Juxtapositionalism: Meaning in Environmental Ethics. Sometimes it seems that philosophy is too, well, philosophical when we would rather it be

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1 Brett Wagner Jennifer Atkinson Environmental Ethics 14 March 2016 Juxtapositionalism: Meaning in Environmental Ethics Sometimes it seems that philosophy is too, well, philosophical when we would rather it be practical. If philosophy is to have any bearing on ethics it should do more than just make theoretical sense with the least chance of objection. Alas, there is a paradox: tidy philosophical ethics give us a way to determine beliefs and behaviors, but only in each limited context. Perspectives have horizons, and even inside such horizons ethical dissonance will exist. Would it be a logical contradiction to find ethics in a diverse mix of philosophical notions, and tolerate the accompanying insecurity of not having a goto formula? Although philosophy often marks an ethic by gathering sanction for a specific set of boundaries and definitions, there is a need for meta-ethics and even ambiguity, because a tidy ethicalset does not always fit the real world in a meaningful way. A better ethical fit can be found by exploring how meaning arises in the context of the individual and the community, by understanding how meaning can defy boundaries, and ultimately by gathering ethical sanction from a holistic appreciation for diverse perspectives and even ambiguity. Consider a solitary line hanging in space. We cannot know its length because we are not sure how far away it is it has no inherent identity. This is a classic frame-of-reference situation in which meaning is sparse, and the concept of measurement is not yet germane. Add a longer line alongside the first, and it is still impossible to say how long the lines are, but now a comparative difference can be appreciated in this colony of elements. Identity and meaning arise as one line becomes short, and the other line becomes long meaning is a relationship within a collective, and is bounded by point of view. We will call this dawn of meaning juxtapositionalism.

2 Juxtapositionalism holds that by comparing at least two elements, meaning is created. A third line added to the scene is often less revolutionary than the first two, and if enough elements are added the original crisp idea can become obscured. Somewhere along the gradient between void and complexity we find meaning. Juxtapositionalism describes the lower threshold of meaning, but also recognizes that, once created, meaningfulness can compound off into ambiguity. Meaning has a domain. The domain of meaning can be thought of as a loci of existence for an entity. It is not difficult to see the connection juxtapositionalism has to ethics; as a starting point we have individuals in a community. Notice that there is also diversity, and a pairing occurs much like we are used to in biological genetics. Rich culture also benefits from diversity. A subtler point is that we care about what the scene reveals. Underlying cognition is only part of finding what matters. Juxtapositionalism grants singular identities, that are symbolic at best, a share in meaning. To further understand how meaning arises in the context of the individual and the community, we will now consider two environmental philosophers of some notoriety: Peter Singer, and Aldo Leopold. Although it is slightly presumptuous to use them to make limited points, we will imagine Singer as championing the rights of the individual, and Leopold as championing the rights of communities. The interesting thing is that they use similar techniques to argue for expansion of rights. By tracing historical cycles of humanitarian and environmental failure; and, in many cases, subsequent expansion of rights, they both argue for expanded rights now and in the future. Moral standing typically refers to certain rights of irrefutable-autonomy granted. Moral standing considers not only what is right, but also with whom the prerogatives of determination rest. Peter Singer holds that capacity for suffering is a prerequisite for moral standing. Peter Singer s book Practical Ethics sums up his foundational ethical construct of equal consideration of interests by saying, Only a basic moral principle of this kind can allow us to defend a form of equality that embraces almost all human beings, despite the differences that exist between them. (48) Singer is here defending the prerogatives

3 of individual humans. Singer eschews personal traits as markers of moral standing. He prefers not to discriminate along most dimensions, but rather affords individuals ethical treatment consistent with their interests. Here is an example of Singer s reasoning: Suppose that one ethnic group does turn out to have a higher average IQ than another, and that part of this difference has a genetic basis; would this mean that racism is defensible and that we have to reject the principle of equality? (25) Singer does not think the science of such a thing matters to the argument; he shows that the logic of discrimination is absurd in its own right. Singer uses human trends away from exclusion on the basis of race, gender, and religion as support for his claims. If we accept Singer s ideas, the boundaries of what constitutes a valuable individual will undergo moral expansion. But Singer goes beyond humans to what may be his signature contribution to environmental ethics: speciesism. Singer writes, Our concern for others ought not to depend on what they are like or what abilities they possess. (49) Singer continues: It is on this basis that we are able to say that the fact that some people are not members of our race does not entitle us to exploit them, and the fact that some people are less intelligent than others does not mean that their interests may be discounted or disregarded. The principle also implies that the fact that beings are not members of our species does not entitle us to exploit them, and it similarly implies that the fact that other animals are less intelligent than we are does not mean that their interests may be discounted or disregarded. (Singer, 49) Now Singer has really expanded individualism. It turns out we should have greater regard for animals, as well as humans.

4 Singer marks capacity for suffering as being the prime determinant in conveying the prerogatives of autonomy, and therefore moral standing. Singer gives a nod to a strand of ethical thought associated with Kant in which respect for autonomy is a basic moral principal. (84) Singer goes on to say Not everyone agrees that respect for autonomy is a basic moral principle or a valid moral principle at all. Utilitarian s do not respect autonomy for its own sake. (84) Singer s overarching theme in Practical Ethics is respect for life, and he thinks killing represents the ultimate interruption of autonomy. But it seems evident that coercion, and even cooperation, also have some sway over selfdetermination. Additionally, we would not have to use autonomy as justification for moral behavior; we could use it only in determining the target of an otherwise justified moral action. Now we must resist the urge to link autonomy with the individual. That has not been established. Could it be that the elusive unit of autonomy could also reside in a community? Aldo Leopold was a conservationist and philosopher who impacted environmental thought in the early 20 th century. Julien Lutz Newton shares a thorough analysis of Leopold s thought in her book Aldo Leopold s Odyssey in which she writes, Leopold s preferred ways of thinking about nature as a whole were as a community and, more loosely, as an organism or as a living, biotic mechanism. (319) Newton continues, These concepts struck him as more apt than any other, and put a face on land. We can be ethical Leopold explained only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in. (320) Among his many ecological contributions Leopold knew that wolves culling deer populations was essential to keeping life-giving ecosystems in balance. Deer could easily overwhelm a landscape and especially its plants. In Leopold s essay Thinking like a mountain (Leopold, 137) he describes watching a hunted wolf die, and the mystical understanding the wolf communicated in that moment. Newton writes, The wolf was quintessentially non-human, yet when Leopold looked into the green fire in the wolf s eyes something in him stirred a sense of recognition, of creaturely kinship rooted in the deep

5 reaches of time. (Newton, 314) In his original telling, Leopold goes on to frame the wolf s role in the community of agents that make up the entire mountain. With poetic flair, Leopold describes the mountain as knowing much. But, Leopold s case is more than prose the mind of a mountain could be real. Newton gives us insight into the mind of a mountain, as well as Leopold s motivations, in the following passage: As Leopold wrote his essay he was no doubt mindful of the imagery in it. There was the wolf, long the literary symbol of nature s savagery and now, he hoped, of things far different. Indeed, his essay was all the more confrontational in its challenge to his readers precisely because the wolf had played such a symbolic role through the centuries of literature. And then there was the symbol of the mountain itself, just as richly suggestive. The mountain was a place where spiritual leaders long to receive ultimate wisdom. It was a place from which pilgrims glimpsed promised lands just across the river. From the mountain top one could see the land as a whole and sense its timelessness. Do not think, then, merely like the wolf, Leopold intimated, however embedded the wolf might be in the land around it. The wolf lived only for itself, as all creatures did. Think instead like a mountain. (Newton, 314) Notice how the symbolic role in literature contrasts with the vivid wolf-existence that emerges in cohort with the vast and mindful-mountain. Even with conflicts and ambiguities, something special arises in the wild. This is the difference between the merely symbolic (only assigned) and what we think of as meaningful the latter is most useful for determining ethics. In the same way that Singer begs expansion of the definition of an individual beyond humans, Leopold begs expansion of the definition of communities beyond groups of humans. And if we think for

6 a moment of ethics as dealing with the tradeoffs between individuals and communities, then the mountain should get its due as a community and as an individual. In Leopold s thinking the mountain knows more than all of us, and can feel pain. This certainly makes it a candidate for moral consideration using Singer s line of reasoning, but Leopold highlights a great sentience within this biotic system. Leopold has revealed the mountain s face and mind. We are no longer sure whether the mountain is a community or an individual perhaps both. To move forward in our analysis, we can go back to juxtapositionalism, and hang two ideas in space next to each other. On one side we hang Singer s idea of expanding what is considered a valuable individual, on the other side we hang Leopold s idea of expanding what is considered a valuable community. New meaning should arise as we look at these two ideas side by side. At this point it may seem quite elementary to say, that suffering or not, individual wolves are hardly understandable without a mountain to inhabit. Like a solitary line hanging in space, a wolf is just a placeholder until another element is brought into the scene. Sure a wolf has a collection of traits that we can attach symbols to, and a mountain can be categorized in much the same way, but neither one is complete without the simultaneous existence of both. Together they are more than the sum of their parts. Something akin to magic or love springs forth. This is meaning. And it is too wonderfully complex to submit to any single philosophical ethic. Yet, we pursue philosophical ethics precisely to preserve that philosophically-inscrutable moment when meaning floods over us. Now we can start to appreciate that meaning is not a product of systematic boundaries and definitions applied to reach a specific philosophical ethic. Meaning confounds containment. Imagine a diagram of strata. On the bottom row we place individuals, in the next row up we see communities of individuals, and then those communities become the individuals in ever larger communities in higher and higher rows. This would be a layered hierarchy of entities or would it? For one thing we are no longer sure whether an entity is necessarily to be thought of as an individual or a

7 community. For example, humans are collections of cellular communities comprised of individuals and still smaller communities of molecules and so on. Singer s individuals could well be communities. A mountain is a community, but also a sentient entity with feelings. On what basis should moral standing be conferred, and where lies the basic unit of autonomy? To get closer to the truth, imagine that a meaningful entity deserving of moral consideration is like a puzzle piece. Lay the puzzle piece on the strata mentioned above, and observe that the irregular shape of the puzzle piece spans several communities and individuals. Think of the puzzle piece feeding on the juxtapositionalism taking place across all the lines underneath it. The puzzle piece is a meaninggenerator. I would argue this is the unit of autonomy. This is the seat of moral standing. We have found the loci of existence for an entity, and it is not a simplified linear construct. The environmental organization Greenpeace could be used as a clarifying example, as it is comprised of diverse individuals and supporting organizations, and is itself a constituent of numerous other alliances. Greenpeace is a spanning-puzzle-piece; by our claims it must do this to be meaningful. It also follows that some moral standing is due the organization. At times, philosophy hangs one line in space and then tries to define it. This is an exercise in contained cognition, and won t tell us much about ethics. Edwin Hutchins combines his knowledge as an anthropologist and an open-ocean racer in his book Cognition in the Wild, to illuminate the gap between theoretical (sometimes computational) and practical cognition aboard a ship. Of particular importance is the idea of navigation. Navigation, in an ethical sense, might be what we are looking for. Hutchins writes: Throughout the previous chapters, I have tried to move the boundary of the unit of cognitive analysis out beyond the skin of the individual. Doing this enabled me to describe the cognitive properties of culturally constructed technical and social systems.

8 These systems are simultaneously cognitive systems in their own rights and contexts for the cognition of the people who participate in them. I have intentionally not attempted to discuss the properties of individuals before describing the culturally constituted worlds in which those properties are manifested. To do so is a mistake (Hutchins, 287) Hutchins holistic understanding of cognition is here shown to be very similar to the holistic approach to finding meaningful ethics presented in this essay. To be fair to Singer and Leopold, it must be said that their philosophies are not meaningless. A focused premise is necessary to set elements in a scene, and both authors are far from trivial in their ethical conclusions. But we must not confuse the beginning premises for the sanction of ethical behavior. And it is dangerous to expect one, or even just a few, paradigms to serve ethical satisfaction. Ultimately, ethical sanction should be gathered from a holistic appreciation for diverse perspectives and even ambiguity. This might agitate the ethical mind because not every individual will be saved, and not every community will be respected. But on the other hand, neither individuals nor communities will be unbounded to the detriment of both. Lest the reader be tempted to think we have arrived at simple relativism, consider again the puzzle piece: there is an absolute quality about it; we just can t absolutely know it. David Abram s book Becoming Animal: an earthly cosmology takes a more organic approach to finding meaning, perhaps it will feel less synthetic than discrete philosophies: What if there is, yes, a quality of inwardness to the mind, not because the mind is located inside us (inside our body or brain), but because we are situated, bodily, inside it because our lives and our thoughts unfold in the depths of a mind that is not really

9 ours, but is rather the Earth s? What if like the hunkered owl, and the spruce bending above it, and the beetle staggering from needle to needle on that branch, we all partake of the wide intelligence of this world because we re materially participant, with our actions and our passions, in the broad psyche of this sphere? (Abram, 123) Abram s broad psyche of this sphere is Hutchin s cognition in the wild is Singer s practical ethics is Leopold s mind of the mountain, and we have glimpsed an evolutionary path for environmental ethics by looking at juxtapositionalism giving rise to meaning. Do not be afraid to live with sometimes conflicting and incomplete ethics, for they may give rise to a greater ethic; a meta-ethic if you will. Also, a certain amount of ambiguity can help seed ethical advancement, just as it does for natural selection. Appreciate the often inscrutable wonder around us. We want meaning to exceed the sum of its parts. In this lofty plane we feel humility. Humility: that gentle compromise between giving and taking that leads to healthy autonomy, intimacy, and innocence. That is ethical.

10 Works Cited Abram, David. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Vintage Books, Print. Hetchins, Edwin. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge: The MIT Press, Print. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Print. Newton, Julianne Lutz. Aldo Leopold's Odyssey. Washington DC: Isand Press, Print. Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press, Print. Jennifer Atkinson 11:10 AM Mar 17 Hi Brett - I'm basically out of time for providing comments on essays that were submitted late, but I wanted to take a moment to congratulate you on an EXTRAORDINARY, very nuanced and thoughtful essay. You gracefully work through some very challenging material here. I'd love to be able to use this as a sample paper for future classes. Anyhow, I'll be in touch about that soon. Thank for you all your work this quarter! It was such a pleasure to have you in the class.

A S AND C OUNTY A LMANAC

Discussion Guide for A S AND C OUNTY A LMANAC by Aldo Leopold 1968 Oxford University Press, paperback In 1935, pioneering wildlife manager Aldo Leopold purchased a worn-out farm on the Wisconsin River