From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Subject: Re: Rights for Rocks!
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 01:19:38 GMT

In article <1466601793@igc.apc.org> alanm@igc.apc.org (Alan McGowen) writes:

>Actually, I did consider the "Occam's Razor" argument -- it was
>the one Michael Tobis offered. Sigurddson replied that diminished
>capacities often entail diminished rights. It is not the view of
>ecocentrics that nonhuman nature is an incompetent approximation
>to humanity, which I why offered a completely different line of
>argument.

Thanks for the mention. I'm in the unfortunate position in this group in 
that I agree with almost everyone in it. 

I see two problems with your position. First, you and some others seem to
think that enormous changes in the way people live and interact with the
world are urgently necessary. I take this as a defeatist attitude, because
the likelihood that your particular spiritual values will turn out to
dominate the world in short order is nil, and taking such a strategy is
likely only to have them consider you in the same category as all the other
cults and medieval superstitions competing for their attention. The real
problems have to be addressed in a context of enormous diversity of opinion
about morality and aesthetics, or they will not be addressed at all.

Fortunately, a case can be made that tolerable solutions can be arrived at
without substituting a monastic existence for the pleasures and/or sins of
modern life. The only chance of implementing such solutions is to offer
people clear cost/benefit arguments for their sacrifices, not by trying to
guilt trip them into eating cardboard. (Aside: We are members of the
local whole foods co-op. For some reason my wife occasionally experiments
with the processed food there: whole food corn flakes, crackers etc. People
who oppose processed food should not be allowed to make or sell processed
food. It invariably tastes exactly the same as its box.)

The second problem is that while intuitively, I agree that nature
should be considered as having rights, logically I can't think of any way
to decide what those rights might be. If nature has the same rights as people,
obviously there is no moral way to live. I have to stand somewhere and eat
something. So I would like you to clarify your ecocentrism: what exactly are
the implications of believing rocks to have rights?

I worry that it might be a recipe for paralysis. For instance, the PC position
around here is always to oppose any construction, no matter how practical
or beautiful, since a tree or two might be displaced. While I grant that the
"no net loss of wetlands" pledge has been misused, and while I grant that
(in the short run at least) reconstructed ecosystems are not as complex or
viable as naturally occuring ones, I would point out that you can't make an
omlet without breaking eggs. Resisting all change is counterproductive.

For instance, implementation of much needed plans for
creating contiguous belts of wilderness will require relocating a lot of folks.
If you opppose any increase in intensity of land use anywhere, a decrease
in such large areas becomes totally unsupportable.

mt