created by DrRidleyCooper on 25/01/2020 at 15:51 UTC
1245 upvotes, 65 top-level comments (showing 25)
Comment by Sprezzaturer at 25/01/2020 at 16:13 UTC*
612 upvotes, 35 direct replies
Who considers “merely affecting the environment” to be morally wrong? I doubt anyone would think that the Native Americans were morally wrong. If any unreasonable activists say this, then they’re only going to extremes to defend their position.
Affecting the environment is fine, destroying it is not. We’re more than smart enough to figure out the difference.
Edit: for the people who have a hard time communicating with others, when I say “affecting,” what I mean is humans cannot exist without having some sort of impact on the environment. “Affect” and “destroy” are two different things.
We have to be able to “affect” our environment without “destroying” it and the species that live in it. Hint, climate change is real.
Comment by mattkolbe at 25/01/2020 at 17:06 UTC
35 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Humans have been shaping the environment forever. A lot of the Western perception on environmentalism stems from the fact that by the time colonists arrived to the new world, as many as 95% of Native Americans had died from diseases introduced by the first explorers. They saw landscapes with seemingly sparse human influence and labeled them “virgin forests,” but we now know that this entire hemisphere was shaped by controlled burns, perhaps vast species management, and in some places elaborate irrigation schemes. Human influence on the environment is inevitable. I believe Leopold’s Land Ethic (extending community to the entire ecosystem, promoting biodiversity) is the most practical and philosophically sound method to reconcile the human potential for thorough destruction of the natural world with thoughtful restraint and careful stewardship.
Comment by cramduck at 25/01/2020 at 16:16 UTC
89 upvotes, 10 direct replies
I saw this effect fairly clearly on a r/futurology post about the prospect of dumping future manufacturing waste onto barren, lifeless planets. There is still a vocal opposition to this hypothetical solution, because we would just "be polluting an entire other planet".
Reducing pollution isn't an end unto itself, it is part of preserving the ecosystem that supports our life. Polluting an environment without an ecosystem should not be considered wrong or evil under this premise, and yet many people still see it so. This, to me, is further sign of the "excess enthusiasm" discussed in the article.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 16:54 UTC
34 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This article is oddly silent on the main focus of climate activists (at least in my experience, which is having stopped working a year ago to focus on the issue), which is not personal consumption choices, but rather trying to change the destructive and unsustainable nature of the system we are part of.
The article focuses on our role as consumers, whereas the moral obligation involves our role as citizens.
There is an overwhelming consensus among climate activists I work with that a focus on personal consumption choices (of the type this article criticizes, but also of the type this article exemplifies) is a distraction, since the personal consumption choices we have are tightly circumscribed by the system we are a part of.
I believe we all have a moral obligation to try to change the system to minimize suffering, through civil disobedience, civic participation or otherwise.
I also don’t eat meat, fly, buy new products, etc, but those are mostly for my own personal mental balance and well-being.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 16:31 UTC
21 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Your entire premise is based on a false dichotomy. Any affect on the environment as a whole? If you push a seed that has fallen from a tree into the soil with just a finger, your premise would describe you as evil. When you take this approach you're rationalizing the extreme views that are against the idea as a whole.
The issue isn't having an affect on "the environment" as a whole. The issue is a complete lack of stewardship over the environment while it's being exploited economically. The extraction of wealth and sustainability for short term gains while ignoring any fallout, is where we start seeing a lack of morality.
When you're going to claim something is evil, it does help to actually define the word then, and I'm personally fond of this definition:
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 15:55 UTC
28 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Thank god we don't accept your initial premise. Man is part of nature just like all the other animals. Is a beaver evil if it builds a damn that floods a riverbank and destroys habitats of animals that live along it?
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 16:28 UTC
19 upvotes, 2 direct replies
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Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 16:20 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
If are impact on the environment has negative effects on all life in earth, then we are evil. Especially if we understand the effects and do not change.
Comment by vannak139 at 25/01/2020 at 17:37 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As I've read, your article seems like you notice a individual moral impulse and see it being incorrectly applied to a different context of ecological morality. You make a corrective consequentialist transform to remove some of the presumptions, but the problem I see is that you keep making that same move and just end up at value accounting, which isn't a particularly strong point when other's values account differently. At some point, it would probably be a good idea to address the actual presumptions behind reasoning about an ecological system in a moral fashion. Even if not in an objective sense, then in some sense. I think on a reread of your article, you'll find that it really quickly moves from being analytical to emotionally defensive, transitioning around the luxury-necessity/harmful-harmless diagram.
Comment by This_Is_The_End at 25/01/2020 at 21:11 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
While the "article" is mentioning the issue with judging the existence of humanity on the base on a single issue, the author doesn't care about knowledge we already have. The Americas are are wonderful example how humankind were always a part of the ecosystem. By doing an extensive economy of gardening the ecosystems in all of the Americas were created, like the Amazons region. Aborigines in Australia were responsible for creating diverse ecosystems, by burning down parts of the landscape and thus preventing much larger firestorms. Meadows mowed only once a year at the right time are contributing to a richer ecosystem with more insects and birds. I could add to these examples a lot.
The simplistic categorizing into moral good and bad and trying to focus on an individual responsibility only, without taking into account the superstructure of a society is on the level of a religious zealot. When philosophy is debating on the level of first graders, philosophy should stick to the world of fantasy.
Comment by triperolli at 25/01/2020 at 23:44 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The point that people go overboard when pursuing a fix to a societal issue is one worth talking about.
The way its presented in this article though feels slightly disengenous and biased. Heating your home is not morally wrong for instance. It obviously depends on particular circumstances such as are you wearing clothes that minise the amount of heating required or are you wearing a singlet and shorts and complaining about the cold and therefore you need to turn on heating? Are you heating a room from 19*C to 25*C? Is it purely a comfort issue or a health issue? The consequences of ones actions must be considered in the context of the marginal benefits of those actions.
Its also challenging to simplify the over population issue as done in the article. Due to the way we run our society and the massive wastes associated, the more people on the planet equates to more unnecessary waste. This was never properly addressed and instead the simplification of this concept seems to lack any understanding of why this idea has any traction at all.
It seems to say seem to say, its early and I could be wrong, that as culling ourselves is immoral the reasons behind the overpopulation issue must be moral. Driving a hummer is immoral in my eyes as it is a choice that brings very little, if any, marginal benefit over driving a smaller car with a lower carbon footprint. It is a choice made without concern for negative consequences and calculation of the marginal benefits compared to the other options. To me that seems very close to the exact definition of immoral.
All in all the core is worth discussing as it relates to pretty much every movement. The way it is dressed though seems to me to be an attempt to take away from the individual the consequences of their actions and belittle ideas that are presented as part of the argument through their oversimplification.
Disclaimer: I don't have access to a pc at the moment and am writing my reply without constantly refering back to the article which is not entirely fair and leaves room for inaccuracies in my presentation of the argument made.
Comment by Fehafare at 26/01/2020 at 00:33 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Environmentalism is an incredibly odd thing to me. I can understand the purely practical aspect of it, from a human viewpoint of "Us affecting the environment negatively affects us negatively.", but usually further extrapolations tend to lose a lot of logic the further they go. Most things in nature don't care about any one element of human produced pollution, and the ecosystem as a whole doesn't give a shit either. Any manmade change we could bring about has already naturally occurred in the history of the planet usually on a far grander scale than we could produce. The planet has literally hone trough phases of radically changing its characteristics and life-wiping a large portion of the living beings living on it.
The conservation of animal species is also an incredibly odd one. I genuinely cannot quite fathom the insistence on it beyond pure affection for individual species (which is a fine reason to be sure), given that species dying out and being replaced is a completely natural process which... just happens. A species disappearing is just a hole waiting to be filled by a new one, not like biodiversity plummets because of it.
Environmentalism seems to be wholly obsessed with conserving the planet/biosphere as it was when humans came into a position to alter it... yet offers no real purpose for that goal beyond the purely practical one I mentioned above which does not always work. But from a purely moral perspective there seems to be little incentive to shy away from things which naturally occur and are a part of a planet's existence.
Comment by scarface2cz at 25/01/2020 at 16:18 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
its dishonest to say that significant minority or even majority of environmentalists condemn affecting the environment, since merely standing and doing nothing is affecting environment.
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most activists and part of all people condemn significantly damaging actions-pollution of water and land, deforestation, needless mining of resources and so on.
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to make a point, your starting point has to be honest. it doesnt look like it is.
Comment by phil_style at 25/01/2020 at 17:28 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The Rio commitment on sustainability deals with this. That was agreed 30 years ago.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 18:37 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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Comment by justincoombsart at 26/01/2020 at 04:47 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Our consciousness grants us an innate importance - thats just it. Humans being aware of the world is the single most important factor - otherwise it is all unnoticed.
Our affecting the environment is not morally wrong. Our using more than needed is wrong.
Comment by [deleted] at 26/01/2020 at 08:36 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
That's a big if. No one considers merely eating a slice of cake to be morally wrong. Morally wrong is knowing it's to be shared, and eating the whole thing anyway.
Comment by Sholbrook9157 at 25/01/2020 at 17:26 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This just in: supernovas responsible for the deaths of countless planets and various heavenly bodies ruled evil!
Nope. The universe is chaos. Long after we’re dead and the planet is inhospitable to our acceptable norms for life, Earth will live on.
Global warming is real and one the greatest threats to life on earth, but let’s not pretend we’re “saving the planet.” We’re saving us.
Also as a reminder, we are nature too.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 17:18 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 19:49 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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Comment by Yungleen42069 at 25/01/2020 at 22:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Is it even morally wrong to harm the environment? When taking into account that human-scale changes will do almost nothing to the earth on a geologic time scale (life should rebound with new diversity after our Extinction as it has after every mass Extinction), and the fact that humans are open to a much wider range of possible experiences (positive or negative) than other life forms, I really can't see a reason why destroying the environment to improve human condition (for the short time we are on this Earth) could possibly be seen as morally "wrong"...
Comment by drjonesrn at 25/01/2020 at 17:31 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To whatever end this all leads to, I can't help but think that we are also part of this earth and part of its destiny. We are not separate from it.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 18:04 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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Comment by Provokateur at 25/01/2020 at 18:34 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
TL,DR: No, "merely affecting" the environment isn't morally wrong. But people get sanctimonious about environmentalism, so sometimes we feel like it is. We shouldn't feel that way.
Everything in this article about philosophy is totally extraneous and the title (of the article, a bit, but ESPECIALLY of this reddit post) is shameless click-bait. Even the psychology in the article is extremely over-simplified and obvious (and largely wrong). I'd suspect the article to be written by an undergrad taking Psych 101, and I suspect this post was made by a corporate astroturfing account trying to farm karma.
Comment by MaiqTheLrrr at 25/01/2020 at 18:35 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Was "Reductio" ever part of the original title? Because I agree with the sentiment behind that word encapsulates the article.