature. With the unceasing mixing of the non-human with the human, the human species has not only endangered other species’ exis- tence but the expansion of the anthroposphere has also nega- tively affected the living conditions of billions of people. In addition to pollution and waste problems affecting the human and non-human quality of life, increasing droughts and other extreme weather conditions have augmented poverty and led to climate immigration. Several mammal, amphibian, 450 Pasi Heikkurinen and bird populations have declined severely, and others ex- perienced extinction in the last few decades (Linkola 2004; Barnosky et al. 2011; Wake and Vredenburg 2008). The signs of the next mass extinction are in the air, to use a mild expres- sion (see e.g. Barnosky et al. 2012). After describing the gloomy present and envisaging an even gloomier future for the life forms of this planet, it would be pleasing to make the following remark: ‘the existential threats in the 21st century are taken seriously in the academic and political debate, and responses to the crisis demonstrate intellectual breadth and depth’. But to think or say this would be akin to an irresponsible lie that might make someone feel good for a while, but may also have severe consequences for the continuity of life. In other words, while one can find some diversity in ecological thinking (in the sense that there are as many different ways to think about ecology as there are thinkers), this heterogeneity mainly takes place within a rather restricted frame of thought, namely an uncritical belief in the progress of science and technology. For contemporary ecological thought, this has come to mean that the glut of ideas presented in the political arena, as well as in the main- stream of academia and industry, are more or less narrow. The streams of thought that have thoroughly questioned the march of progress, such as deep ecology (Naess 1973; [1974] 1989), existential phenomenology (Heidegger [1927] 1962; [1952-1962] 1977), and ecological feminism (Shiva 1988; 2000; Warren 1990; 2000), in addition to the humanism of von Wright (1987; [1978] 1981), have remained on the periphery of ecological thinking. As evidence for this claim, one only needs to glance at the so-called top scholarly outlets or the reports from inter- governmental bodies, such as the EU or the UN, or the so- called leading business organisations in sustainability, and it is swiftly apparent that the responses to the ecological crisis at hand have three generic characteristics that manifest in the form of aspirations. The first of the common features is the ambition to identify problems by means of natural sciences. The discourse on the quantifiable planetary boundaries and limiting the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to 450 ppm (parts per million) and humanity having a 50:50 chance of G. H. von Wright’s Humanism and Ecological Thought 451 limiting global warming to 2°C, vividly illustrate the optimism in the human capability to manage the planet by apply- ing scientific knowledge. The second generic characteristic of present day ecological thought is the aim to develop solutions by means of advanced technology. The discourse on the intensifi- cation of agriculture, possibilities of carbon capture, the hype surrounding green and clean technology, and geoengineering plans, speak of this aspiration. The third generic character is the aim to operate by the rules of capitalism, which is contained in numerous reports and articles that have no intention what- soever of scrutinising the harmful effects on ecological con- servation of capital accumulation. Instead, both theoretically and empirically ill-founded ideas of green or sustainable economic growth (Georgescu-Roegen 1975; Latouche [2007] 2009; Heikkurinen 2016) prevail and continue to be repro- duced in the modern equivalents of the agorae. This kind of framing means that ecological problems mainly identified by means of natural science are being ‘solved’ not only by means of advanced technologies but also within the prevalent order of capitalism, where profits, com- petitiveness, and economic growth must never be jeopard- ised. This is quite a set of limitations to start with, leaving relatively little manoeuvring space for thought. The scholarly paradigm that emphasises the role of the scientific method and the role of technological innovation and the role of mar- ket-based economic processes, as the central means through which to deliver an ecologically sound lifestyle is ecological modernisation, or eco-modernism in short (Fisher and Freu- denburg 2001; Bäckstrand 2004; Pataki 2009). Perhaps unsur- prisingly, the visions of the ecomodernists are infused with humanistic intentions and expressed as being for the good of humankind. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the humanism of George Henrik von Wright (1916–2003) in order to investigate what his views could add to contemporary ecological thought. The paper focuses on examining how von Wright frames the human–nature relationship and what kind of im- plications this has for thinking about ecology. The emphasis of the paper will thus be on the questions of technology and science, while the problems with the modes of production and consumption are left for later investigation. This choice is 452 Pasi Heikkurinen made as a splinter group of ecomodernists questions the he- gemony of capitalism (Mol and Spaargaren 2000), yet all of them maintain an unwavering optimism about science and technology. The Humanism of von Wright It is easy to second the view of Rosaria Egidi (2009, 1) that ‘von Wright is one of the thinkers that have pursued with the greatest strength the task of joining together Western philosophy and science in order to think anew the role and iden- tity of the contemporary man’, and that ‘he can [hence] be considered to be one of the last and most rigorous ‘human- ists’.’ The kind of humanism von Wright outlined, however, is quite multidimensional and thus difficult to grasp compre- hensively. Von Wright’s humanism, as well as his philosophy in broad terms, underwent several transformations during his lifetime, and at least five, or even six, phases can be identified in his attempts to delimit humanism. This signifies that any discussion of von Wright’s thinking should take account of those different phases. According to Egidi (2009), von Wright himself lists the first four phases of his humanism as: aes- thetic humanism (youthful phase), ethical humanism (1940– 1950s), rationalist humanism (1960s); and social-humanist humanism (up until the mid-1970s). Importantly for the present enquiry, during the decades that followed these first four phases, ‘von Wright establishes a link, which had not been made explicitly in his previous writings, between his theses about free action and the problems of humanism’ (Egidi 2009, 2). Since in these writings, von Wright explicitly questions some of the very foundations of traditional humanist thought, involving the idea of rationality and the human- centred worldview, the last phases of his humanism could be considered to represent a shift towards a form of ‘neo- humanism’, as coined by Egidi (ibid), or even a sort of ‘ecological humanism’. The fact that von Wright wrote a chapter in a book titled Ekologinen humanismi [Ecological humanism] edited by Heinonen and Kuusi (1997) would support the idea that the final phase of von Wright’s humanism was indeed ecological. G. H. von Wright’s Humanism and Ecological Thought 453 To shed light on the notion of traditional humanism vis-à- vis ecological humanism, David Ehrenfeld (1978, 5), a fierce critic of humanism, remarks in his book The Arrogance of Hu- manism that traditional humanism holds ‘a supreme faith in human reason – its ability to rearrange both the world of Na- ture and the affairs of men and women so that human life will prosper’. Ecological humanism, on the other hand, is sceptical and at times even pessimistic about human capabili- ties in this respect. Moreover, while traditional humanism calls for the appropriation of nature to the human, ecological humanism calls for the appropriation of the human to nature, as Henry Skolimowski (1990) puts it. But what was von Wright’s position on these questions? At least humanism cer- tainly was not merely about humans for him, but also about nature. To quote him on this: ‘the full historic significance of the humanist movement in the narrower and more profes- sional sense of the term can be grasped only through consider- ing its repercussions on a philosophy of man and of nature’ (von Wright [1976] 1977, 6, my emphasis).

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