University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1993 How does nature speak to our concern?: A rhythm of dialogue and responsibility in environmental ethics and wilderness preservation Scott Friskics The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Friskics, Scott, "How does nature speak to our concern?: A rhythm of dialogue and responsibility in environmental ethics and wilderness preservation" (1993). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 5587. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5587 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY Copying allowed as provided under provisions of the Fair Use Section of the U.S. COPYRIGHT LAW, 1976. Any copying for commercial purposes or financial giain may be undertaken only with the author’s written consent. MUniversity ontana of HOW DOES NATURE SPEAK TO OUR CONCERN? A RHYTHM OF DIALOGUE AND RESPONSIBILITY IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND WILDERNESS PRESERVATION By Scott Friskics B.A., Colgate University, 1985 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science University of Montana 1993 Approved By Chairperson, Board of Examiners UMI Number: EP41051 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 Table of Contents Table of Contents ii Acknowledgements iii Preface iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Basic Tenets of a Philosophy of Dialogue 26 Chapter 2: A Correlative Ethic of Responsibility 60 Chapter 3: Dialogue and Responsibility in Environmental Ethics 117 Chapter 4: The Case of Wilderness 202 List of Works Cited 263 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Of the many people I'd like to thank for helping me get this paper written, I'll begin with Tom Roy, Sandie McQuillan and the entire Environmental Studies Program for their kindness, aid and enduring patience. In addition, I’d also like to thank the members of my committee, Tom Birch, Albert Borgmann and Ron Erickson, for their cooperation, support and guidance; each, in his own way, has had a direct influence on both the substance and spirit of this essay. Special thanks, however, goes to my committee chair, Paul Dietrich, not only for his academic assistance, but for the kind of personal attention and concern that went far beyond the duties of a graduate committee chairperson. For financial support, I’d like to thank the Erasmus Scholarship Fund, the B & B Dawson Foundation and, especially, the Anderson Foundation, who provided the monetary support over these last few crucial months. Without their assistance I'd have never been able to complete this project in time to meet all the necessary deadlines nor undertake the important follow-up field work I have planned. And finally, I'd like to thank all those friends and folks who have taken the time to walk in the woods or mountains with me, or sit along a riverside, lake or seashore. But especially, I’d like to thank Rich Cronn, who has taught me so much, mostly through example, about the pace and spirit appropriate to something like a sacramental celebration of wildplaces. Most of all, though, I'd like to thank my family - Mom and Dad, Bill, Kaki and Marshall - for their unwavering support and unquestioned, unquestioning love, especially over the many days when I had no idea what I was doing. What I know of grace and faith, I learned, first and foremost, from You. Thanks. "How does nature speak to our concern? That is the question" (Henry Bugbee, "Wilderness in America" 11). "When it is granted to man to hear the songs of the herbs - how every herb speaks its song to God without any alien will or thought - how beautiful and sweet it is to hear their singing. And therefore it is very good to serve God in their midst in solitary walks over the field among the plants of the earth and to pour out one's speech before God in truthfulness. All the speech of the field then goes into your speech and heightens its power. With every breath you drink the air of paradise, and when you return home, the world is renewed in your sight" (anonymous Hasidic saying, quoted in Martin Buber, Ecstatic Confessions 149). "There are forces in the woods, forces in the world, that lay claim to you, that lay a hand on your shoulder so gently that you do not even feel it: not at first. All of the smallest elements - the direction of a breeze one day, a single sentence that a friend might speak to you, a raven flying across the meadow and circling back again - lay claim to you, eventually, with a cumulative power" (Rick Bass, Winter 68). INTRODUCTION I. This paper attempts to describe and interpret the sense and meaning of our actual, lived relations with the nonhuman beings and things of the natural world. In our everyday lives we enter into all manner of relations with nature.1 We eat nature’s creatures; we wear them; we study them; we dam them; we even write papers on them. In general, we use nature in all sorts of ways, even aesthetically and spiritually. And yet, on occasion, we also encounter the beings and things of nature in ways that do not fit these categories of analysis, manipulation and use. A rushing mountain stream or a pair of soaring buzzards may also speak to us, not of their use, their physical and chemical composition, their role in the ecology of the place, but simply and eloquently of themselves - as this stream or these buzzards, in all their uniqueness, beauty and depth. In turn, we may hear their voices, not in terms of our interests, our conceptual frameworks, our sciences, but simply, directly and immediately as this particular stream, that pair of buzzards; and their speech resonates within us in a way calling forth - evoking - a spirit of affirmation, wonder and joy. These relational moments are charged with meaning - and responsibility. We feel called upon to answer for them. Address and response; call and answer. At the most fundamental level, at a level beyond and beneath mere speech, a dialogue has occurred. In such moments, we find ourselves as participants in meaningful and destinate dialogues, and, likewise, we come to know these other - and fellow - creatures whom we meet as genuine partners in those dialogues.2 1 2 I wish to begin this paper simply by bearing witness to the experiential reality of such moments of dialogue through a few firsthand accounts. Such testimony, however inadequate it may be, will provide the necessary experiential ground upon which this project must rest. Once this groundwork is established, I will describe the structural pattern or eidos of such relations and attempt to interpret their significance for the way we live in, and respond to, the natural world around us. I will present this eidetic description and interpretation in terms of a philosophy of dialogue, drawing heavily, although not exclusively, upon the thought of Martin Buber. The reason for choosing Buber's thought as my primary interpretive tool in this project is a simple and, I believe, methodologically consistent one: Buber’s description of our relationality in terms of I-Thou and I-It relations and his understanding of the ethical force of the I-Thou dialogue speak more truly and directly to my own experience than any other account of our relationality that I have come across. And, perhaps even more importantly for the purposes of this paper, Buber’s witness to the reality of I-Thou dialogue occurring between humans and nonhuman, natural beings and things has not only verified my own experience but also provided me with a vocabulary with which to begin to understand and speak about these experiences. To me, this resonance of Buber's words with one's own experience seems crucial if one truly hopes to hear and understand what he is, rather 3 idiosyncratically, at times, attempting to say. As Jacob B. Agus writes, "If we are to understand the uniqueness of the I-Thou relation, we must heed Buber's appeal to find an echo of his words in our own life" (Quoted in Diamond 23). Admittedly, without such an "echo," Buber's work and all that follows in this essay may appear as nothing more than mystification, double talk, or just bad science.3 And yet, if we remain open to the possibilities of which Buber speaks, I believe that we can hear that echo of his words in our lives. And so, I begin this paper by bearing witness to the experiential reality of my own dialogical, I-Thou encounters with the beings and things of nature. That my personal accounts of such events may at first seem trivial and/or parochial and that I lack the capacity to do them justice in speaking of them here should not diminish their crucial importance for this project; as mentioned earlier, they furnish the necessary experiential ground upon which the entire project depends.