Environmental ethics and the Gaia theory
Environmental ethics comprises our notions about right and wrong behavior towards our natural environment, along with our justifications for those notions. Every individual harbors a personal environmental ethic which informs his/her decisions and judgments in that respect. The spectrum of environmental ethics encompasses a wide variety that includes various forms of anthropocentrism (where humans are placed at the center of the moral universe), biocentrism (where all forms of life have moral standing), and ecocentrism (where the highest moral standing is imparted on ecosystems rather than individual organisms or species). Some particular environmental ethics have enjoyed a good deal of publicity, such as ‘deep ecology’, ‘wise use’, or conservationism. This article is intended to show how Gaian ethics, a lesser known environmental ethic, can accommodate a particularly wide spectrum of ethical views without losing its utility to resolve specific ethical conflicts.
The Gaia theory states that the biosphere of this planet has most or all of the essential characteristics of a living organism. These characteristics are responses to stimuli, metabolism, biological development and, most importantly, homeostasis. The fifth characteristic, reproduction, may or may not be evident. Nevertheless, the Gaia model represents the planet as a superorganism. It also implies that not only do living organisms modify their nonliving environment but that both of them evolve together as a unity. Although its empirical base lies in reductionist models of planetary science, the theory is holistic in the sense that it acknowledges and explains the synergism and systemic properties of the entire biosphere. Perhaps this explains in part why the theory has been met with considerable criticism from natural scientists who are largely unaccustomed to holistic arguments. Some have accused the Gaia theory to fall under the ‘hylozoistic fallacy’ – erroneously in my view. Scientifically, the theory provides an elegant model for the changes as well as the kinds of equilibria observed in the history of our planet. My argument rests on the premise that the Gaia theory constitutes a plausible scientific explanation for many phenomena observed in the planetary natural sciences. It needs to be emphasized that although the theory was named by James Lovelock after the Greek goddess of the earth, he intended it to be a purely scientific model without any metaphysical or religious implications.
What then is Gaian ethics? Would not any attempt to use a scientific model as a conceptual base for an ethic necessarily founder on the naturalistic fallacy (also referred to as the ‘is-ought’ problem)? The Gaia theory occupies a unique position in environmental philosophy in that it combines elements of a traditional, Cartesian/mechanistic philosophy of environmental science, where its origin lies, with elements of holistic and deep green views of the global environment, where many of its ramifications lead. Many people use the Gaia model to extend their pre-existing body of personal values into new dimensions and to refocus them under new priorities. Thus Gaian ethics does not comprise new values but a new conceptual platform for the application of old values. Consequently, the Gaia concept has provided a convenient common ground for anthropocentrists and ecocentrists to explore a common agenda. This middle ground is created by the implication that the human species, like many other species, fulfils the role of a vital, albeit conscious, organ in the geophysiology of the planet. In time, our role can and will be filled by another species or group of species, as happened to the dinosaurs and many others. For now, humans and Gaia can be considered to be dependent on each other, albeit in a biased fashion. As an organ of Gaia, humanity can claim that many of its efforts to ensure its continued existence will also have a benefit for Gaia. Furthermore, to a great and burdensome extent the fate of Gaia’s well-being at this time lies in the hands of humans. This is particularly obvious in the progression of the greenhouse effect and global warming. At the same time the well-being, or proper functioning, of Gaia has tremendous importance for humanity, as it is our only available life support system. Thus, as Lovelock put it, with the help of Gaian ethics our motivation can advance from pure egotism to ‘enlightened self-interest’. It is this enlightened self-interest that both anthropocentrists and ecocentrists can claim as their own, even though they do not share the same value base.
Given the mutual dependence between Gaia and humanity, ‘enlightened self-interest’ can be shown to include some moral rights and obligations. They can be derived for individuals, groups of people, even for humanity as a whole. The latter is possible because as a species humanity is conscious enough to be a moral agent, a responsible entity beyond a mere congregation of individual moral agents. I suggest this for two reasons. Consider the shame felt by many people for the human species as a whole when they learn of atrocities committed towards other species (e.g., the hunting of rhinos for the use of their horns as aphrodisiacs). This shame suggests a foiled expectation, a higher aspiration for humanity that we have yet to live up to as a species. We tend to place such expectations exclusively on such agents as we consider to be moral agents. While a common sentiment does not make for truth, it seems unlikely that all those who harbor this expectation are entirely in error. Secondly, we habitually endow groups of humans (e.g., corporations, congregations, and nations) with moral responsibility and with moral rights, so-called “human” rights, as in the case of ethnic groups and genders. Most of those groups readily accept that responsibility as a matter of course. My point is that if parts of humanity can be considered moral agents, so can the whole.
What rights and obligations might we derive for us from such arguments? A. Weston formulated Gaian ethics based on the metaphysical ramifications of the Gaia model. I suggest an alternative approach that focuses primarily on the scientific essence of the Gaia theory. From our mutualistic relationship with the rest of Gaia we could deduce a moral right to prey on certain species (even whales), the moral right to reproduce to maintain our numbers below carrying capacity, and the moral right to use the planet’s abiotic resources to an extent that is compatible with Gaia’s continued well-being. The limits to our rights are thus described by the compatibility of our actions with Gaia’s health. As I pointed out, one of the strengths of Gaian ethics is that its moral obligations can be justified from a purely anthropocentric position as well as from an ecocentric position. The difference is that the former emphasizes Gaia’s instrumental value as a life-support system of immeasurable value for the human species, particularly future generations. Since the degree of importance of most species and ecosystems for the smooth functioning of this life-support system is not yet known to us, we would have to heed to the precautionary principle and preserve all ecosystems as best we can, i.e., minimize any human impacts, no matter how great or how small the estimated detriment. In practice this leads to utilitarian-style decision-making at the individual level and the community level. The ecocentric position emphasizes our obligations towards Gaia’s health by invoking the intrinsic value of a complex system (or person?) like Gaia and by recognizing that Gaia as a long-lived superorganism has greater relative worth than does a single species like Homo sapiens. Under the ecocentric view all species carry equal worth a priori but every species is ultimately dispensable to Gaia, whereas a healthy Gaia is absolutely indispensable for the flourishing of any species. Thus both positions concur in the overriding value of Gaia’s well-being.
What then constitutes health for Gaia? Since Gaia is identical with the global ecosystem, its biota and abiota, we can to some extent apply the criteria that ecologists have established for the health of smaller ecosystems. They include complexity or species diversity, productivity, and resilience – the system’s homeostatic capacity to recover from exogenous perturbations. If we acknowledge Gaia’s health as deserving our concern, then we can derive the following obligations for humanity: First, we ought to design our actions in such ways as to minimize any negative effect on species diversity. Because of the difficulties with identifying keystone species and key ecosystems our obligations must a priori include all species. We must stop our practice of displacing species from their niches and replacing them either with ourselves or with modified agricultural cultivars of low natural fitness (but artificially elevated yields). Given that we may already have surpassed the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem for our species, our foremost moral obligation must be the curtailing of the growth rate of our global population and its overconsumption.
Secondly, we ought to be concerned with enhancing or at least maintaining the productivity of the global ecosystem. Gaia’s surface area may be constant but its biomass and productivity are not. We could augment Gaia’s health by converting some of the world’s desert ecosystems into more productive and diverse ecosystems. Certainly with respect to human-made deserts such an effort would seem only fair, provided we acquire the necessary technical understanding to ensure that our efforts do not just result in more harm.
Thirdly, the importance of well-functioning temperature homeostasis for an organism’s health is obvious to everyone who has ever had a fever. During its history, Gaia has shown a remarkable ability to utilize the sun’s energy while maintaining the mean surface temperature within a narrow optimal margin despite rising solar output (Lovelock 1995). The underlying homeostatic mechanism, assuming it has not already been irreparably damaged, would tend to gradually decrease the atmospheric carbon dioxide to its pre-industrial level. Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and deforestation are jeopardizing this feedback mechanism at a most awkward moment in Gaia’s history. In terms of our overall chances to survive as a civilization this constitutes the greatest threat among all human-caused global environmental changes because a drastic change in average surface temperature would almost certainly spell the end of humanity’s existence – accompanied by a mass extinction of other species. More dramatically than with our other obligations, the confluence of anthropocentric and ecocentric motivations becomes obvious in this case: self-interest becomes virtually synonymous with Gaia-interest.
To summarize, Gaian ethics in the form I described here represents not a new ethic but a new lens through which existing ethics are refocused. It is more inclusive than most other environmental ethics since under the Gaian perspective an anthropocentrist’s right and wrong become quite similar to an ecocentrist’s right and wrong. The traditional ethical problem of assessing the moral standing of humanity among nature recedes into the background while technical challenges take prominence, such as where to place the demarcations between right and wrong in specific situations where the impact of our actions on Gaia’s health can not necessarily be estimated with any accuracy. In cases where such a demarcation is obvious, however, both anthropocentrists and ecocentrists would both strive for the same immediate objective, although their rationales would differ. The environmental movement, often in danger of becoming divided, could greatly benefit from this convergence of goals.
While this ethical common ground can be of great political value, it also has obvious limits. For the very reason that its key value is Gaia’s health, Gaian ethics has little to say about the value of individual organisms and their rights. For some anthropocentrists, Gaian ethics can create more dilemmas than solutions. An example would be the moral conflict between the imperative of controlling the growth of the human population and the radical anthropocentric ethics that dictate our public health funding and development assistance – “relentless humanism” as Mary Midgley put it. Moreover, Gaian ethics offer little help with the task of weighing the rights of future generations against the basic human rights of present-day individuals. The list of limitations continues, yet I would suggest that Gaian ethics contributed to the popular sentiments that drove the world’s politicians towards Kyoto. The noticeable signs of global climate change in recent years will undoubtedly further contribute to its credibility in people’s eyes.
Further Reading
- Lautensach, A. 1997. Justice in Gaian ethics. Proceedings of the Conference on Environmental Justice: Global Ethics for the 21st Century. University of Melbourne.
- Lovelock, J. 1995. The Ages of Gaia – A Biography of Our Living Earth. Oxford Universitity Press.
- Lovelock, J. 2006. The revenge of Gaia. London: Penguin.
- Rapport, D. 1998. Ecosystem health. London: Blackwell.
- Sannerini, S. 199. ‘No place for man in Gaia’. Biology Forum 92 (2) (May-Aug): 241-259.
- Schneider, S. 1986. A goddess of the earth? The debate of the Gaia hypothesis – an editorial. Climatic Change 8: 1-4.
- UNEP-MAB (United Nations Environment Programme - Millennium Assessment Board). 2005. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis report. London: Island Press, 2005.
- Vitousek, P.M., P.R. Ehrlich, A.H. Ehrlich and P.A. Matson. 1986. ‘Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis’. BioScience 36: 368-373.
- Vitousek, P.M. 1994. ‘Beyond global warming: ecology and global change’. Ecology 75 (7): 1861-1876.
- Wallace, R. and B. Norton. 1992. ‘Policy implications of Gaian theory’. Ecological Economics 6: 103-118.
- Weston, A. 1987. ‘Forms of Gaian ethics’. Environmental Ethics 9: 217-230.
