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An Introduction to the Work of Holmes Rolston III Introduction Surv. Perspect. Integr. Environ. Soc., 1, 117–124, 2008 www.surv-perspect-integr-environ-soc.net/1/117/2008/ © Author(s) 2008. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Darwinian storied residence: an introduction to the work of Holmes Rolston III H.-S. Afeissa Academie´ de Dijon, France Received: 4 August 2008 – Revised: 26 October 2008 – Accepted: 28 October 2008 – Published: 13 November 2008 Abstract. A key issue of environmental ethics is to identify intrinsic objects of valuation within the natural environment. Such intrinsic natural values are fundamental prerequisites to frame moral obligations to nature. This paper gives a global perspective on Holmes Rolston’s philosophy. By deploying the evolutionary history of life on earth, Rolston draws attention to the formidable creativity which drives it so that it commands respect and admiration. This paper contends that his work lies at the intersection of epistemology of natural sciences, moral philosophy and religious studies. The Darwinian model is used to define the main thematic concepts in Rolston’s philosophy and, in greater depth, the general trend of his thinking. Holmes Rolston III is University Distinguished Professor In the following decade, while he served as minister of the of Philosophy at Colorado State University and could well be Presbyterian Church, not far from the Appalachian moun- referred to as the founding father of Anglo-American envi- tains, in the company of his wife and two children, he con- ronmental ethics, a philosophical field of investigation which tinued studying, reading mineralogy, zoology, palaeontol- emerged in the early 1970s. Born on 19 November 1932 ogy, botany, ecology, and furthered his expertise in biology in Staunton, Virginia, Dr. Rolston is the son and grandson (both general and evolutionary) through personal research of Presbyterian ministers, whose name and faith he shares – and courses at the University of Tennessee which he attended the reason why he says he is the third of his line. As he re- as an auditor. He also began to earn a reputation as an envi- counted, the house in which he spent his childhood, in the ronmental activist when he militated in favour of the conser- heartland of the celebrated Shenandoah Valley, had neither vation of certain wild species indigenous to the Appalachi- electricity nor running water, but was uniquely instrumental ans. His growing taste for philosophy led to enrolment in the in giving the young environmentalist his initial immersion in University of Pittsburgh where he received a Master’s degree a luxuriant and wild natural countryside. in the Philosophy of Science in 1968. He obtained his first Dr. Rolston first studied physics and mathematics at teaching post that same year at the Colorado State University Davidson College, North Carolina, but soon turned to biol- in Fort Collins, where he taught during his entire academic ogy. In 1953, he enrolled in a university course in Theology career. and Religious Studies which he began at the Union Theo- It is only rarely that a philosopher’s academic training so logical Seminary of Virginia and completed at the University precisely sets out in advance the theoretical framework for of Edinburgh, where he gained a Ph.D. in 1958, under the his thinking as it develops over the ensuing years. Dr. Rol- tutelage of Thomas F. Torrance1. ston’s written works represent an impressive collection of over two hundred articles and a half dozen books, all fo- cused on the exact point where the epistemology of natu- Correspondence to: H.-S. Afeissa ral sciences, moral philosophy and religious studies intersect ([email protected]) 1A highly significant tutelage as we shall see. T. F. Torrance nius, he made a decisive contribution to the study of the relationship (1913–2007) was probably the greatest British theologian of the between theology and the natural and physical sciences – thereby 20th century. A prolific author, he was instrumental, inter alia, paving the way for Rolston’s own work and those of Peacocke, in the re-discovery of Oriental patristic literature and authored a Polkinghorne, Barbour, Wentzel van Huyssteen, et al., to which we landmark reading of Calvin’s theology; a tireless translator, he was shall return. For his work as a whole, Torrance was awarded the successful in introducing the thoughts of Karl Barth to the English- Templeton Prize in 1978, which Rolston also won in 2003. See his speaking world, in particular when he supervised the 13-volume recipient’s acceptance statement at http://www.templetonprize.org/ translation of the monumental Kirliche Dogmatik; a self-taught ge- pdfs/Templeton Prize Chronicle 2003.pdf. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the Institut Veolia Environnement. 118 H.-S. Afeissa: An introduction to the work of Holmes Rolston III with environmental ethics, Rolston’s specific contribution to and sociology; and also the methodological impossibility of the renewal of the dialogue between science and religion ini- eliminating from natural evolution all traces of any narrative tiated at the end of the 1960s by Thomas F. Torrance2. This content by reducing it to a random succession of causal se- in itself is evidence of how difficult it is to sketch the outlines quences. There is certainly no cause to deny that contingency of a literary production which, to be fully understood, must is the very root of life on earth since the onset of replication respect this triple polarisation which makes it so valuable and and the inevitable mutations which accidentally disturb the original. process of transmission of genetic information, but what is In scientific terms, Holmes Rolston is not only a remark- implied by the concept of “genetic information” itself must ably well-informed reader of the latest advances of neo- be ascertained: Darwinian theory, but also a thinker who seeks to take An organism is “informed” about how to make its way fully into account the multiple contemporary ramifications through the world, how to cope in its niche. Past achieve- of Darwinism in such diverse domains as socio-biology, be- ments are recapitulated in the present, with variations; these havioural ecology and evolutionary psychology. Darwinism, results are tested today and then folded into the future. taken in the broadest acceptance of the term, defines the dom- Random mutation figures into a larger generative process; inant paradigm determining the main thematic concepts in species generate and test new possibilities. The challenge Rolston’s philosophy and ecological theology and, in greater is to get as much versatility coupled with as much stability as depth, the general trend of his thinking. Not that H. Rolston possible. This requires keeping past knowledge while explor- seeks to use this approach, as would Daniel C. Dennett or ing nearby areas for better adaptation. (Rolston, H., 2005b, Richard Dawkins, as a “universal acid” to erode and dissolve p. 49) generally accepted ideas and beliefs (religious ones in partic- The capacity to acquire, store and transmit new informa- ular) which are incompatible with the lessons taught by the tion radically distinguishes the process of life on earth from theory of evolution. On the contrary, he uses it to demon- any geological process; unlike hydrological, climatological strate that this type of scientific explanation of the natural and orogenic cycles, the cycles of birth, life and death and world, which discovers in nature an order which is both ra- genetic transmission benefit from the incomparable advan- tional and contingent, raises a certain number of borderline tage of cumulative information. That is why evolutionary issues which are an encouragement to discover new and un- biology is historical through and through, as neither physics expected forms of rational order in a approach supplementing nor geophysics can aspire to be. Where little more than mat- science. ter and energy existed, three billion years ago appeared a Rolston’s particular interest in the epistemological neo- new state of matter, neither liquid nor gaseous – a vital state Darwinian model for the elucidation of the history of life on – which, through the working of genetic information and earth, is that its effect is to blur irreversibly the boundary natural selection, generated some five to ten million animal between the “nomologic” and the “idiographic” sciences3; species and the extraordinary diversity and complexity of life between the study of factual sequences and concatenations on earth. The process of life, considered at the macro- and and the study of the creation of a value system, as evidenced mega-evolutionary level, is pervaded by a force of neguen- in a certain way by the existence of Darwinian anthropology tropy and a power of creativity which the standard model of 2 the synthetic theory of evolution cannot render. The emer- A selective bibliography of Dr. Rolston’s written work is listed gence of life, biodiversity, the general propensity for growing at the end of this introduction. There is no exhaustive bibliography complexity, are not the product of pure chance or of a mira- at this time, but the most comprehensive list is to be found at the end of the collective volume on Dr. Rolston: Ch. Preston and W. Oud- cle. They are rather the most probable consequence of evolu- erkirk (Eds.), (2007). He is generally held to be the founding father tion taking place not in a world of infinite possibilities, but in of environmental ethics in view of the impact of his article pub- a world where chance plays its role amid natural constraints lished in 1975 in the prestigious journal Ethics (Rolston, H., 1975), which are such that life inevitably would happen, diversify which defines – probably as no one else had done before – a pro- and become complex4. gramme for environmental ethics. Another factor was the creation (with E.
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