From: Alan McGowen <alanm@igc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Date: 11 Apr 92 21:08 PDT
Subject: Re: The Evil Man Is (Was: Re: Pigs 
Nf-ID: #R:hpindda.cup.hp.com:40911811:cdp:1466601323:000:4035
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!alanm    Apr 11 21:08:00 1992



/* Written  1:51 pm  Apr 11, 1992 by carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU in cdp:sci.environmen */
In article <40911811@hpindda.cup.hp.com>, alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:
>>The fact that we can imagine doing better proves that our destructiveness
>>*is* evil, and not merely toxicity.
>
>Let's see.  This means that if I can't swim, but can imagine knowing how to
>swim, and see someone drowning, then the fact that I don't save him makes me
>evil, right?  Alan, some of your rantings would seem less like rantings if
>you'd acknowledge the fact that WE DON'T KNOW HOW to accomplish many of your
>stated objections.  In particular, if you'd change your apparent attitude of
>"OK, I've pointed out that a problem exists; all the rest is `just
>implementation,' and if nobody does the implementation for me, or worse, they
>point out difficulties in potential implementations, that means everyone else
>is an ecocidal goon," you might have a chance of making a few converts.
>
>>That we can envision ecocentrism is enough to make anthropocentrism wrong,
>>just as the fact that it was possible to envision a world without slavery made
>>slavery wrong.
>
>I'm afraid that argument is fundamentally flawed.  I can imagine a world in
>which NOBODY has enough to eat.  Does that make a world in which at least some
>people are well-fed wrong?  You continue to assert, without proof, that
>`ecocentrism' is somehow superior to `anthropocentrism.'

Apparantly Carl's position is that if the economy of a country 
depends upon slavery and it would be too inconvenient to change 
it then slavery is not evil, and similarly if the economy depends 
upon trashing ecosystems and driving species extinct, and it 
would be too difficult to change it, that is not evil either. 
This is just what one would expect of a utilitarian econo-
centrist, but it is moral imbecility all the same. The evil of 
slavery or of trashing ecosystems is not mitigated by the fact 
that it is convenient or profitable to have slaves or wreak 
havoc.

Fortunately Carl's argument did not prevail wrt slavery in the 
American past (abolition will ruin the economy!), and it is to be 
hoped that the moral growth of the American people in the near 
future will be able to reject the same argument about, say, 
preserving old-growth or the Arctic wilderness (preservation will 
ruin the economy!) There are more important moral concerns than 
simple profitability in either the case of slavery or 
preservation. 

>Purely as a rhetorical mechanism, I propose yet another paradigm: 
>`ossocentrism.'  ROCKS have an inherent right to exist.  Since life is the
>

I suspect that an ecocentric culture would in fact have respect 
for at least certain kinds of rocks, and I doubt that it would 
distinguish itself by making any more Mt. Rushmores. However, I 
have no intension of arguing for that sort of respect in 
sci.environment. It isn't central to my purpose, and would be 
wasted on the sort of people who in the 19th century couldn't 
comprehend that slavery was wrong, and today cannot comprehend 
that anthopogenic extinction is wrong, i.e. it would be wasted 
upon anthropocentrists. 

In Carl's view something is wrong only if it diminishes one's own 
wealth (or fitness). The evolution of sociality proceeds by 
finding ways to generate cooperative and altruistic arrangements 
despite this undeniable pressure for individual fitness 
maximization. The existence of sociality in the world -- and 
especially of the culture-based sociality of humans -- is a 
testimony to the possibility of further evolution in this 
direction. Ecocentrism is the direction in which humans are 
evolving anyway, despite the small setback of the last 10,000 
years. We just need to increase the rate of evolution.

>>Moral insight is social evolution yet to occur. "Good" is the direction of the
>>social future, the direction of increasing altruism, the direction of
>>increasing symbiosis, of increasing coadaptation, of increasing stability.

------------
Alan McGowen