Callicott's Leopoldean Land Ethic
"Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair"
- Key differences animal liberation and holistic
environmental ethics:
- There is not just one response to anthropocentrism
(only humans have moral standing), but two:
- Animal Liberation (concern for individual
animals suffering)
- Holistic Environmental Ethics (concern with
the integrity of ecosystems and "the land" in
general)
- It's a triangular affair, involving
anthropocentrism, animal liberation and
holistic env. ethics
- Env. ethics extends moral concern beyond sentient
animals (to soils, waters, plants, and animals)
- Env. ethics concern for animals is different than
animal liberation's concern
- Can support hunting
- Much more concerned with wild animals than
domestic animals and interest in treatment of
domestic animals is mainly because of the
environmental affects.
- Land ethic is holistic, not individualistic: Land
community as a whole has moral standing and intrinsic
value
- Leopold's Maxim: "A thing is right when it tends
to preserve the integrity, stability (diversity?), and
beauty of the biotic community; It is wrong when
it tends otherwise."
- Land ethic is inegalitarian, not egalitarian:
Individual gets different degrees of instrumental value
depending on their contribution to the whole (as defined
by Leopold's Maxim)
- Inegalitarianism not based on psychological
sophistication
- Rare/endangered species get greater regard
- Hunting can be legitimate when it contributes to
Leopold's maxim
- Land ethic involves reappraisal, not extensionism: A
reversal of judging nature by its possession of traits we
value in humans
- Arrogance of moral extensionism: A being gets
included in the moral club only if it is enough like
humans
- Reappraisal slogan: "Reappraise things unnatural,
tame, and confined in terms of things natural, wild,
and free"
- Policy implications of Callicott's Leopoldean
reappraisal
- Big difference between domestic and wild animals
(domestic animals are living artifacts who have
been genetically debased and are clearly inferior to
wild animals)
- Liberation of domestic animals is conceptually
incoherent and practically an environmental
disaster
- Reappraisal of pain shows it to be good (from an
biological perspective), not bad.
- Reappraisal of factory farming shows the wrong is
not the pain of the animals but turning them into
machines
- Reappraisal of the morality of eating shows
vegetarianism to be an ecological disaster and
suggests that organicism (organic farming of
animals and vegetables) is goal.
- Reappraisal of human society/life involves
rejecting the ethic of soft comfort and pleasure
and replacing it with vigorous, healthy, and hard
lifestyle; we need a shrinkage, not increase, in the
sphere of the domestic
- Reappraisal suggests humans are far too plentiful
(is this view misanthropic?)