Land ethic
Encyclopedia
A Land Ethic is a philosophy that guides your actions when you utilize or make changes to the land. This specific term was first coined by Aldo Leopold
(1887–1948) in his book A Sand County Almanac
(1949). Within this work, he wrote that there is a need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". However, while Leopold is credited with coining this term, specific land ethics were in place prior to his writing Sand County Almanac. For example, Leopold himself defines and argues against an economic land ethic.
For example, the prevailing ethos for the US Forest Service in his day, from the founder of the USFS, Gifford Pinchot
, was economic and utilitarian, while Leopold argued for an ecological approach, one of the earliest popularizers of this term created by Henry Chandler Cowles
of the University of Chicago
during his early 1900s research at the Indiana Dunes. Conservation became the preferred term for the more anthropocentric model of resource management
, while the writing of Leopold and his inspiration, John Muir
, led to the development of environmentalism
.
and John Stuart Mill
. Though there are many varieties of utilitarianism
, generally it is the view that a morally right action is an action that produces the maximum good for people. Utilitarianism has often been used when deciding how to use land and it is closely connected with an economic based ethic. For example, it forms the foundation for industrial farming; as an increase in yield, which would increase the number of people able to receive goods from farmed land, is judged from this view to be a good action or approach. In fact, a common argument in favor of industrial agriculture
is this it is a good practice because it increases the benefits for humans; benefits such as food abundance and a drop in food prices. However, a utilitarian based land ethic is different from a purely economic one as it could be used to justify the limiting of a person's rights to make profit. For example, in the case of the farmer planting crops on a slope, if the runoff of soil into the community creek led to the damage of several neighbor's properties, then the good of the individual farmer would be overridden by the damage caused to his neighbors. Thus, while a utilitarian based land ethic can be used to support economic activity, it can also be used to challenge this activity.
. Roughly, libertarianism is the ethical view that agents own themselves and have particular moral rights including the right to acquire property. In a looser sense, libertarianism is commonly identified with the belief that each individual person has a right to a maximum amount of freedom or liberty when this freedom does not interfere with other people's freedom. A well known libertarian theorist is John Hospers
. For libertarians, property rights are natural rights. Thus, it would be acceptable for the above farmer to plant on a slope as long as this action does not limit the freedom of his or her neighbors.
In addition, it should be noted that this view is closely connected to utilitarianism. Libertarians often use utilitarian arguments to support their own arguments. For example, in 1968, Garrett Harden applied this philosophy to land issues when he argued that the only solution to the "Tragedy of the Commons
" was to place soil and water resources into the hands of private citizens. Harden then supplied utilitarian justifications to support his argument. However, you could argue that this possibly leaves a libertarian based land ethics open to the above critique lodged against economic based approaches. Even excepting this, the libertarian view has been challenged by the critique that people making self-interested decisions often cause large ecological disasters such as the Dust Bowl
disaster. Even so, libertarianism is a philosophical view commonly held within the United States and, especially, held by U.S. ranchers and farmers.
. When focusing on land use, what this translates into is its uneven distribution and the uneven distribution of the fruits of that land. While both a utilitarian and libertarian based land ethic could conceivably rationalize this mal-distribution, an egalitarian approach typically favors equality whether that be equal entitlement to land and/or access to food. However, there is also the question of negative rights when holding to an egalitarian based ethic. In other words, if you recognize that a person has a right to something, then someone has the responsibility to supply this opportunity or item; whether that be an individual person or the government. Thus, an egalitarian based land ethic could provide a strong argument for the preservation of soil fertility and water because it links land and water with the right to food, with the growth of human populations, and the decline of soil and water resources,.
in Sand County Almanac but two other examples include James Lovelock
's Gaia hypothesis
which postulates that the Earth is an organism and the deep ecology
view which argues that human communities are built upon a foundation of the surrounding ecosystems or the biotic communities. Similar to egalitarian based land ethics, the above land ethics were also developed as alternatives to utilitarian and libertarian based approaches. Leopold's ethic is currently one of the most popular ecological approaches. Other writers and theorists who hold this view include Wendell Berry
(b. 1934), J. Baird Callicott
, Paul B. Thompson
, and Barbara Kingsolver
.
He also describes it in this way: "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land...[A] land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such."
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
(1887–1948) in his book A Sand County Almanac
A Sand County Almanac
A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There is a 1949 non-fiction book by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold. Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a...
(1949). Within this work, he wrote that there is a need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". However, while Leopold is credited with coining this term, specific land ethics were in place prior to his writing Sand County Almanac. For example, Leopold himself defines and argues against an economic land ethic.
An Economic Based Land Ethic
This is a land ethic based wholly upon economic self interest. For example, a farmer who plants on a slope and lets the soil wash into the community creek in order to obtain the personal benefit of money from the sale of the crops is acting from an economic based land ethic. Leopold sees two flaws in this type of ethic. First, he argues that most members of an ecosystem have no economic worth. For this reason, such an ethic can ignore or even eliminate these members when they are actually necessary for the health of the biotic community of the land. And second, it tends to relegate conservation necessary for healthy ecosystems to the Government and these tasks are too large and dispersed to be adequately addressed by such an institution. This ties directly into the context within which Leopold wrote Sand County Almanac.For example, the prevailing ethos for the US Forest Service in his day, from the founder of the USFS, Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...
, was economic and utilitarian, while Leopold argued for an ecological approach, one of the earliest popularizers of this term created by Henry Chandler Cowles
Henry Chandler Cowles
Henry Chandler Cowles was an American botanist and ecological pioneer . Born in Kensington, Connecticut, he attended Oberlin College in Ohio. He studied at the University of Chicago with the plant taxonomist John M. Coulter and the geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin as main teachers. He...
of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
during his early 1900s research at the Indiana Dunes. Conservation became the preferred term for the more anthropocentric model of resource management
Resource management
In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective deployment of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology...
, while the writing of Leopold and his inspiration, John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
, led to the development of environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
.
A Utilitarian Based Land Ethic
Utilitarianism was first put forth by Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
and John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
. Though there are many varieties of utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
, generally it is the view that a morally right action is an action that produces the maximum good for people. Utilitarianism has often been used when deciding how to use land and it is closely connected with an economic based ethic. For example, it forms the foundation for industrial farming; as an increase in yield, which would increase the number of people able to receive goods from farmed land, is judged from this view to be a good action or approach. In fact, a common argument in favor of industrial agriculture
Industrial agriculture
Industrial farming is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. The methods of industrial agriculture are technoscientific, economic, and political...
is this it is a good practice because it increases the benefits for humans; benefits such as food abundance and a drop in food prices. However, a utilitarian based land ethic is different from a purely economic one as it could be used to justify the limiting of a person's rights to make profit. For example, in the case of the farmer planting crops on a slope, if the runoff of soil into the community creek led to the damage of several neighbor's properties, then the good of the individual farmer would be overridden by the damage caused to his neighbors. Thus, while a utilitarian based land ethic can be used to support economic activity, it can also be used to challenge this activity.
A Libertarian Based Land Ethic
Another philosophical approach often used to guide actions when making (or not making) changes to the land is libertarianismLibertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
. Roughly, libertarianism is the ethical view that agents own themselves and have particular moral rights including the right to acquire property. In a looser sense, libertarianism is commonly identified with the belief that each individual person has a right to a maximum amount of freedom or liberty when this freedom does not interfere with other people's freedom. A well known libertarian theorist is John Hospers
John Hospers
John Hospers was an American philosopher. In 1972 he was the first presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, and the only minor party candidate to receive an electoral vote in the 1972 U.S. Presidential election....
. For libertarians, property rights are natural rights. Thus, it would be acceptable for the above farmer to plant on a slope as long as this action does not limit the freedom of his or her neighbors.
In addition, it should be noted that this view is closely connected to utilitarianism. Libertarians often use utilitarian arguments to support their own arguments. For example, in 1968, Garrett Harden applied this philosophy to land issues when he argued that the only solution to the "Tragedy of the Commons
Tragedy of the commons
The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...
" was to place soil and water resources into the hands of private citizens. Harden then supplied utilitarian justifications to support his argument. However, you could argue that this possibly leaves a libertarian based land ethics open to the above critique lodged against economic based approaches. Even excepting this, the libertarian view has been challenged by the critique that people making self-interested decisions often cause large ecological disasters such as the Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
disaster. Even so, libertarianism is a philosophical view commonly held within the United States and, especially, held by U.S. ranchers and farmers.
An Egalitarian Based Land Ethic
Egalitarian based land ethics are often developed as a response to libertarianism. This is because, while libertarianism ensures the maximum amount of human liberty, it does not require that people help others. In addition, it also leads to the uneven distribution of wealth. A well known egalitarian philosopher is John RawlsJohn Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
. When focusing on land use, what this translates into is its uneven distribution and the uneven distribution of the fruits of that land. While both a utilitarian and libertarian based land ethic could conceivably rationalize this mal-distribution, an egalitarian approach typically favors equality whether that be equal entitlement to land and/or access to food. However, there is also the question of negative rights when holding to an egalitarian based ethic. In other words, if you recognize that a person has a right to something, then someone has the responsibility to supply this opportunity or item; whether that be an individual person or the government. Thus, an egalitarian based land ethic could provide a strong argument for the preservation of soil fertility and water because it links land and water with the right to food, with the growth of human populations, and the decline of soil and water resources,.
An Ecologically Based Land Ethic
In addition to economic, utilitarian, libertarian, and egalitarian based land ethics, there are also land ethics based upon the principle that the land (and the organisms that live off the land) has intrinsic value. These ethics are, roughly, coming out of an ecological or systems view. This position was first put forth by Aldo LeopoldAldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
in Sand County Almanac but two other examples include James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
's Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
which postulates that the Earth is an organism and the deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
view which argues that human communities are built upon a foundation of the surrounding ecosystems or the biotic communities. Similar to egalitarian based land ethics, the above land ethics were also developed as alternatives to utilitarian and libertarian based approaches. Leopold's ethic is currently one of the most popular ecological approaches. Other writers and theorists who hold this view include Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
(b. 1934), J. Baird Callicott
J. Baird Callicott
J. Baird Callicott is an American philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is University Distinguished Research Professor and a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies and the Institute of Applied Sciences at...
, Paul B. Thompson
Paul B. Thompson (philosopher)
Paul B. Thompson is a philosopher currently teaching at Michigan State University where he holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food and Community Ethics. Thompson earned his B.A. at Emory University before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony...
, and Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before...
.
Leopold's Land Ethic
Leopold argues that the next step in the evolution of ethics is the expansion of ethics to include nonhuman members of the biotic community, collectively referred to as "the land." Leopold states the basic principle of his land ethic as, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."He also describes it in this way: "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land...[A] land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such."
See also
- AgrarianismAgrarianismAgrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
- Conservation biologyConservation biologyConservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...
- Conservation ethicConservation ethicConservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...
- Conservation movementConservation movementThe conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
- Deep EcologyDeep ecologyDeep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
- EcofeminismEcofeminismEcofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
- EcologyEcologyEcology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
- Ecology movementEcology movementThe global ecology movement is based upon environmental protection, and is one of several new social movements that emerged at the end of the 1960s. As a values-driven social movement, it should be distinguished from the pre-existing science of ecology....
- EnvironmentalismEnvironmentalismEnvironmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
- Environmental protectionEnvironmental protectionEnvironmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment, on individual, organizational or governmental level, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans. Due to the pressures of population and our technology the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently...
- Glenn AlbrechtGlenn AlbrechtGlenn Albrecht is Professor of Sustainability at Murdoch University in Western Australia.In 2008 Albrecht finished as the Associate Professor in Environmental Studies in University of Newcastle in New South Wales....
- Habitat conservationHabitat conservationHabitat conservation is a land management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore, habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species, and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range...
- Natural environmentNatural environmentThe natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
- Natural capitalNatural capitalNatural capital is the extension of the economic notion of capital to goods and services relating to the natural environment. Natural capital is thus the stock of natural ecosystems that yields a flow of valuable ecosystem goods or services into the future...
- Natural resourceNatural resourceNatural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....
- Renewable resourceRenewable resourceA renewable resource is a natural resource with the ability of being replaced through biological or other natural processes and replenished with the passage of time...
- Solastalgia
- Southern AgrariansSouthern AgrariansThe Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
- SustainabilitySustainabilitySustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
- Water conservationWater conservationWater conservation refers to reducing the usage of water and recycling of waste water for different purposes such as cleaning, manufacturing, and agricultural irrigation.- Water conservation :Water conservation can be defined as:...