From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Environmentalism is not Anti-Individualism
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 17:26:26 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.194117.19852@yang.earlham.edu> allens@yang.earlham.edu (Allen Smith) writes:
>In article <1992Oct9.145233.1663@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>>than that of someone at an automobile plant? It would be wrong for the 
>>>government when horse-and-buggies are being driven out by automobiles to 
>>>intervene to stop the development of automobiles, I believe. What's the 
>>>difference? Species? It isn't intelligent, so so what? It's an animal. 
>>>Animals aren't intelligent- we should feel ethically free to treat them 
>>>about as we would treat a hunk of rock.
>> 
>> It might be wrong for govt to _stop_ the automobile, but govt is not
>> really _stopping_ logging.  Logging is a totally subsidized activity.
>> The arguments about whether to make certain federal lands available
>> for logging are side-issues to the fact that we essentially pay
>> the timber industry to take old trees out of our forests.  By making
>> certain areas off-limits to logging, all we are doing is stopping
>> the subsidies.  The government is _supporting_ the destruction of
>> the fisshing industry.
>
>	The question on federal land usage is a different one entirely, at 
>least in the case of the spotted owl. But in those cases in which it is 
>the federal government stopping private usage of land- usage that 
>doesn't, for instance, cause pollution that gives others cancer- that I 
>object to.

However, it is the example you offered.  Land usage for private land is
quite different.  I do believe certain limitations apply and they are
similar to yours, though I imagine we might define harm differently.
Pollution-induced health impacts are hard to prove, they have long
latency periods.  Is it appropriate to limit the use of private land
when the use _might_ cause cancer, but we don't know?  If so, how
much proof is needed.  What if there is damage to the biosphere is ways
that do not directly harm humans but _do_ harm natural _services_.
For example, if you own private beach land and want to build but that
building will end the buffering function which that land serves to
protect others from storms?  Many wetlands serve the purpose of
filtering water and preventing salt intrusion to farmlands and aquifers.
Are people who destroy such wetlands responsible for the enormous costs
entailed in manmade solutions for these problems?
>> 
>> I personally find your attitude towards less/non-intelligent things
>> to be abhorrent but I recognize that it is a value judgement.  It has
>> been debated in depth in these groups and I don't really have anything
>> to add to it.
>
>	As long as you don't try, say, to stop me from eating meat 
>(including veal) whenever I wish and have the cash, feel free to have your 
>viewpoint. It only becomes wrong when you try to enforce it on others.


The problem comes when the majority do agree on a moral cause and force
it on the minority.  Based on this principle, and not on its specific
application, how would you have responded to slave owners who might say
to an abolitionist: `fine, you don't have to own any slaves'?

I am not trying to force my ecocentric posistions on anyone.  You can keep
eating your meat (I am not a vegetarian, anyway).  If the ecocentric
position one day is a majority position, it will likely be imposed.
I don't have an easy answer for justifying when this becomes 
acceptable.  I can say I believe that it was acceptable not to pay
slave owners.

>	-Allen


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)