Customer Reviews

The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (History of American Thought and Culture)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very informative and crisply written history of environmental thought and politics in the U.S., from John Muir to Peter Singer. It offers a great deal of thoughtful commentary, for example on the gradual shift in focus from tangible benefits for humans (underlying the conservation and national parks movement circa 1900) to inherent rights of nature itself (signalled e.g. by the Endangered Species Act). It's not hard to see that Nash is sympathetic to many of these causes, and clearly this book isn't for folks who prefer to view things in strictly economic terms, but still it is quite well-balanced in tone, and the scholarship is really impressive. I highly recommend it to anyone interested at all in the environmental movement, or American intellectual history generally, or simply looking for some thought-provoking reading. 220 pp., plus 50 pp. of notes.

The Rights of Nature is primarily written as an intellectual history of the progression of environmentalist thought in western civilization. In the book, Nash seeks to frame environmentalism and the concept of the rights of nature as being intrinsic to the progression of the liberal democratic tradition. The narrative of his study traces the development of expanding notions of rights in the context of western thought as they apply to non-human life forms and the environment itself.

In order to build a foundation for his study, Nash traces ethical thought concerning nature all the way back to the origins of Judeo-Christian theology and later to the development of the scientific method. Nash traces the origins of the disconnection between humans and nature in western culture to the biblical teachings and especially the book of Genesis, which theologians have used for centuries as an ethical justification for mankind's dominion over nature, citing verses in which God gives mankind dominion over all earthly lifeforms. This disconnection was further exacerbated by the scientific revolution. Nash cites the ethical thought of early scientists such as Rene Descartes as being responsible for this further disconnection. The scientific method was based on the deconstruction of notions of interconnections in nature and built around the ability of humans to isolate the component parts of life in order to serve the needs of humanity. Nash states that Descartes was responsible for "providing a general philosophy of the irrelevance of ethics to the human-nature relationship" (p.17).

After a brief establishment of origins, Nash moves on to the effect that the 17th and 18th century "democratic" revolutions in countries such as France, England and the United States had on the expansion of ethics to a wider area. Nash cites extremely influential philosophers of democratic liberalism such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill as providing one of the early expansions of ethical thought to include selected members of the animal kingdom. Locke advocated an ethical position toward domestic animals and wild animals whereby their abuse would constitute a breech of ethics. His position, as Nash states, still was predicated on an anthropocentric and utilitarian notion of the importance of refraining from the abuse of animals. Locke believed that people "who delight in the suffering and destruction of Inferior creatures, will not...be very compassionate, or benign to those of their own kind" (p.19). Although Locke's argument assigned to animals the right to freedom from abuse, it was based upon how this freedom would benefit humanity and was not based on any type of belief in animals inherent right to exist free from abuse.

The difference between anthropocentric and biocentric thinking in regards to the expansion of ethics to concern plants and animals is a central focus of Nash's book. Although Locke and others of his time period were enmeshed in anthropocentric thinking, there were others who were not. Two of the most important and well known examples of philosophers who did not subscribe to this anthropocentric way of viewing nature were Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. Both of these thinkers advocated for the expansion of ethics to include the ecosystem in its totality - plant, animal, or inanimate object - Thoreau and Muir viewed all of nature as having an inherent right to exist, free from human inflicted destruction. In this sense, both of these men were early examples (in western thought) of the shift from anthropocentric arguments for the preservation of nature, which are based on nature's benefit to humanity, to an ecocentric or biocentric argument, which views all the component parts of any ecosystem as having an inherent right to exist for their own sake. Nash quotes Thoreau: "The earth I tread on is not a dead, inert mass; it is a body, has a spirit, is organic and fluid to the influence of its spirit" (p.37).

During this time period, segments of the scientific community also began to move away from the Cartesian view that held nature to be a conglomeration of mass to be manipulated,
existing solely for the purpose of experimentation and human benefit. Evolutionary biologists such as Charles Darwin and, later, anarcho-biologist Peter Kropotkin, developed theories of interconnections within nature, and most importantly the realization, in Darwin's words, that there was "no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals" (p.42). Such theories of nature as an interconnected system of which humans were a part were revolutionary in western culture and served to severely destabilize the basis upon which the Judeo-Christian theologians were able to defend the notion of humans as separate from nature.

This new shift in philosophical and scientific views of nature and its relation to humanity gave rise to the discipline of Ecology and also managed to trickle its way into the minds of some theologians of the period who developed a perspective known as Ecotheology. Ecologists such as Alfred Whitehead, Albert Schweitzer, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson began to develop various formulations concerning the rights of nature, all of which shared the common perspective of the earth as an interconnected ecosystem of which humans were a part. Ecotheologians such as Richard Baer sought to interpret the Bible to mandate that humans take on the role of stewards and protectors of all of God's creation. However, there still remained a division between those Ecologists and Philosophers who viewed humans as the benevolent stewards or lords of nature and those Ecologists who were developing the ideas which would later lead to Deep Ecology - a position that advocates an ecological relativism/egalitarianism in which humanity is viewed as being neither more, nor less, important or deserving of ethical consideration than any other life form.

The Deep Ecologists, such as Arne Naess, George Sessions, and Bill Devall, developed an ecocentric philosophy that was not only anti-anthropocentric, but was holistic in its view of the interconnections between all living and inanimate forms of matter in the ecosystem. The Deep Ecological perspective viewed all of nature's component parts as creating a whole that was greater than any of its individual members. They viewed all of nature - plant, animal or stone - as having inherent purpose and the inherent right to exist for its own sake. Deep Ecologist John Rodman coined the term "sentientism" to deride earlier environmentalists who did not take into consideration the rights of non-living elements of the ecosystem. The essential Deep Ecological ethic was that any life form (including humans) only had the right to kill or manipulate its environment to serve its vital needs, any such killing or manipulation to serve wants or conveniences became unethical.

All of this theological and philosophical pondering of the question of nature's rights inevitably gave rise to actions with the intent of backing up the words. Nash positions the birth of the environmental movement as having occurred in the 1960s, coinciding with other movements for liberation during the time period. Nash describes a progression of environmental action where defense of nature was first mounted through the courts and other legal means. Lawyers such as Christopher Stone initiated the precedent of representing forests, trees, and animals as plaintiffs in lawsuits against corporations and government entities who sought to destroy their habitat. Some of these legal battles were won. However, despite such federal laws as the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Marine Mammal protection act of 1972, and the Endangered Species act of 1973, the right to profit from the destruction of ecosystems was still being privileged over the inherent right of nature to exist for its own sake. Forests were still being clear-cut, rivers were still being dammed, and animal populations were still being endangered by the destruction of critical habitat. Utilizing notions of civil disobedience stretching back to Thoreau, groups such as Green Peace, Earth First, the Sea Shepard Society, and the Animal Liberation Front were formed to take direct action against those who would seek to destroy any component of the ecosystem for profit. While groups such as Green Peace remained within the non-violent, civil disobedience tradition, others such as Earth First, Sea Shepard and the Animal Liberation Front incorporated the tactic of property destruction to help achieve the liberation of life from human civilization. Earth First engaged in tree-sits and blockades to prevent the cutting of forests, the Sea Shepard society bombed and sunk whaling ships, and the Animal Liberation Front embarked on a series of break-ins where animals were liberated from their confinement in testing laboratories and fur farms.

Unavoidably, this review leaves out many of the thinkers and activists whose thoughts and actions were treated by Nash in his study. The Rights of Nature is an important book of intellectual as well as activist history and should not go unread by anyone wishing to get a general overview of the various strands of environmental thought in western civilization. However, Nash's book does contain one important shortcoming from a philosophic perspective. The narrative of Nash's study is one of linear progress - whereby environmental thought moves gradually in an evolution of enlightenment, or in Nash's words an "expansion of the circle of ethics." In addition, Nash portrays all of the thinkers and activists in his book as being part of the American tradition of liberalism stretching back to the Declaration of Independence. Aside from the inherent American exceptionalism in this belief, Nash is also maintaining the myth of progress that has been the foundation upon which all environmental destruction has been based and justified. His framing of radical environmental groups such as Earth First and the A.L.F as being part of the tradition of American liberalism does their causes a great disservice - for the methods and goals of these groups are inherently seeking to transcend and revolt against the limitations of American liberalism.

This book, as all of Prof. Nash's writings, serves as the standard to compare against all others in the growing field of environmental theory and related scholarship. Nash expands upon his codex of natural "rights" in relation to America's foremost natural thinker - Thoreau - in his Afterword to my recently published book "Deep Immersion: Thoreau's Engagement with Water."

As a student in two of the classes normally taught by Rod, Rod's magnum opus is the amazing Wilderness and the American Mind, Fourth Edition. Wilderness and Rights are Rod's two truly great books. They are substantial academic texts (filled with references).

First, to understand "Rights" and Rod Nash, you have to understand first and foremost that Rod wrote and published "Wilderness" 3 years BEFORE the 1st Environmental Teach-In, now called Earth Day. The organizers of that event, myself included, failed to learn lessons from history. We generally fail to this day. I chanced upon Rod's classes 5 years post the Teach-In, and 2 years after the 2nd Edition which I used in his classes (one taught by an alternate prof Al Runte: we joking called Al an aspiring Rod Nash). Of course I found those current references thin, and thin references to Colin Fletcher (big field, he can be forgiven generalizations).

Second, in the course of reading "Wilderness", the reader comes upon a minority opinion written by Justice William O. Douglas where the phrase "The Rights of Rocks" was used in a case of Mineral King. Rod has elaborated on these ideas. This academic comes as an incredible follow on to "Wilderness". To fully appreciate this, many scholars thought that Rod peaked at his first book. So years after graduating, Rod writes "Rights."

Rods next two books were fairly light weight: rafting Western Rivers (he was a major river runner in his day) and collected short papers for classes like his. "The Rights of Nature" made a pleasant surprise after my college graduation. The old boy still had strong ideas in him.

"Rights" views nature from a variety of different perspectives/directions. Some of these are bound to disappoint a few idealistic readers (a very good example is the chapter on the religious perspective of nature: going back to the original non-English verse, the Bible is rather exploitative (this was also the era of James Watt as Sec. Interior under Ronald Reagan) but Rod attempts to redeem the religious view by modern reinterpretation of Judeo-Christian writings). Rod has his own opinions.

Where both of "Wilderness" and "Rights" lacks are emerging ecological views. Rod is a humanist historian. What backs the environmental movement is science. Rod needs to cite The Two Cultures (Canto). Even James Burke in Connections (the series, less so the book), got the conclusions rightConnections 1 (5 - Disc Set). Rachel Carson and the work by population biologists, climatologists, health physicists and other made the significant effect over the attempts by Impressionist painters, Transcendentalist writers (Rousseau, Thoreau, Emerson, Ruskin more than say Muir), and others.

You might be/call yourself a conservationist or a preservationist, but you aren't an environmentalist/ecologist if you have not read both of these two Rod Nash books in my book.

I bought this on a whim hoping that the great price wouldn't be a mistake! I was VERY happy with my purchase! Same great book, but at a fraction of the price. I received it in a VERY timely manner, before I was expecting it.